the different software system is staff spends a huge amount of time cleaning up the data every quarter that we get from dbi and it actually -- it is a lot of hand work we currently have to do just to report out, for example, on the number of units that were built that quarter. the number of two bedrooms, the number of three bedrooms, the number of c of as, whatever it is, this system will greatly streamline the process and produce way more data than we have today. i'm excited about that aspect alone because there is an inordinate amount of time we have to spend scrubbing the data. it is becoming more important to our work and more of interest to the public and to people in this building. so, i'm very excited about that aspect of it as well. >> commissioners? any comments? kelley, we'll miss you. thank you very much for putting it together. commissioner pearlman. >> i just wanted to say having worked in san francisco for close to 25 years now, this is

so, so long overdue and i thank you so much. and i have questions, but that will come a it gets tested. it's not worth going into it. it's been a pleasure to work with you ~ for the few projects we worked on. >> thank you. i do want to say there's been a team of 20 planners on this project for a couple years now. we have, as john knows, been bled by an interesting staff. having planners willing to participate when they have so much on their plates. [speaker not understood]. the planning department has benefited hugely from that. this is going to be challenging, but everybody sees what it has to offer, so, we're getting there. >> thank you. >> thank you. seeing nothing else we'll move on to the next item. >> you want to call public comment. >> pardon me. so, any member of the public -- yes, howard.

garv, commissioners. obviously i'm here on another topic, but i'm very interested in this. it looks like an absolutely wonderful system. last year i participated in the process to vet the city's proposed requirements for the public to file an appeal under c-e-q-a. one concern that the public has is how does the public find out when first approval takes place across -- and especially across all departments? as you know now, the restrictions are a lot stricter on when you can file an appeal under c-e-q-a and it depend on this first approval. so, i'm hoping that this system will allow us to also track first approvals so that we will under what's happening in the city and we don't find out two months later about something we had hoped to be able to participate in. and i also encouraged that this be done across all departments because i believe now we have to kind of go around to notices in different departments to find out when that approval is. thank you very much.

>> thank you. hi, i'm nancy werful. first of all, i'll say what a great loss it is to the department to lose kelley. it's amazing. a wonderful person so you were blessed to have her serve is he. i have been tracking the tracking system for many, many years so i am very relieved that it's coming to fruition. and i think everyone here is going to be very benefited by it. i just want to bring to your attention and follow-up on what cathy howard just said about c-e-q-a issues. there is a game in town, in case you haven't heard it, it's called serial permitting. so, i would hope that some way commissions such as this are not blind sided with the fact that there's a permit with an application no. that looks perfectly innocent and doesn't actually possibly even have any planning code issues, but it will be when you start getting

into permits a, b, c, d, and e. and i hope there is some way they can be linked not just through the address, but really somebody that reads for content would say, oh, this is the same project. they're just now sort of back dooring in some of the other things that weren't known to this commission and to the planning department. you would have had a different reaction and the public would have had a different c-e-q-a reaction. so, i want to bring that to your attention because it bugs a lot out of me to tell you that i see it all the time. there are increases in the scope of work and there are just plain new applications one by one. some of them come in the back door through plumbing. it's very creative. but the point is that when it happens, the planning code is advertised -- is not appropriately enforced. you all didn't see it because you can't. and if you come in with something innocent on day one, but day five, you know you're

getting to the good stuff, that's what i would hope this tracking system alerts everyone in the planning department to risk. i don't know how it was done, but i have this opportunity to speak with you. and i think the planning department has been dised, if that's the right word, by not having all the information that the building department could offer ~. and they should be the guards. they should be reading for content that this repair of dry rot spares in the back room, all of a sudden adds into a horizontal extension we just didn't tell you all about. so, anyhow, that's my concern. and also to make sure that the code enforcement issues in planning are not lost because the dbi has their own enforcement issues. i'd like to be able to look and see that there is an enforcement issue in both departments. they may be separate and different laws have been broken, but i want to make sure that i can see each of your concerns. and i thank you.

and i'm looking forward to this as much more positive. i just want to tweak it the right way. thanks. >> thank you. any other member of the public wish to speak on this item? we'll close public comment. and we had a comment from commissioner pearlman. >> i was wondering if i could comment on -- i'm sorry i didn't get your name. [inaudible]. >> nancy, what you just said. i would encourage you to go to the building inspection commission because all of the way permits are processed, it's encouraged to do serial permitting. they encourage it because you apply for a site permit, then you apply for addendums, there are all these different piece he, you apply for electrical, you apply for plumbing. so, it's hard to blank the plumbing for, quote-unquote, taking advantage for something that is actually the process. so, i think it would be great for you to make similar comments at the building inspection commission. thank you. >> thank you. that will close that item.

