establish our lady of guadalupe church. then, in 19006, we had the earthquake -- in 1906, we had the earthquake, and our lady guadalupe was destroyed, but a priest made a new one of concrete. then, we have our lady guadeloupe and st. francis -- they became famous because they started to say, "if you have not visited north beach, you." later on, more italians came. in 1924, they opened st. peter and paul.

the thing is, mexicans, they love their church. in the year 1950, there was a tornado right in front of the church that destroyed the neighborhood. at the moment, this church is for sale, and we are going to lose part of the history. do not allow this, and do not allow the 66% because it is not good for you people who do not know your history to make decisions for us. president miguel: thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, commissioners. i am tony kelly from the neighborhood association. i believe we were the last ones to actually create a historic district. i am speaking in support of san francisco architectural heritage and the amended compromise

coming from the historical preservation commission. three points in particular -- first, about owners and occupants. we are definitely in support of that. we are doing research in our neighborhood association about soft sites after finding in the aftermath of the eastern neighborhoods, houses are being built. i do not know if you know this, but what you consider to be family housing really is not in practice, and we may have to come back to you about that at some point. we have had to be proactive and our own research about what kind of sites we are talking about so we can get to those owners before the developers do. what we are finding, especially in the sites that have been owned by the same person for more than 20 years, is that a substantial portion of the owners are out of town. trying to reach them and get a response about anything -- i do not know what your hit parade is going to be. you silly including -- i think including tents and occupants is

very important to that. relating to that, the 50% goal -- i believe you want to strike that language. relying on the planning department's out reach is difficult and would lead us into a situation where a low amount of written response, which could be due to outreach and not to apathy on the part of the owners, would look like a lack of support from the district 1 in fact it may be nothing of the sort. so i suggest you strike that language. the third part, about the harsh language, i believe it deserves another look. it strikes me as rather naive language here, and i will tell you why. you are certainly familiar with the drama around inclusion rehousing and blue market rate housing, and you get the housing inventory every year and see with the goals are for affordable housing in the city and where we actually are. there has been pressure for us

to add middle and, as well as moderate income -- to add middle-income as well as moderate income, redefining the heart chip accord, when we really have not done what we need to do in terms of low- income housing -- redefining the hardship of board -- redefining the hardship upward. at a minimum, i suggest this to be the city's median income, not the area median income. we have been through this many times over the years. this legislation acts like we have not had that conversation, and that is why i say it is a bit naive, and i think it needs to be looked at. president miguel: thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon again, commissioners. golden gate park preservation alliance. we support architectural heritage and the hpc version of

articles 10 and 11. we are extremely concerned about two items and how they relate to golden gate park. to repeat something i heard in an earlier letter, cultural landscapes provide a sense of place and identity. they mapped our relationships with land over time. they are part of our national heritage and each of our lives. we need a secretary of interior 's standards in order to protect golden gate park. secondly, we are concerned about a new amendment. i just saw the standards for preview of applications. for applications pertaining to city-owned properties, the department and hpc shall consider the relevant public agency's mission and operational needs. this opens a real can of worms. let me tell you why -- the current president of the rec and

park commission is a developer. when residents complained about the move towards privatization and commercialization of our parks, he says he does not like the term and prefers the phrase "site specific revenue generation." what does this mean? what is the implication for golden gate park? let me show you a few examples that this policy has included. this is a clear example of site specific revenue generation. this was proposed in 1915. the international exposition was going to be put in golden gate park. it was basically going to wipe out the park. fortunately, the people of san francisco found out about it. there have already been a groundbreaking. the project was moved to the marina and is put on still there. if you are going to meet the mission and needs of the

department -- this is the freeway project. the panhandle freeway. the embarcadero freeway got built. people were really upset, and it finally spawned this freeway movement in san francisco, and it was not built. it would have wiped out the magnificent historic trees and the panhandle. if this meant the department -- this met the department's mission and needs. we may laugh at these things now and think they cannot happen, but i can tell you -- they are happening now. golden gate park is being turned into a series of paid attractions. it is not following the golden gate park master plan, which is supposed to prevent this. we need oversight from outside the apartment. we need you to step up to the the plate. we are glad the hpc and architectural heritage have.

please protect the park and do not adopt supervisor wiener's amendments. president miguel: thank you. [reading names] >> good afternoon. first, i would like to comment on the gentleman who -- president miguel: your name? >> mike boyd. i am not connected with any organization. the gentleman who referred to 200 trucks and then 400 trucks -- i used to drive a 10-wheel dump truck and trailer -- president miguel: that is not on the subject, is it? >> ok.

i worked at new college california school of law. we inherited a building under a surplus building federal grant act. it had been owned and operated by the city and county of san francisco. they pretty much trash it. i was the superintendent. we spent a year bringing it up to code without any money. we later ended up selling the air rights to the building next door so that we could have funding to continue to develop the building. i believe it is a historic building. we bought a hotel on fillmore, also a historic building. reconstructing that to house 200 law school students at below market rent for the oldest -- i guess the only public interest law school in the country. we further have the lower market bid -- i support proposition j.

