>> welcome to the san francisco historic preservation commission regular meeting for thursday, february 19th, 2014. please be advised that the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. please silence any mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. and when speaking before the commission, if you care to do state your name for the record. like to take roll at this time. commission president hasz? >> here.

>> commission vice president wolfram? >> here. >> commissioner hyland? >> here. >> commissioner johnck? >> here. >> commissioner malt sued a? >> here. >> and commissioner pearlman? >> here. >> at this time the public at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting with one exception. when the agenda item has already been reviewed in a public hearing at which members of the public were allowed to testify and the commission has closed the public hearing, your opportunity to address the commission must be exercised during the public comment portion of the calendar. each member of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes. ~ i have no speaker cards. >> does anyone in the public wish to speak on any item not on our agenda? seeing none, we'll close public comment. >> department matters, item 1, director's announcements. >> good afternoon, commissioners. tim frye, department staff. the director's report was included in your packets. if you have any questions, happy to answer them, or the director will be joining us later today and he can answer

those questions at that time. >> thank you. any questions or comments on the director's report? seeing none, we'll move on. >> commissioners, item 2, review of past events at the planning commission, staff report, and announcements. >> good afternoon, commissioners. just a couple item to share with you regarding a couple item at the planning commission. one, at least week's hearing the planning commission elected commissioner cindy wu as president and commissioner rodney fong as vice president. so, we both contract them on their positions. the apple store was also heard by the planning commission. as you recall at your last hearing, this commission granted a major permit to alter for that location. there were three items that were under consideration at the planning commission. the first was the special use district code amendment.

after the hearing, a motion to recommend approval with some very small modifications failed by a vote of 3 to 3. commissioner antonini was absent and then three commissioners voted against. so, without an alternative motion per the planning code, the matter is forwarded to the board of supervisors with a recommendation of disapproval. so, that zoning change will be before the board of supervisors at a future hearing. however, the commission voted 5 to 1 to approve the project, and they also made findings in support of the sud code amendment, should it pass at the board of supervisors. that commission vote was 5 to 1, and that approval was amended slightly to require the sponsor to discuss a-d-a accessibility issues with the mayor's office on disability. and then finally, the zoning

administrator must consider a variance for the project, and at the closing of the public hearing, the za intended intent to grant those variances. one last item, just to give you a short update on the bush street cottage row trees, as you recall, the rec/park department was here a couple months ago and gave this commission a status update on the removal of the redwood trees that were planted about 20, 25 years ago within the bush street cottage row park which is in the bush street cottage roland mark district. the trees were removed over a two day period and a community meeting was held regarding the tree removal and the community's desires for replacement trees. that notice for the hearing or the meeting what mailed to a 300 foot radius around the park and it was held at the hamilton

rec center on january 14th. the majority of participants requested that japanese maples be planted. and over the next six weeks the rec/park department will be testing the underground infrastructure after the tree removal and be planting the new japanese maple. so, we'll keep you updated on the progress of that project. that concludes my comments unless you have any questions. and, again, the director is here in case you have any questions on the director's report. thank you. >> commissioners? no questions or comments? we'll move on. >> commissioners, it will place you under commission matters, item 3, president's report and announcements. >> thank you. we have -- since jonas became secretary, he implemented a monthly officer's meeting that planning commission has that this commission never had before. and it's attended or we attended, director ram, mr. frye, and sometimes [speaker not understood] as well.

in this meeting we note what's happening in the agenda. with the legislation situation and talking about what comes to us and what doesn't, director -- and sort of the who makes that call, director ram had a good idea in that we would use the officer's meeting almost like an arc for any items that would be, you know, of question that would come to the full commission. does it have that need. so, anyway, we have a filter. so, thank you, director ram. that's it for my announcements. >> commissioners, item 4, consideration of adoption draft minutes for arc february 5, 2014 and draft minutes for hpc february 5, 2014. i have no speaker cards. >> commissioner pearlman. >> there was one item on the arc, well, two item. it looks like it's on page 4 of

5 under massing and composition d. >> commissioner pearlman, for the arc? >> for the arc. >> there are only three pages. >> oh, mine printed out with 4 of 5 and 5 of 5. [laughter] >> sorry. it even says it at the bottom of the page. under massing and composition. >> yes. >> 1d, it says emphasizing the double doors at the main entry within the left bay. it should be the right bay. >> thank you. >> yeah, i was going to say the right bay facing the building. >> the right bay facing east? >> it would be the east bay of [speaker not understood]. [multiple voices] >> and then i didn't remember that we had talked about using a different awning treatment there. i thought we had just talked about emphasizing by giving -- emphasizing the entryway by making it more glossy by putting the trantham window.

