>> okay, welcome to our regular rules committee meeting for thursday, march 7, 2013. i am supervisor norman yee and i will be chairing the meeting. to my left is supervisor malia cohen and to my right is supervisor breed. the clerk today is linda wong. and the committee would also like to acknowledge the staff at sfgtv, jennifer low and nona

nakolian who will record each of our meetings and make transcripts available to the public online. madam clerk, are there any announcements? >> yes, mr. chair. please make sure to turn off all cell phones and electronic devices. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the march 19th board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you. can you please call item number 1? >> item number 1, motion approving/rejecting the mayor's nomination for appointment of jonathan pearlman to the historic preservation commission, seat no. 3, for a term ending december 31, 2016. >> okay. i believe mr. pearlman is here today. please approach the microphone.

how much time do i have to make a statement? >> you don't have unlimited time. [laughter] i'm not asking for an hour. >> two minutes. thank you. supervisors, thank you for having me here today. my name is jonathan pearlman. i would this out because i'm not as good a speaker if i don't do that so i will read this statement. when the mayor's office contacted me asking me to interview for a possible seat on the historic preservation commission, i assumed it was for the one of the seats designated for historic architect and was surprise today learn it was seat 3, the architectural historians position. since i'm not a traditional candidate for this seat, using preservation using the academic model, ways somewhat reluctant to accept the invitation to interview. after discussing my concerns and told i was qualified for the seat, considered the contributions i might bring to this commission. as an architect i'm in the

trenches having to work with home and building owners and their neighbors who are unfamiliar with local history and in particular the history of the buildings that they own, want to purchase, and see every day. i will be able to bring to the commission a blending of two skill sets. as a practicing architect that has to address preservation issues and as a historian. preservation of san francisco's significant built environment necessarily involves educating and explaining property owner's role in historic preservation. since i was in college in boston in the late 1970s, i've been committed to the preservation, rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of historical buildings. one of the projects that i worked on back then was a very early searchable database for the cataloging of over 1300 architectural drawings by prominent boston area architects of the early and mid 19th century. my thesis project at tufts university was used in research for the rehabilitation of the president's house at boston university and during that period i assisted the prominent new england architectural historian in research and

photography for articles and books that she published. to demonstrate my continuing involvement outside of my works for the past five years i've been the program coordinator of a volunteer organization in los altos that has saved a house designed in 1939 by richard noitra who is considered to be one of the most influential california residential architects of the 20th century. to raise funds for a d-a-p tabv reuse we created numerous educational programs about 20th century american and california architecture landscape and design. we've mounted a lecture series with talks by california leading architects, landscape architects and critics. we presented a film showing topics such as great california arts and crafts architects on charles and ray emes, the great modern actech turrell photographer. we sponsored modern home tours. in the summer we'll have our first design camp for eighth and ninth grade to introduce them to the disciplines. i participated in a panel on legacy, gave a talk on the history of modern residential

design from 18 50 to 1950 with a c-e-q-a coming this spring. i'm the program coordinator for the lecture series, the home tours and the architecture camp this summer. it involves research and applied knowledge. while the lecture series is not presented in a university forum our role in educating the public has been greatly successful. i mention this as a way of explaining there are ways to bring architectural history to the public in a gentle way to elevate the discourse and helps the punished understanding in their context. i believe strongly that a built environment defines us and is a picture of who we are to others and as winston churchill said we shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us. i believe that i'm a person who can be a bridge to the public from the formal way of defining architectural history to one that is applied, to help turn the fear of owning an historic resource to one of pride to be refreshing and adding to san francisco history in a way that

noger diminishes that history nor diminishes the needs of the public. when i came to san francisco in 1989, the first project i worked on was the renovation of rehabilitation of temple emanuel on lake street, a building by legendary architects that includes the office of babe he will and brown and bernard bay back. i worked on historic buildings all over san francisco including in district 1 i'm the lead architect for the alexandria theater. in district 2 in the presidio, i renovated one of the office quarter houses. district 6 the rehabilitation of the hibernia bank building that the historic preservation commission with no debate or criticism. hibernia bank project is essential to the economic revival of the mid-market area, of course. i also designed the first new building in the western soma light industrial and residential historic district. in district 8 i wrote wrote the nomination for landmark builder 2 41, the workshop [speaker not understood]. ~