i have traveled all over the world with a guy named ed roberts. the previous january 23, a chinese new year, was a state holiday and national holiday in his honor, although no one in the san francisco city and county bureaucracy was aware of that. he was paralyzed from the neck down for 45 years and basically sued uc-berkeley for admission 50 years ago because they did not allow crippled students. but he was also a preservation attic. the recently built a building in berkeley that has no historic value that he would have hated and put his name on it.

in travelling all over the world with him, i found -- found that people wanted to visit paris or san francisco, california, more than any other city in the world, and it was because of our rich, historic history. i support proposition j, and i do not support supervisor wiener's amendments. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> i am representing a neighborhood association and preservation consortium. our neighborhood association expressed opposition to supervisor wiener's amendments back in january -- i think it

was early january. meantime, of course, the hpc has weighed in on these amendments, but we have had no opportunity to decide whether or not we support those revisions. we definitely support the heritage's view of the amendments. we also commend supervisor wiener for engaging in negotiations over the amendments and modifying them to a great extent. our concern is simply not to create more barriers to the creation of historic districts. we also do not want barriers to the survey of the city. we would like to see the city survey. as far as establishing a 50%

threshold for our reach -- our reach, that there has to be a threshold of 50% owners, occupants, whatever survey before the historic preservation can be initiated, i have to say this is my opinion, considering in the association, we have not had a chance to get to that, but in my view, it is very problematical. it is hard to know. we have not seen how the ordinance is written. we do not know to what extent there is room for a kind of hardening of this, so then it becomes a standard rather than a suggestion. the way it has been put forth here, it sounds as though it is a suggestion, a guideline to ensure outreach, and that is

fine, but i do not know whether it has the potential to become a hardening kind of regulation or policy that the historic district will not be established unless there is this threshold met. i would like to see that threshold change, or at least words added saying, "suggested 50% out reach -- outreach" to make it perfectly clear. as far as the other amendments that are concerned, we would like to support san francisco heritage and the hpc. we certainly do not want to -- [buildings -- [bell rings]

ok. thank you. >> i am here on behalf of the housing action coalition, and we have been following this. for our own guidelines, our endorsement guidelines, we added language supporting historic preservation to our guidelines a few years ago. initially, our views were that the city's amazing historic resources work at much less risk than the city's ability to meet its urban infill goals and its ability to change, as all cities must. we think supervisor wiener deserves enormous credit for bringing it forward pierre the process seems to have bogged down, and suddenly, conversation started and things started to move. it is plain that enormous compromises have been made, and that is significant in this

town, given the way process moves. i think it is fair to say that we would support the planning commission playing a significant, active role in this as it moves forward. because you are required to take so many other factors into consideration. i think back -- that i would say that we would support the remarks that spur has made and other experts. i think that the amendments that supervisor wiener put forward appear common sense. they appear achievable. and they deserve your support. to come this far means that a lot of ground has been given on both sides. i know it is a moving target. have not seen the latest l this moves it in the right direction. i support supervisor wiener's amendment. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> commissioners, my husband and

i helped initiate two historic districts -- the liberty hill historic district, and the tenderloin. we also own two buildings in each of these districts that were landmarks. one was listed on the national register prior to the district being formed, the john mcmullen house and garden. the other is the cadillac hotel. in each of these buildings where historic designation was initiated prior to the historic district, we managed to creatively -- that both buildings to national register standards for extremely low- income people. the john mcmullen house and garden was a boarding care home for people who are mentally disabled, so we not only met those standards, we also met the

licensing standards by the state of california to do that kind of work. we did not have any problems with making it handicapped accessible, with having sprinklers or any of that. as a matter of fact, the historic community bend over backwards, and we receive many accolades and awards for those jobs we did. the cadillac hotel currently serves 160 low-income people. they are all on ssi, disability, or welfare. again, the hotel meets the standards. i would like to refute the concerns that this cannot be done. both my husband and i have made collectively $32,000 a year up until 1992. we managed to do all this work under those kinds of restrictions, so i would like you to keep that in mind. i am here to support the retention of historic preservation committee's

articles 10 and 11, and i am in complete opposition to supervisor wiener's amendments, which would impose a burdensome hurdle on the designation of future potential historic districts. what makes the city so unique and beautiful are the very things that preservation has sought to retain and developers have sought to destroy, namely the historic and charming character of our residential districts, our cable cars, the bank -- hey, we could walk across the bay right now a flat to the developers -- if left to the developers. let's not try to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, but let's try to keep her alive. these proposed amendments are not going to do that. thank you very much. president miguel: thank you. >> hello, commissioners.

i am a resident and a tenant of district 5. i wanted to come here to speak in support of hpc's amendments. i moved to the city because i love the historical integrity of the city, and it is really sad to me that we have been losing a lot of the historic night light here, but i really appreciate what supervisor wiener has done. i appreciate the fact that he is setting clear goals and expectations, but i believe that these goals and expectations, which are supposed to inspire confidence -- they actually seem like they are really, really hard, and they do exactly the opposite of that. i just hope that we will take that into consideration. thanks. president miguel: thank you. [reading names] >> afternoon, commissioners.