>> i mentioned a potentially different awning. >> then just leave it. so, it's just that right rather than left. >> very good. >> thank you. >> any other comments on either of the minutes? >> that was for the arc. >> commissioner hyland. >> the draft minutes on the hpc on page 5 of 6 under the action at the top for the 300 post, 345 stockton. under action it says approved with conditions as amended to include the sponsor work with the asa, ra family to establish a clear and complex plan. i think it should be complete maybe, i don't know if complex -- >> i'll take a look at my notes again. >> yeah. >> they use the word sensitive in there.

>> commissioners, further comments? any member of the public wish to comment on the minutes of either arc or the hpc? seeing none, bring it back to the commission. >> i move to approve both the minutes as noted with corrections noted. >> second. >> thank you. >> commissioners, and on the motion to adopt the minutes for the arc of february 5th, 2014 and the hpc february 5th, 2014 as corrected, commissioner hyland? >> yes. >> commissioner johns? >> yes. >> commissioner matsuda? >> yes. >> [speaker not understood]? he >> so moved, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 6 to 0 and places you on item 5, commission comments and questions. >> commissioner matsuda. >> just one announcement and just a follow-up to mr. frye's report of the cottage row area. on last thursday, president

hasz, commissioner pearlman and i attended a signing ceremony in the mayor's office where he signed the landmark for marcus brookes. so, i think this was pretty special. and then the follow-up on mr. frye's presentation or comments on the removal of the 5 redwoods and one eucalyptus in cottage row, i went back to the hearing that we had on july 17th, and at that time we started to discuss the elements of the park focusing in on whats was written in the national registry. and we kind of left the door open to further explore that and to possibly open up that registry one more time and to be very clear and specific about what kinds of things should be noted in the park because there is very little

information there now. and even though i think it would be nice to have japanese maples there, i'm not sure if that is really in keeping with the historic nature of that park. so, i'd like to ask if mr. frye can do a little bit more research and inform us of the process to, once again, reopen that part of the registry so that we don't have this problem 20 years from now, that, you know, the same issue is going to come up, that we need to remove the maple trees for whatever reason. i think we can clear it up right now, that would be the better alternative to go. >> thank you, commissioner. anyone else? commissioner johnck. >> gentlemen, i got an e-mail from jerry [speaker not understood], long time reporter for the san francisco chronicle. he and i have been friends a long time. he said, ellen, do you know anything about the sale -- do you know the sale of the

concord ia, ~ the corner of sutter and van ness, there is a for sale sign up. thank you. and want to know when a for sale sign goes up on a potentially, you know, on a resource, potential resource, what to do about it, what information is available on it. i guess i didn't know how to answer him. ~y -- want to know how to answer him. >> mr. frye? >> i think one of the most helpful resources is our planning information map, planning.org. if you type in the address or the block and lot number of any property, any prospective buyer will be able to pull up the historic information regarding the property, including if this commission has regulatory review authority over that property. >> great, great. i kind of knew that -- i knew there was a procedure, but i just thought i'd mention it in

public. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioners, no other disclosures, comments? we'll move on. >> commissioners, it will place you under your regular calendar. item 6, review and recommendation of approval of a balanced fiscal year 2014-2016 department budget and work program for submission to the mayor's office. >> thank you. jonas. good afternoon, commissioners. we are here today to ask for your recommendation ~ on the proposed budget. this is i think the third hearing we've had with you on this budget. our budget, as all departments are, our budgets are due to the mayor on friday, at the end of the day on friday, the 21st. so, we are asking for your recommendation to the planning commission today. the planning commission will review the budget and make a recommendation tomorrow. and then we will forward the budget to the mayor's office on friday. what keith will go over with you are just the highlights of the budget. he's reviewed the last two

hearings, and also any changes that have occurred over the last few weeks as we become a little more certain on our numbers and our revenue. so, i'll ask keith to go over those numbers with you now. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is keith demartini. i'm the finance and it manager for the planning department. it's my pleasure to present the department's budget for the upcoming two fiscal years today. as director ram mentioned, i will just be highlighting any changes that have occurred in our department's budget over the past two weeks. as we have been finalizing it and getting it ready for submission to the mayor on friday ~. so, today i'll just briefly highlight the building case -- the building permanent planning case volume trends, revenue and expenditure budget, grant and capital budget requests, our work program including any of those changes that have been made, the fee elimination proposal and then the remaining item on the budget calendar. and the presentation that

