about 10 different elements. the preservation element will be one of those. once it's adopted and as you know these elements are high level visionary best practices sort of document where every decision the department or commissions make or any part of the city of the family makes has to refer back to the general plan and weigh and balance all the priorities and objectives of this plan with every decision they make. so the goal would be to take some of the policies that are already included in the urban design element, the public safety element that refer to preservation and we can flesh most of those policy out here in a more robust manner with the historic preservation element. this slide here i thought was useful to again give you some idea, the variety of different documents that are guiding planning

department and commission review on a day to day basis where i generally like in the general plan to the secretary of the interior planners they are a great mark to work with. they are regulatory. we have to achieve compliance with these philosophical frame works and they don't get into that level of detail when we interpret the secretary of interior standards and when we are reviewing the project for compliance with the residential design guidelines. i just wanted to again review a couple policies that are already in the existing elements. these were included in your packets as well and i want to share with our review of the recollection and open space element. for the public we have several policies in the housing element. a policy in the commerce and industry

element. the majority of them i would say we use them on a regular basis and for approval for permits are here in the urban design element. and as you know these are the policies we all agreed on during our discussions about the recreation in open space element and in particular preservation of landscapes, character defining features and then acknowledging the inherent sustainable practice of preservation as a green building mechanism. so the preservation element that we have today is broken down into nine different areas. again, knowing what we have through identification documentation, preserving and protecting, making an effort to either landmark those properties or make sure those properties are around for futuren enjoyment,

three references and provide some guidance purely on archeological resources which you know the city has an abundance of. four is about application the standards. five is about the professional qualifications of not only this commission but department staff. six is on incentives whether processed or financial based incentives. seven is education and public awareness and i would go a step further that we should probably add something here about public engagement. and 8 is sustain ability and 9 disaster preparedness. we wanted to start the discussion. the citywide division has looked at the document, preservation staff looked at the document. we feel there are some opportunities to refine some of the language here. with

one in terms of usability. we have in place in parts of our program as they were several years ago, the preamble and some of the introduction could be stream lined considerably, this was a background that is better served in a statewide context and not necessarily as a general plan. applicant standard, we'll probably fine tune these policies. public education and awareness. we've made a lot of improvements in our outreach procedures and i think it's right to memorialize them in this document. sustainability policies, the same thing. we have a very different understanding of the role between preservation and sustainable building practices that could be reflected in

the element. there are, 5, i think are some of the bigger ones. there are very broad ranges to ceqa in the element while it's appropriate to reference ceqa, there is direct references to ceqa status that we have no control over that could change from year to year. there is also, i feel a general tone of relying on ceqa as a preservation alone rather than relying on the preservation plan as our guiding principles how we want to move from it's preservation program and we would move away from the ceqa programming and go with our own with how we want to preserve san francisco. 6, some policy direction on visibility improvement and cultural heritage. we made a

lot of great strides with the japan town and hs initiative and cultural and social heritage initiative in west soma. there is plenty of document that could help influences from and really promote those parts of our heritage that aren't really part of the brick and mortar of the city. and also ada, this commission adopted a policy on how to review accessibility changes to provide accessibility in landmark buildings especially when those properties are city owned. that could be reflected as a policy in the element as well. so, again, there may be others, but this is again to start the discussion. we may not have time to address all of these today, but we certainly can come back to you over several hears and discuss these in more detail. and here this is the final slide. it's

just to give you a rough estimate of what we think the schedule can be or should be. again we have some time i think through the summer to revisit this document with you and of some broader discussions. at that time we also want to develop a public participation plan if we are going to make big changes here we want to bring this back to the public and let everybody who has review it in the past have another bite at it to give us as much feedback as possible. by the winter we can engage in that public participation plan and we will hope fully have your comments and what we can entertain in a public forum. and in 2013-2014 we'll complete the ceqa review. we'll definitely have to start ceqa this fall and winter to get the process moving because it takes a lot

of time to provide that analysis. by spring and summer we have the ceqa review complete. that means we can come back to you with the final draft document. summer of 2015 and as you know, this commission will be endorsing the element and then it will go to the planning commission for actual adoption. after that it will go to the board of supervisors where a board doesn't have authority to modify an element, but they will sort of endorse it and say yay! or nay to the document. the decision making body will be the planning commission for the document and that begs a broader question if the commission want to have a more robust dialogue. that concludes my comments. i'm happy to take back any suggestions that you have at this time or we can

schedule a hearing in the future. thank you. >> thank you. i just think it would be adviceable because it is a big document maybe we can chop it up into parts and hear it over. >> absolutely. >> mr. fry, what would be a good way to segment this? >> since there is 9 basic sections to the document, we could break them into chunks of three over the course over three different hearings maybe one a month over the summer and come back to you with staff recommendations on rewording on policies and that helps pace the work on the staff's side as well. we can take 3 objectives at a time and bring them for your review. >> commissioners? consensus on that? >> i think that's great idea.