related to this i presented at the california preservation conference on the identification of historical and culturally significant spaces in san francisco in the minority movement. in architectural practice i often hear people remark, it's so ugly how could it be historic? my role is to help them understand that esthetic beauty is not an evaluative criteria that ultimately determines whether a building or area is considered historic. in my discussion with friends, colleagues or clients about our work, it is evident that we, those of us in the professions, architects, historians, the planning department and the hpc need to do a much better job of outreach to educate the public on what an historic resource is and why retaining them is a san francisco value. from this vantage point there is great disconnect in the public's attitude about preservation. it is often perceived as scary or merely a political tool or a wedge issue that hampered progress. what i find most often from the public that i deal with is fear. fear that their home will be considered historic resource or

contributor to an existing or potential historic district. and because of that they will have little or no choice in how they upgrade or modify their own property and to do anything will add significant additional expense and significantly more time. as one example, in 2009 i was writing two historic evaluation reports at the same time. one for a small two story ordinary modified house on an alley in west soma, a grand single-family house on pacific avenue facing the presidio in the area that is chock-a-block with the houses of the likes of morgan [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood] with no known architect or builder compromised integrity and surrounded by parking lots and warehouse yards would be the historic resource. the reason for its significance was explained in the historic context statement for west soma light industrial and residential district. small houses on the alleys are sufficiently rare and therefore considered to be contributors to a future historic district. the pacific avenue home was not

considered a historic resource because there is no district in this area. and while it was designed by a known architect, he was not considered important, which allowed the homeowners to move forward with plans that significantly increased the size of the home without regard to rehabilitation standards of the secretary of interior. my challenge with how to explain to the owner of the soma house who lived in the house for more than a decade at that point why he would be severely limited in what he could do with the building. the planning department did deny his renovation plans and the limitations set by the planning department would not result in a remodeling that met his needs resulting in his need to sell the building in a depressed market and ultimately he had to move out of san francisco. while this is an extreme example, there are many stories like this that i think give preservation a bad name in this town. i am not saying that there shouldn't be historic designations of this type of building in western soma or anywhere else in the city if it is appropriate. however, the general feeling of

people outside the preservation community is that there is no balance between preservation and the need of property owners, especially homeowners to meet the needs of their families. they feel helpless when it comes to controlling their own property. in this particular case the owner had no idea what a context statement was or that it was being prepared with the consequence of the owner's inability to move forward without incurring excessive costs and time. ~ there was no mechanism for him to vet this all out in the public. and the planner couldn't explain to him why his house was considered historic other than to offer him the definition of historic resource and that his house met that definition. while working on the hibernia bank the owner went to the enth degree [speaker not understood]. the original structural engineer would have required virtual dismantling of the glorious ornamental work in the building. i found a firm that had not only worked on other buildings, but provided a seismic upgrade that will be invisible and complete and not affect the exquisite spaces of the building.

with all that, we still spent over 7 months debating why the bank teller counters would make it impossible to adaptively reuse this face. it was a failure to balance the preservation and future use of this historic building to me. ~ preservation cannot be considered in a vacuum. the historic preservation commission has to provide leadership which it did in this case and clearly defined the values we hold and why preservation is important for san francisco without resulting in a policy of preservation for preservation sake. it has to become a form for debate and dissent if one doesn't agree with the evaluative judgments of the government officials. [speaker not understood] the application of the secretary of interior standards. right now they apply rigidly and not considered building by building basis or in context. it is as if they are solely objective rules that apply in all cases. i believe that with both my experience of practice and historical knowledge, i can

contribute to making the evaluation process more flexible, more context based and discriminating. the historic preservation commission has a role in changing the evaluation standards so that preservation does not become an obstacle to livability in today's society and with today's life styles. we must balance our preservation efforts in a way that neither diminishes that history nor denies the needs of citizens today and in the future. thank you for your consideration of my nomination and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, mr. pearlman. colleagues, are there any questions? mr. pearlman? i have a few questions. you were nominated for this same commission in 2009 and withdrew. can you tell me why you withdrew then and why you believe you are prepared now to take the same role as a commissioner? sure. it was a highly politically

charged atmosphere at that time. [speaker not understood]. i was in the first group that was nominated by mayor newsome. there was enormous political infighting between the board and the mayor at that time. and we were all nominated a week before christmas, and basically thrown to the wolves to just fend for ourselves with very little support from the mayor's office. i think the polarization of attitudes that was pervasive in the politics of that time are extremely different now. i think that there is room for public discourse for legitimate discussion and debate about our work, and i think i can contribute to that. i also believe that i have -- at that time the work that i've been doing on the [speaker not understood] project in los altos had just started. i had four more years under my belt. and seeing how to engage with