>> commissioners moving on, item 8, case no. 2010.0641m is the 2013 recreation and open space element update. presentation, this is an action item. >> good afternoon, commissioner. sue [speaker not understood] with planning department staff. so, just back today to talk a little about the general plan again and sort of historic preservation policy that we see throughout the general plan, and then to provide some specific language. ~ sue exline and recommend some policies that could be included in the recreation open space limits and the action is if you want to take -- if you want to write

a letter that includes the policy language and recommends -- make those recommendationses to the planning commission. just kind of walk through all those steps together. just kind of a brief reminder about what we've done, where we've kind of been over the past 7 years and the outreach that we've done. we've met with -- started with the task force in 2007 of over 80 members on that task force. we've had a community meeting, over 22 community meeting in 2008, 2009. we produced the first draft in 2009 of the environment element. we got the review started in 2010, second review drafted in 2011. and then a number of these other meetings kind of took place throughout this whole period. we came to the planning commission. we came here last week -- sorry, two weeks ago, and we're going to the rec/park commission tomorrow.

so, the general plan again, it's a high level kind of guiding policy or vision document. it is -- it's often i think challenging to distinguish policy from code and to try to get really specific and want to get really detailed language and want to get a detailed definition for everything, every word that goes into the policy language. it's just not kind of the purpose of this document. i think it's hard to do that with code, part of having interpretations on the code. i think this is meant to sort of say this is kind of the direction that we want to go. so, it is i think one of the biggest challenges in trying to get a document like this produced, is trying to figure out that level of detail. so, i just wanted to briefly talk about the preservation policies that are in the general plan in other elements. you have these in your staff

report as well. but the housing element has a couple different policies. i do want to point out, too, i have -- if any member of the public are interested, i have the proposed policy language over here if you want to take a look at that while listening to the presentation. there's a couple elements -- sorry, couple policies in the housing element, policy in the housing safety element [speaker not understood]. and you can get a flavor of the types of policies and the level that we're talking about here. i'll just pick one out randomly. housing element, [speaker not understood],. foster development district, strengthen local culture, sense of place in history. this is kind of the style of the policies. which you probably -- most people are familiar with, you've probably seen these. i think they're urban design

developments to me has the most policies included in it. and there is kind of talk that maybe some of these policies would actually move into the preservation element because you mentioned last time that work will start in the next fiscal year. there is a draft preservation element. dusting that old draft off and starting a new process, [speaker not understood] so we'll be able to kind of really get into preservation specifically. so, this is the proposed language that we proposed, two new policies and a third policy that has sort of a bullet point kind of underneath it. it's technically a new policy, but the policy itself doesn't have the historic language included in the policy. then we just kind of walk through those. and again, it's the public as well, and it was in your packets. so, the first policy would be a new policy and objective one.

implement appropriate treatment to preserve significant [speaker not understood] features responding to contemporary needs. wait, i think i have the wrong one there. >> [speaker not understood]. >> recognize the value of historic -- that's my slide from last week. recognize the value of historic buildings and landscapes. so, do you guys have a copy of the letter? it's included in your -- yes. sorry about that. >> [speaker not understood] for the public, do you have that? yeah, let's check. >> yes, [speaker not understood]. okay. so, objective 1, recognize the value of historic landscapes.

and then policy 1.13, identify and preserve historic landscapeses, buildings, structures and objects within city parks, [speaker not understood] that may be a me it to alter, replace, or make changes to the features over time to accommodate new use he -- new needs or uses. and then i mentioned that the third policy is technically a new policy. there will be a new bullet point underneath that that is talking about historic preservation and about its appropriateness for reuse apart of an inherently sustainable strategy. so, this policy talks about sustainability and looks at the number of ways to be sustainable and one of the ways would be historic preservation, if that makes sense. so, finally, the adoption schedule. i mentioned that we initiated

the row in january 7th. sorry, january 9th. on february 20th we are going to the recreation and park commission just to have a informational hearing. and february 21st, all comments will be due to the department. so, kind of a number of moving deadlines on this, but we've gotten a lot of really great comments and we are in the process of revising those. but we're asked to extend the comment period to make sure it gets comments from this hearing and after this hearing. so, we're happy to do that. so, finally right now we're proposing a march 27th adoption date. this is kind of the first time we're publicly announcing that date and hoping that that will -- we haven't officially announce it had in any papers yet or anything. trying to make sure we get everything in line before that. that's our goal, targeted date. so, i'll switch it back to the

policies and let you provide any comments or public provide comments or however you want to do it. >> commissioner wolfram. >> i have a typo in 1.1 -- 1.12, 1.12. it should say in the second sentence, the value of these resource he should be celebrated because they provide an important link. the word "because" is missing there. all right, a, because, whatever you feel is best. ~ as, because, whatever you feel is best. >> okay. >> commissioner johnck. >> i have a question. the last 5 years or more, you've been words missing this -- well, it hasn't been continuous every week or anything like that, but so, really for five years there have been words missing to finally come up to this -- >> yes, 7 years actually. >> yes, right.