>> thank you. i do think that things have changed in the sense of are pushed towards the cultural heritage and approvals of late. even in the preamble. i have started doing rewording of the preamble because of the landscape and the built environment and i think we should add that to the very beginning. do we want to just consider it the next time to go over the three and your recommended alteration? >> if you are okay with this, i would recommend the first hearing we have or the next hearing we have on the next three be in june because i know may is a full calendar for you. so, perhaps the second hearing in june we would start and come to the second hearing in july because the 1st one in july is normally canceled and we have

one in august. >> commissioners, we good with that? >> yes. >> that's good because i won't be here on the 21st of may. >> okay. thank you. >> can i ask a question? the powerpoint that you just shared with us, is that in our packet? >> it is not? >> can you make that available to us because i like the layout and the priority and the captions. i think i would like to comment from there and reflect back to this. another request is i would like at least a week or week and a half to review any materials before we actually have the discussion. i did make a ton and i'm sure commissioner hasz has a ton of notes about where we would like to make some suggested edit. >> okay. we can certainly send this to you in advance or with a longer lead time. >> thank you. commissioner highland? >> this is a question for mr.

fry. the process of approving the elements in the general plan is that all under the purview of the planning commission? >> to my knowledge, yes. >> that's why this particular element is only here for our endorsement then? >> that's correct. as for one of the guiding documents of this body, i feel it definitely makes sense for us to spend a lot of time on it. that's why we are here today. >> did it change anything that it's the landmark's advisory board and now it doesn't change anything oovm that's correct. in terms of the general plan, it remains the same. >> commissioner johnck? >> i want to comment and ask the question. i appreciate your presentation and seeing the nesting of all these elements. i guess, i think we've been very sensitized during the discussion of the

park and the discussion of the national heritage which is part of the natural hetero -- heritage. i will be commenting on how that is reflected. >> okay. thank you. >> any public comment on this item? >> i'm desiree smith with san francisco heritage. first we are very excited that this is for the element moving forward and look forward to working with the hpc and with planning department staff through its adoption. with that said our board most specifically our issues policy committee has reviewed the draft and they do have significant reservations and concerns about the

current status and direction of the draft as currently written on many of the same concerns raised by the planning department were raised by our issues policy committee. but we are encouraged that the planning department recognizes the need for policy regarding the need for social and cultural and social sources and working a lot on projects related to social and cultural heritage throughout our city concern the san diego's living history and the title and we have with restaurant projects and many latinos heritage activity and we would like to work with the city for drafting specific language for this policy. secondly, some of the sections of the report we found difficult to read. we think

that this element should be approachable and it's currently written is not very approachable. the organizational structure could be approved. the document jumps from topic to topic and doesn't have transition. in many of the existing sections can be used but we think that perhaps the department should setback and look at the outline, start with the outline and then move from there. lastly we believe that the section title relation to land use planning on page 7 is a key section. it's too short as currently written. item such as the residential design guidelines, garage guidelines, window guidelines are all documents of preservation components that are used daily in the planning process that are not mentioned in the draft given the larger role of that preservation plays in general planning processes in the city. we believe this section in particular should be given

more attention. we do have many other comments that i think we can follow up in writing and i will speak with staff in terms of when the time best time for that is. thank you. >> thank you. seeing we have no other public. we'll close public comment. and informational, any other comments from commissioners? no. we'll close this item. >> commissioners that will take us back to item 7. your rules and regulations consideration of proposed amendment. commissioners today i just want to clarify it's not intended for you to adopt any revisions to your rules and regulations, but as an opening segment to consider proposed modifications and for you to have a dialogue on them. your rules and regulations haven't been updated since august of 2011. i thought it would be good to

improve specifically your appendix a section by adding a submittals and hearing section that would clarify my understanding has been the commission's desire to really put the public on notice that submitting things on the day of the hearing makes it very difficult for you to consider it for an item on that particular date. what doesn't appear on your draft or proposed rules and regulations are specific hearings specifically request for hearing and request for review and comment. my recommendation would be for a 5-minute presentation and the public provided a 3-minute public comment hearing. >> thank you. commissioners?

commissioner john? >> i think the commissioners by the secretary is extremely timely and thoughtful. i went over appendix a and thought about it and what i did was i redrafted it in a way that i felt that i could pass out. i think i do have enough so i can give you one too. if i don't, then somebody could look on. what i tried to do was take the essence of what was suggested, we work it. there was one part that seemed to really have to do with the planning commission. so i just drew lines through that. for

example, a in submittals, i thought it was more clear to say correspondence submitted must be given to the secretary no later than a day before the hearing. >> so that's the kind of thing that i tried to do. and so, since we are not going to be making any decisions on this today, you might take a look at this and certainly these could probably be approved or maybe people would prefer to go back to the earlier version. >> thank you. >> i have a few potential ones here. when we go to article 4, talking about arc, 4th line.

the purpose of the architectural review cheat -- committee is to provide early review and advice on design. i think, "advice" might be tough because we are really providing direction. "review" right. but we are also giving direction and not advice and not to the applicant but to the staff. so there is that one. and then also we also comment occasionally, i believe. if i can hear from arc members on this one. on the history. i would like if we have interpretive display would be good to talk about at that time. right? so some kind of language to that effect talking about it. add

that. as a direction, right. then continuing on that section, "building materials and construction techniques" prior to presenting would be added to the whole historic preservation commission. it just gives definition of what the arc does. on the next page section 6, attendance at a meeting. this gets into if any member misses three consecutive uncommunicated it would seem to me that number would get lower. if someone is missing two, what's going on and how many commissioners can miss in a calendar year without saying to the mayor we have somebody who is not able to make it. >> what's an uncommunicated? >> just not showing up.