the public and bring historical issues forward in a very credibly positive and successful way. also in the last four years i've been working on the alexandria theater and the hibernia bank project which i think has certainly increased my knowledge and understanding of how to work within, within san francisco's commission structure and with the planning department. >> supervisors? cohen, go ahead. >> hi. nice to see you. thank you for taking time and your interest to serve san francisco. i'd like to discuss with me a little bit about your philosophy on, on historic preservation's -- locations that have more of a cultural significance in san francisco as opposed to, you know, hard

core, what some very -- some folks with very, you know, narrow view or narrow definition of a historic building might not consider. right, i understand. >> i apologize. that's poorly worded. i think i understand what you're doing with it. when i first came to san francisco in 1989, i basically came out here to work with the names project, the organization that shepherded the ace memorial quilt. and in that regard, i got very involved very quickly in the gay community and the aids service community. and one of the things that i worked on when i was on the landmarks preservation board back in 2002 was to landmark the building where the aids memorial workshop was.

that as it turns out was one of the first movie theaters in san francisco, the jose theater built in 1910. the building itself, i think relative to your question, is fairly indistinguished. it's a generic building of its time, but the social aspect of, you know, the importance of the aids crisis and san francisco's response to it through the quilt i think is incredibly significant to, to memorialize. now, of course, that building right now is katz restaurant. there is very little reference on the interior to the workshop and what was done there. the owner has been great. he displays quilt panels in the foyer of the restaurant at all times. but i do think we need some kind of program to identify on the building because no one would know the building, per se. but i do think we need to

identify these places of culture and social interaction. so, i know there's been a lot of work on buildings in the gay community, the historical buildings of the gay community [speaker not understood] and things like that. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> supervisor breed. >> thank you. i have a few questions. >> supervisor breed, can you hold for a second? there's an overflow room, actually, in room 250 if you're not here for this particular item and you don't want to stand up, you can go to 250, okay? >> thank you. so, i had just a few questions i wanted to ask you specifically about your work in the harding theater and just wanted you to talk real briefly about the specific issue around the stage and the historic factor of the stage that had

been built in after i think in the '80s when there was a church at the location -- well, one of the first of the two churches that was at that location. okay. we don't actually know when the state -- so, the issue is when the building was built in 1926, we have all the original drawings and the permits. and at that time there was no stage or fly loft on the building. a fly loft for legitimate stage they're. at that time there was an orchestra pit because movies -- they were not talkies yet so all movie theaters built at that time had an orchestra pit. we don't know when the stage and the fly loft were built because there are no permits for it and my only assumption was that samuel levin who was the movie -- i mean, the building owner, probably thought that he might need it for vaudville shows because

that was typical of the movie theaters at the time. they built it right at the time the building was built, 1926. [speaker not understood] vaudville died 1930, all over america. when the churches were there from 1970 to 2004, they actually had covered up the opening with the stage curtain and used the stage area for storage. they actually built over the orchestra pit and used that as their altar, as their pulpit area. so, in the course of the history of this building, which is now, you know, closing in on 90 years, the stage was probably only used for three or four years of the, of the life of that theater. so, based on that, i didn't think that that rose to being what's considered a character defining feature of the building. and that for this developer who, trust me, we dragged screaming and kicking to the --

from where he wanted to tear down the building to coming about 90% of the way to agreeing to restore the marquee, put the blade sign back, put some of the ornaments on the building. and basically meeting the secretary of interior standards for the rehabilitation of the building. he came 90% of the way there. but to make it worth doing financially, he needed for that portion of the building to not be there so he could build the housing that opened to hayes street. so, you know, in my judgment, while he was, you know, sort of challenging to the community and as his representative, i got kind of tarred with that same brush. from an historical point of view i think what he was doing was pretty responsive and i mean, i think you have a good opportunity to build a forum that perhaps we can get the community and the people to the table so that we could, you

know, maybe move that project ahead. >> thank you. i had just a few more questions. do you think that there is ever a time when a historic designation should ever be reversed? that's a good question. i think that there was one that was. i think it was the jewish museum building that was the old power station that was there. and so much of the historic fabric was -- and i'm not sure about this, but -- or someone tried to delist it. if the building is damaged or destroyed, not through the austria cpitions of the owner or planning -- if it burns down. >> if it is a source of blight or there is no potential development opportunities based on the limitation of the use of the space, do you consider those things that would potentially be cause for concern and should be