you're reviewing is the slides that i'll be presenting today as well as i made copies of the presentation for members of the public as well. so, we had not made any changes to our volume assumptions, building permits and planning cases that we are anticipating. over the upcoming two fiscal years. ~ last friday, want to make sure i mention this, i did attend the 2014 economic briefing of the municipal fiscal advisory committee held at city hall. and at this meeting there were industry experts and aloe ~ economists who were discussing the economic outlook for the city and county of san francisco over the next three years. and the consensus in the room at that meeting was that san francisco economy will continue to be strong and will continue to grow over the next three years. so, that is some validation of the assumptions that we have built into our department's budget with the increase of volume of applications that we expect over the next two fiscal years. again, there were no changes to our volume assumptions.

so, here is -- this slide is a summary of the department's revenue projection over the next two fiscal years. and i did not make any changes to our revenue projections over the next two fiscal years from what i presented to you two weeks ago on february 5th. all the assumptions have remained the same. so, you'll see our revenue is projected to be at $37.7 million next fiscal year which is a pretty significant increase from this current fiscal year. moving on to the expenditure budget, the only change that we made in the department's expenditure budget is to one of the new positions that we are proposing in next fiscal year's budget which is a new position in the zoning administration and compliance division for monitoring and reporting of various requirements. and that position was originally proposed at a half time

position, .5fte. and upon further review that of position and what that position will be doing we decided to make it a full-time position. so, it will start out ~ as a .77 fte with the assumption that it will take a few months to bring that person on board. and it will be a full-time position going forward. so, that's the only change we made. and so it's reflected in the slight increase in salary and fringe expenditures. >> just while we're on this, i have one question. can you remind me what the project's line is? it seems like it's a big jump then it goes back down. >> sure, yeah. so, if you recall two weeks ago how i mentioned we're going to be using a lot of the surplus that we're experiencing in this current fiscal year to fund the 8 currently unfunded positionses in the department's budget? >> um-hm. >> so, the way that we have ~ to receive the appropriation authority to pay for those people is by budgeting it -- a one-time budget in next fiscal year's budget and that is in the project -- >> oh, okay.

it's not like a special project -- >> right. >> got it, thank you. >> okay. so, this next slide summarizes all of the new positions that we are proposing in the budget. next fiscal year it is at 11.28 equivalent full-time positions, which is [speaker not understood] and again the only change that we made here was by increasing the fte for the monitoring and reporting position from .5 fte to a full-time position. that's the only change that we made here. and that change is reflected in appendix 1 of the memo which does detail the full department's proposed work program as well. moving on to the grants budget, there were no changes to the grants budget either. at the planning commission hearing on february 6, commissioner moore did express some interest in learning more about the department's grant program. and, so, in your commission

packet today, you'll see a memo that does update you on the department's grant program. and if you have any questions, i'd be happy to answer or sheila, our grant writer, her contact information is on that memo if you have any specific questions [speaker not understood]. and we will plan to do that at least once a year during the budget process just to give you an overview of the department's grant program ~. this slide is a summary of the various capital requests that we have already made on january 17th. and, again, there were no changes to our grant's budget -- to our capital requests either. this slide is a summary of the department's proposed work program broken out by fte allocation for each of the divisions. you'll see that the department's fte count is proposed to grow by nearly 15 ftes in the following year and will increase to just over 203

in fiscal year 15-16. again, the only change reflected here is the increase of the monitoring and reporting position in the zoning administration and compliance division. i also want to note that in a pend ix 1 of your memo, in the historic preservation work program, ~ we did relabel item f which was originally stated as preservation specific code clean up. and it was renamed to preservation specific legislation coordination. a question was raised about this work program item at the planning commission hearing on february 6. and in talking with mr. frye about the work that this fte will do and why it changed from fiscal year 13-14, it was because of the work in fiscal year 13-14 that staff worked on for the articles 10 and 11 amendments. and, so, there's a change in work. we just wanted to relabel that work.