>> so clearly commissioners you are all very conscious of notifying me and commission president and vice-president when you are absent. that wouldn't be considered uncommunicated absence. the mayor also requires me to provide him with an attendance record and the hearings that you have attended and hearings that you have been absent and came in late and early on. all of those are provided. >> just something to think about when you want to finalize this. and on the very last page, page 7. under appendix a and getting into item i, this gets into time limits and adjusting time

limits. let's say we have a controversial item and in the rules we don't, i would like to define it that we can take it down as needed to 2 minutes or to whatever. because it really isn't defined in here. >> are we doing 2 minutes? >> we have done three. we are doing it on occasion. i think northeast library. we took it down to 2 minutes, even a minute. we really cut it down. i would like to define that a little bit better. significant request for public comment or even to extend time would be the other, right? if we want to extend a sponsors time. >> i think it would be helpful to mention some of that because sometimes the project might be so complicated that 10 minutes is not enough. >> right, i think we want to talk about extensions as well.

>> the way this is drafted is very general. it afterwards the chair to limit any kind of time limit in terms of expanding or reducing. >> i would like to clarify for the public's good. right? >> you have the authority to do that. >> right. so the public understand we may take their public time down. >> you can say may reduce or extend. >> yeah. >> i can say reduce or extend for some period. >> then my last one we spoke about before which will most likely be relevant again this january because there is three commissioners that are up and we may or may not get reappointed and the officers election until all the seats

are filled. i propose two changes, on the current line, the commissioner held after the first day. i think we agreed on march previously before everyone got sat. the first meeting of march rather than after the first day of march which is called the first meeting. >> unless of course the appointments are made early. >> that's right. >> yeah, but it's going to be a meeting or two. so march is a safe one and we don't have to extend it or anything. >> then with the term of the officers be from march to march? >> yeah. right? >> i would be fine with the way it is. it is just elect. you can still extend whoever is the president until you

have the seated appointments. >> the only issue becomes when, because the term expiration dates are the end of the year. so december 31st technically is the end of someone's term. they can be seated longer, but if for whatever reason they are not seated longer you have a situation where there is a vacated seat or which there is no president. you can handle in multiple ways. you can elect a chair for each meeting until. >> i believe the notion is that everybody on the commission or will be on the commission has the ability to vote for the officers. >> that is what is attempted. >> right so we don't go through like last time as brought up every time and we have the carry over. >> we can add language where it's says they are all

members are present. >> what if one, what if there is one that doesn't get approved and somebody else has to get renominated and go through the process. that can go on an on. >> i know when i was on the commission, charles was already president and the three of us didn't get to decide. it's not unusual. >> that is an instance where midterm for whatever reason there is a vacancy and there is an appointment midterm. you walk into an existing situation. again, these are your rules and regulations. >> yeah, so let's punt this one so we see it again. think about it because there is no reason we have to change it at all. >> right. >> we can say first meeting of march or sooner if vacancies are filled.

>> yeah, something to that effect. >> commissioners, any other comments, questions? >> i had a comment and maybe the arc could comment on my comment. for understand section one for the arc, if we can maybe add a section that projects come back. i know that comes to the arc once but rarely does it come back again and again. i specifically remember apple and that was a pretty complicated project and it would have been better if i think the project came back to the arc rather than amen -- apple coming back to us. maybe leaving that option open that it can come back several times or as needed or as

determined by the arc. >> the suggestion would be the arc prior to releasing the project could request that it come back before them again ? >> yeah. >> i think that's a great idea. >> under article 3 duties office duties of the secretary. it doesn't happen often but i would like to make sure the secretary helps with the process when the commissioner is asking for data, background data that the substantive that there is some kind of procedure where the secretary kind of checks in with whoever the planning staff is to get, so we know we can get the material on time rather than going directly to a planning staff person to make sure there is some follow through on the part of the secretary. i think that is reasonable to be required under the secretary's position. and then under

article 5, meeting section 3, when it's a special meeting, at least 24 hours, i think you need more time than at least 24 hours there. i'm not sure how much, but i think something. and i agree with the submittals under section 12. i kind of get eshgd when people submit it. some people don't know about our hearing until an hour before and they have some relevant information they need to share with us. >> quickly commissioner matsuda, the new submittal requirement would not prevent anyone from submitting information. >> maybe we can use more encouraging words. encra