considered to reverse -- well, i think there is a distinction. i think of a building as a landmark different from a historic resource. the harding building is a resource and, you know, it's a difficult question. i think if, you know, if the building literally is causing, you know, property damage, then there is -- that discussion height and bulk had whether that building should be removed or not. ~ should be had it's under duress you would actually consider that. >> okay, let's see. i wanted to ask you if you could expand just a little bit on -- you talked about historic preservation should not necessarily be an obstacle to livability. you brought up a few examples of that. just your approach to dealing with issues of historic

preservation as a commissioner seemed to be more of a practical sense, but also a reasonable sense. so, can you give me just really cases where there may be? ~ some level of extreme situations where there's no compromise when we talk about historic preservation situations? the harding theater -- it's an awfully big handful because even today the community is unwilling to compromise with the building owner. i really think that in that case , you know, millions of dollars could be spent and the owner is willing to do it, but preservation, you know, the preservation community or the community there that demands that it has to be a theater in some incarnation is being -- you know, is obstructing the progress of get geting that building to be a contributing building ~ and retain its

historic character. i think there's -- you know, i mentioned in my statement about working with the planning department. there are -- the application of the secretary of interior guidelines creates a lot of circumstances where they are blatantly -- they are rigidly applied. for instance, i was working on a house, an 1880s house in pacific heights. it was certainly an historic resource. it was in extremely bad condition. most of the house was. it had a fire, but the facade and street presence was still there. the major structural line in that house was 14 feet back from the facade. one of the secretary of interior standards talks about the differentiation of new contraction from old construction so that you don't have a confusion -- the public doesn't have a confusion oh, that old house was built in 1880. no, this house was built in 1880s that portion of the house was built in the current day. ~ so, i asked the head of

historic planning at that time -- it was a long time ago -- if i could setback 14 feet instead of the 15 feet that's prescribed by the department, which is based on the word differentiation. so, there's nothing in the standards that say it has to be setback 15 feet. and when i asked about 14 feet, because that would make it a lot less expensive from a structural standpoint, the answer was no, blatantly no, it has to be 15 feet. and to me, that makes zero sense relative to the context, the actual structure because in a sense it wasn't respecting the structure that was there. and, so, you know, there have been many times when those kind of rigid interpretations -- and that was the case, you know, with the report that i did on the small building in west soma because it was so small and all the zoning requirements plus the 15-foot setback from his facade, it made it virtually, you know, infeasible to actually build there.

so, you know, i think that there need to be ways and i think the hpc can be a leader in helping work with the planning department and the historic planners to come up with, you know, much finer look at building by building because, you know, we don't always look at every building in the city every time you build a building. we should be looking at the existing, you know, the specific building and its context. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> i received a round of communications with individuals who have a history of advocating for historical preservation who are unfamiliar with you. and if appointed to the hpc, will you be willing to meet with these advocates and work with differences, work with different perspectives -- that is historic perspectives? of course. we're all in this together as

san franciscans. you know, i come to this place from a different perspective. it doesn't mean it's not, you know, very much celebrating and caring about historic buildings and san francisco. i've been here for 24 years and expect to be here for the rest of my days. and, you know, i think that we have some -- we have a great built environment. so, obviously. just coincidentally, yesterday i was asked about being on the board of an organization called delcomomo which is the documentation of conservation and buildings of the modern movement for the northern california chapter because of the work that i have been doing on this noitra project. these are things that i want to do and want to be involved in. and, so, yes, of course. i hope it's not adversarial. i would like it to be very collegial in that. >> thank you. is there any public comment for

this item? speakers will have two minutes. please indicate if you support this appointment or not. good afternoon, supervisors. henry ka mill owe with [speaker not understood] san francisco council business merchants associations. i've known jonathan quite a while. [speaker not understood] is a real difficult issue that comes up all the time with planning with buildings that are 50 years or more. sometimes we get situations of buildings that are less than 50 years old and [speaker not understood] the whole hpre evaluation before they'll approve it. and i found jonathan to be someone who is really knowledgeable in preservation. he's really an advocate for preserving buildings. i'd urge you to approve his nomination to this seat. thank you. good afternoon, supervisors.

[speaker not understood] structural engineer. i worked with jonathan pearlman for the last 15 years. he's an extremely competent architect. i was delighted to hear from supervisor breed that -- there's two words that apply to a good commissioner. that's practical and responsive commissioner. that's what jonathan pearlman would be. he's [speaker not understood] architectural private sector. he has worked with planning in the department of building inspection for over 15 years. he has experience and the knowledge. he recognizes the challenges that families have when they have to remodel their buildings. he knows that pain from the inside. he has to present the client's perspective to plan