we work on policy advocacy to promote sustainable communities, particularly in san francisco bay area and low-income communities of color. i voted for prop. j. i wanted to approve a historic preservation commission, and i knew very well i was also approving likely the creation of new historic districts. i also wanted to see safeguards for vulnerable communities that, as we created these new districts, that we would have certain safeguards for, particularly low-income residents, fixed income residents, and residents who, in my experience, sometimes when you advance historic districts, you have to be really careful that you do not gentrify, that you do not create certain expenses and costs of keeping up with the historic preservation jones' -- joneses. i think the commissioner, one of

my friends, he said he would like to see districts all across the city, which is fine of that is what is going to happen, but we have to have safeguards. the only safeguard i have seen to address gentrification are those proposed by supervisor wiener. i think that the hpc, certainly the ones proposing economic hardship waiver -- we advocated in actual affirmative vote before districts are created to ensure the maximum amount of safeguards. we think it is very reasonable doubt. i think that is advisory. i think we have been proposing a 100% threshold from the beginning, and today, we heard it might have been lowered to 50%. more than reasonable, especially since it sounds like it is not binding, but to be informative, the folks who may not want to live in a historic district, but may want to be ok with not demolishing their home, may not

be able to keep up with the expenses of what it takes. very reasonable to have an economic hardship provision. i think that promotes affordable housing. i agree with what mr. tony kelly said earlier. the ami definition, when we talk about middle income housing, particularly for blue-collar workers trying to stay in san francisco -- we do not want to use the area median income when we look at what is blue-collar and what is middle income. we want to look at san francisco. that is just one aside, but it sounds like there are some ideas on how we give the rights to tenants to make sure they have the ability to vote on whether they want to live in one of these districts or not, but we need additional safeguards, and supervisor wiener's proposal is one of the only ones we have

seen. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am not going to opine on the process for establishing historic districts, but i want to focus on what comprises the sort of elements of character when a historic district is established or when there is the conversation about creating one. one of the aspects about the proposed amendment that strikes me as being particularly difficult to understand and kind of absurd is this notion that it is only character-defining if you can see it from the street. it is sort of a museum of superficiality, which i can kind of picture in my head. that does not make a district. it does not make a community. it does not define history. what i would like to suggest is that the definition of what

character-defining features are be part of the process. whether that is the eve of your roof -- i am not an architect or historian -- or whether that is the character of the open space or even the interiors, whatever they may be, the point is this is a tool to be able to preserve those characteristics of history and respect them and carry them forward as our neighborhoods transform. it is not about cherry picking the parts of physical features that we think we want to see because it is queued and everything else becomes subject to total demolition. i do not understand quite how that works either functionally or either philosophically -- either functional or philosophically. the big battlegrounds are the open spaces, so it is hard to imagine -- it is hard not to imagine that you can build up as much as you wanted to the rear

and finally -- and fundamentally undermine the characteristics of the neighborhood as long as people cannot see it from the street. that carte blanche is ok as long as it looks pretty from the surface, and we have tons of those projects in our neighborhood, and i do not think it is good history or good planning or the design or good policy. i suggest we think about how to use the tools to be able to hold those features that matter to a community, not pre-prescribe them. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? please line up on the side over here. >> i was not going to speak today, but wanted to make two comments as briefly as i could manage. i am not here to oppose all of supervisor wiener's amendments, either in their original form or the form they have evolved to,

nor am i here to support all of the preservation commission, but i wanted to make explicit the question i think was raised early on in the debate months ago, but i do not think was said here today. that is -- and i asked you to consider this in your deliberation -- what is a legitimate justification for imposing upon this particular area of activity standards and criteria that to not apply to any other land use regulation that i am aware of? for example, the owner approval measure, and secondarily, some of the regional housing standards that still apparently stand in this language, as i understand it. that is just a segue to the second point to remind us all of what i guess today's debate has been reduced to, a comparison between, as i understand the

presentation, supervisor wiener 's position in contrast with the preservation commission's position as of yesterday. the san francisco heritage letter as of january 26, which i thought was extraordinarily helpful in identifying the issues that deserve, i think, serious attention, still goes through a number of issues that apparently the preservation commission yesterday did not take a position in support of. but if any of you still think thoseconsideration, invite you i think there are some. let me say in all sincerity, i want to thank this commission for the obvious seriousness with which you have considered this topic now over many months. i have often felt in san francisco we get distracted and focus a lot of our energy on the new construction. being a city where so much of what you hear is historic and preexists, sometimes i feel like that has gotten short shrift.

i appreciate that this commission has taken the issue very seriously. president miguel: thank you. >> i am here to support san francisco architectural heritage put the recommendations and oppose the amendments that would place a very burdensome hurdle on the creation of historic districts, which some day, as in the past, may very well be important in preserving cultural and institutional gems like chinatown. i am an architect who has worked on shopping centers, hotels, commercial and institutional buildings, rehabilitation is, remodelings, historic preservation is, alterations to historic preservation, additions to historic preservation is.