this is a summary of the fee elimination proposal that we will be making to the mayor's office on friday. there were no changes to this proposal. i did also just want to let you know that i worked with commission secretary ionin on placing this item on the advance calendar. so, it is tentatively scheduled to be heard on may 7. we'll have a formal hearing at that time tentatively. so, here's the budget -- remaining budget calendar. tomorrow i will be delivering this same exact presentation to the planning commission where i'll be asking for their approval of the budget so that on friday we can go ahead and submit the budget to the mayor's office. and then we'll come back in may for the public hearing on the fee elimination proposal. i also want to make sure that i mention that attached to the memo, the last page is a draft comment letter from the historic preservation commission that is made out to the planning commission which

has documented the comments that this body has made during the prior public hearings on the budget. if you have any additional comments that you would like to make, we can go ahead and add that to the comment letter. i would like to provide that to the planning commission tomorrow so that they have an opportunity to read your comments on the proposed budget. so, at this time i respectfully request that you recommend approval of the department's fiscal year 14-15 and 15-16 budget. this concludes my presentation. i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. thank you very much. >> commissioner pearlman. >> it seems like a minor thing. the fee elimination proposal is for something that amounts to one 10th of 1% or less of the entire budget. so, i'm wondering why it can't be handled administratively that we have to, you know, have a hearing and planning commission has to have -- is that just because of the law? >> yeah, these fees are in the planning code and any change to the planning code requires the

public hearing. >> got it, thanks. okay. >> thank you. and for myself, and we touched briefly on this, with the rampant development in town and sort of the -- a little bit of -- sorry, our work program for historic preservation is basically chopped up and done by four or five different people it seem. and it seems inefficient because they're going in and out and we have so much development happening that they would get pulled and what is priority, sponsors getting on your case to get their thing out rather than a landmarking. we also have novack we're trying to promote. just several item. and, so, we have items on our work program that have been here since i've started being a commissioner almost 10 years ago. and, so, i'm requesting from the department that we have a dedicated person on our work program in addition to what we have.

and, so, it would be an fte. so, [speaker not understood]. >> sure, thank you for your question. in order to add another new position to what we're already proposing, assuming that director ram agrees with your request, we can go ahead and do that. i believe we have the capacity to add a new planner 3 position to work on the landmark work program, but having it start probably on january 1st, 2015. so, it would be half of an fte effectively in next fiscal year's budget but it would annualize to a full fte in the following year. and i would be able to achieve that by addressing some of the line item in our proposed budget. for example, i would be making assumption about maybe an increased work order recovery for work that our department performs for another city agency. so, in effect, that's revenue for the department to help support the expenditures and then adjusting downward. some of our assumptions on materials and supplies and

professional service contracts. but i would be able to make those adjustments to have the capacity to fund a new position. >> terrific. director ram. >> yeah, just want to say if it makes sense, keith, where there's enough -- for lack of a better term -- cushion in the budget, we can do that. i think what keith is proposing -- the normal way when we propose a new position in the budget, they only elapse that position for essentially three quarters of the year. they assume by the time the budget is approved that position won't be on board until october. so, it's essentially three quarters of an fte the first year and the following year it becomes a full full-time position. so, what we're suggesting that we make it work is if we simply waited three months to fund it. if we fully fund it we'll be able to hire someone january 1st, 2015. >> terrific, thank you for your support on that, director. appreciate it. one of the questions we mentioned before, city-wide survey, sounded like there was some motion on that as well in the coming year. >> so, yes.

so, with the addition of another new staff person, that gives another resource to start working on scoping with the city historic might look like, it does take a number of months to scope that project. and then assuming we'll be contracting that service out, it takes a number of months to go through the city's contracting process. so, with the assumption that staff could start working on that next fiscal year, we could hit the ground running with having a contract in place potentially i go by the beginning of fiscal year 15-16 at that time. so, staff could start working on that next fiscal year. >> terrific, thank you. commissioners, any other questions, comments? ~ commissioner matsuda. >> thank you. if you could refresh my memory, under the work program for historic preservation, i'm very happy to hear that we are going to receive another person to help us with landmark designations. but looking through rows a

through h, how often is this review to determine the work load of all of these specific areas and to make sure that there is adjustment about staff dedicated to working on these areas? because just as you mention with the -- under 2f, [speaker not understood] legislation coordination, i don't see a whole lot coming before us in terms of [speaker not understood] legislation except for the legislation that we discussed last week, which we probably should have known about. so, how can that -- i mean, how often is this reviewed and evaluated to make sure that this is more real time than not? >> sure. so, i'll start, maybe mr. frye might want to jump in as well. on an annual basis we formally review these numbers, the fte allocations, for all of the major functions in the departmdu