[multiple voices] >> this is a comment on the scope, where has this come from where it started? >> yeah -- >> trying to get a sense of this. i mean, they keep making changes as well, but i'll speak about those after the public [inaudible]. >> i think -- most people would say a lot has changed over the course of 7 years. some of the things we actually thought about in the beginning we've actually been able to do. one of this is a green connectionses project. you're familiar with that, the original idea was to set out the streets that kind of connect through open spaces and parks. and then throughout the process, we applied for a grant. we got the grant and we actually completed that [speaker not understood]. to give an example, one of the thing we're able to still do even though we haven't adopted this. i think a lot of value came out of the original ideas. but in term of changes that we've made, i think there was -- there's been a lot more

emphasis on recreation we heard. you'll hear both competing comments that people feel spaces need to be tranquil and spaces of sort of respite and escape from the city life and at the same time you'll hear people saying there should be recreation is a really big component of the city's system and it's important to include that. and make sure that we plan for that. so, we did kind of try to recognize the value of both, that there are spaces that should provide that respite as well. recreation is obviously a key component of our city's system. there's been a lot of discussion about maintenance of parks and the funding of that maintenance. a number of concerns, there were some ideas put forth and the element that are just sort of suggestions. i think there are some concerns about are we really going to do this or that, privatization. we tried to address and tried to get criteria for how that would be. i can keep going.

>> i was particularly interested -- for instance, on recreation, were you looking at those types of recreation as historic resource he and how they played out on the land? i guess that was what i was interested in, how the terminology has evolved about what's considered, you know, worthy of preservation and consideration within our realm in the parks. >> recreational facilities? >> either building or natural areas. i think recreation is a -- can be considered a historic resource in terms of how it's laid out in the parks, yeah. >> i can answer. we talk a lot about the preservation of open space and making sure that that -- the [speaker not understood] open space is preserved and there's a lot of strong statements about that. [multiple voices]

>> commissioner, just to clarify, prer vation staff, when evaluating park space or open space do look at how the park was used historically in terms of recreational actitsv. and there are a few locations where we know tennis was played for 150 years ~ and that could possibly contribute to its historic significance. and we do document that and call that out during either c-e-q-a analysis or through project analysis. >> okay, thank you, that's helpful. >> commissioner matsuda. >> thank you. thank you very much for your presentation. we received a number of comments from the rose comment group. have you had dialogue with them about their comments? >> yes, yes. they're one group, we had a couple hundred comments. you asked to see all our responses and we definitely like to provide that. we're still collecting them. we submitted a comment deadline. what we'd like to do is present

all of those comments and all the responses to [speaker not understood]. >> [speaker not understood]. >> on march 6 when we produce the final, we'll have responses to all the comments. >> this deadline is friday this week. >> for the comment planning -- >> and then i understand that this is just a directive, but i do think that we should probably consider more language that mirrors a lot of the language that are in the secretary of interior standards. when we talk about some of these policies, i'm just a little concerned when we talk about this new policy, 1.13 about necessity to alter, replace, or make other changes. i just think we should have some very solid foundational language when we talk about the treatment of historic resources he. and i would strongly recommend kind of going back to that and

maybe just tweaking some of the language here. >> i think specifically you might be saying rehabilitate. >> yes. >> that's not in there, the very specific stuff. >> um-hm. >> interesting, yeah. >> i would be much more careful with this language here to reflect what the secretary of interior standards are for terminology as well as the way in which certain thing are handled. >> i'm sorry, but [speaker not understood]. do you have a specific suggestion? or should i maybe talk to kim or -- >> sure, commissioners, if it's okay i can work with staff to develop some language, but ininterpreting your comments to mean something along the lines when making alterations to a historic resource there should be focus on [speaker not understood] defining features when adapting that to a new use. >> very nice. >> we have it recorded.

>> but i do actually wonder, then, thinking from what diane just said, commissioner matsuda just said, there's nothing in here that says there should be a goal to try to rehabilitate historic structures within the park just for the sake of rehabilitating them because they're starting to be poorly maintained or whatever. so, i wonder whether there isn't a goal that says it's related to this, maybe an additional park. to identify these historic featurers & consider whether there's new use he and it tear them down or whatever. it seem like we're on another goal which is identify the historic features, with the first objective should be to rehabilitate -- [multiple voices] >> i goxv to address what you're talking about. >> it is. but it seems like it's a little bit buried in there. it seem like there should be an objective to continue to preserve and rehabilitate. >> it's under 1.12, the first

one about is there something more we could put in that? ~ seem >> yeah, it could be that one. >> it's so [speaker not understood]. [multiple voices] >> i think your idea, is it there, kind of captured there, but it needs to be expanded on the first [speaker not understood]? >> i think it's true. i think there should be more language that it's objective to the rehabilitative features. not just identify. it identifies identify and preserve, but because there is so much focus in the second one about the new uses, it does seem like it gets a little lost. >> actually, it sounds like to me what we're doing is expanding on 12. but implementing some of the secretary of state language. >> in 13 that mr. frye mentioned. >> okay, yeah. commissioner hyland. >> thank you, sue, for putting this together. i did have some wordsmithing on this that i wanted to present

after public comment. so, if we're going to come back. >> yeah. so, why don't we do public comment. >> okay. >> so, members of the public? good afternoon, commissioners. my name is greg miller. i live in the sunset. i'm on the board of the neighborhood association speak. personally, i'm worried about proposed revisionses to the rose. they may weaken the commission's ability to protect the historic resources of golden gate park. the park is listed in national register of historic places as a prime example of a great naturalistic park land. the [speaker not understood] document clearly states the park's key historic feature is the overall design character of the park. how the environment is balanced between forests and meadows and lakelands to provide a balanced framework for active recreation and passive enjoyment of

nature. protecting such a large and complex resource and maintaining balance is no easy task. up to now you've been aided by the existence of two major city policy documents, the golden gate park master plan and the current row. the master plan is a product of several years of work by city agencies and many neighborhood organizations. it echoes the observations of the national register and implements a detailed policy that aims to protect the overall design integrity of the park. second, you have the existing rows, which although it's not totally a historic preservation document, has an unambiguous high priority on protecting the existing open space. the planning department now proposes to modify the rows by incorporating a great deal of language which effectively grants permission in many cases to build and develop an open space provided the project

proponent can put together a plausible list of advantages. the project language lackses key concepts and specific standard for making those decisions of balance and trade-off ~. the planners also propose that the existing master plan needs to be updated. there's no explanation of what that means. and i fear that without some more specific language of what needs to be updated and why, it could be a fishing license for simply gutting some of the key aspects of golden gate master plan. if we lose the park we love, it will not be because of a single decision. rather, it will be a death of a thousand cuts. we have always faced a long list of specific projects to provide a vital new service or to accommodate the passions of the moment. judged in isolation, there will seem to be enough room after all the park is 1,000 acres. but without a clear policy, with an overarching vision of what we're trying to protect, we will slowly witness our

treasure melt away. as you review the proposed rows revision, ask yourselves if the resulting city policy will provide sufficient clarity, base i and overall vision to help you protect our treasured resource. thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon again, commissioners. kathrin howard, golden gate park preservation alliance. we look forward to hearing the planning department's comments on everything that the rows comment group submitted and i thank you for that request. the rows should have a [speaker not understood] for our parks and open space and it should have a viewpoint for 186 rows did fulfill its vision. ~ 1986 for san francisco's historic legacy, the rows should have a strong preservation vision. in a city where a small site can bring in [speaker not

understood] profits, [speaker not understood]. we have a rich heritage due to our historic buildings as part of that heritage. the view that parks must change with the times may sound reasonable, but for our landscapes it is a dangerous concept to carve in stone in a policy document. for cultural landscapes strong protectionses are very important [speaker not understood] the public for most of the elected body is familiar with [speaker not understood] and cultural landscapes. i appreciate commissioner matsuda [speaker not understood] suggesting incorporating the secretary of the tier yore standpoint of the rows. that is an excellent [speaker not understood] and i'd like to see that in detail. concerns with what planning has started, in terms of language, it's a good start, but it's a little vague. the word necessity in 1.12 is not really defined. and to accommodate new use or

uses, a you said, you know, that's not historic preservation. that's really letting things go to whatever is the popular thing at the moment. the other one, 1.13 talks about public benefits provided by the proposed project. the word public benefits is very disturbing and it is talked about in the 1986 rows where they talk about the concept that you're always going to have somebody with a great idea that's going to benefit everybody but you really have to balance that, and even more than balance it against the preservation of the area. and i am hoping that we can have stronger language because, as i said, preservation is always fighting, we're always playing catch up, we're always fighting against thing. i hope you will encourage reading the language piecemeal updating the golden gate park master plan. i wanted to quote from the national register. it's important to view golden gate park as a whole. golden gate park was developed over many years, but it was

conceived as a single creation that we now consider an historic designed landscape. and this is what we need to protect for future generations. i'm going to submit again. i know you've seen it, my comment letter on suggested language on buildings and protecting the golden gate park master plan. and i thank you very much for having this hearing. >> thank you. i did receive a speaker card from ms. de ray smith, and then ms. war sol. ~ good afternoon, commissioners, my name is desiree smith [speaker not understood]. thank you for continuing this item from the last hpc meeting. we have a few additional comments that we'd like share with you today. san francisco's parks and open spaces contain countless of resources that are highly significant to t