an estimate of how much that will cost in the next week or so, then we'll also have a better idea how long it would take them. my understanding right now is there is a small gap in their schedule so if we're able to engage with them quickly they could get this done in a fairly short amount of time. so that's the good news. right now, though, we're talking about the cost associated with it and then also we've exchanged some emails with mr. hasz who, as you know from the last hearing, has a huge amount of research available that we think could be very beneficial for the consultant in expediting the completion of this work. so, with that, and pending any of your comments or questions or those from the public i would recommend or request that you continue this item to a december hearing, either the first or

second hearing in december. by then we certainly will have a plan and if we are able to engage -- if we have the funds and we are able to engage the consultant, we won't wait until december to do that, we'll do that now, but we'll have something more meaningful to report to you by the end of the year. >> commissioner johns. >> thank you. when you discuss the items of cost with the consultants may i suggest you consider pointing out to them that part of the basis upon which they were hired was the an tits paition that they would do a good job and with a plethora of factual errors in the report, one could argue that they ought to be correcting their mistakes but not on the city's budget. >> any other xhepbtds at this time from the commission? >> just a matter of process

and then a comment. so when i received the agenda and i looked at the regular calendar and see civic center cultural landscape inventory then i go down to preliminary recommendation, adopt, so i'm scrambling around looking for a new motion or another recommendation and i thought that i had misplaced it. so i was concerned about that. i suppose i could have called or emailed saying did i misplace it or whatever. so i guess because it says adopt, so we're not -- basically continuing the hearing, which i think is good and i highly support the recommendation to continue. so that would have been better phraseology for me. i wouldn't tear my hair out. >> so noted, i will make sure to address that in the future, thank you. >> then the other point that i want to

make, i guess i thought that this, what we're really talking about here is an inventory and what the attempt was, was to put a whole lot more into it in the form of a cultural landscape report, which those kinds of things i think are wonderful, but i think all we were really aiming to accomplish was an inventory. so i would prefer when we look at cost or whatever that we stick to the inventory for now. it's more managable. >> that's a great comment and i appreciate you making those comments, commissioner johnck, because it is in fact an inventory, and to respond to commissioner john's comments just as a matter of clarification, we agree there are errors in the report. it was outside the scope of this project to address those errors. those errors were not made by this consultant, they were made by the folks who did

the historic register so they were solely relying on existing information that they believed was factual. if there is a need to go beyond, as commissioner johnck stated correctly the inventory to fully document the history we're certainly able to do that and we welcome that, given the direction of this commission. but it will, as you know, cost a little bit more in terms of resources and we'll certainly be able to report to you on that once we have something from the consultant and, again, you know, with mr. hasz' supplying us his footnotes and his source data will tremendously speed up the process for us. >> commissioner, i see no other xhepts at this time. i will open up public comment. any member of the public wish to comment? seeing none, close public comment and bring it back to the commission. >> i move to continue this item to the

first or second -- is there a precedent? december 3rd, that's fine. move to continue to december 3rd. >> second. >> thank you. >> on that motion, commissioners to continue item 8 to december 3rd, commissioner hyland, yes. commissioner johnck, yes. commissioner john, yes. commissioner matsuda, yes. commissioner pearlman, yes. commissioner hasz, yes. item 9, landmark informational presentation. >> good afternoon, commissioners, tim fry here on behalf of mary brown. included in your packets was a memo and the most recent report on

your landmark designation program. this is really just an opportunity for us to discuss in a much more detailed format your work program, but also the format of the report, the performance measures we've created that i think will address some of your comments you made during the planning phase of our most recent budget cycle. so, with that, i'm going to quickly walk through just a couple components of this memo and then certainly open for discussion or to answer questions, however you think is the best use of this time. to start out with, i did want to point out on the first page our survey and designations team has been working very hard to wrap up some of the

lingers designations we have on file and as you can see, we're going to have a number of local designations that are going to come forward in the next several months. so i hope this will give you a better understanding of what you are likely to see in the pipeline. there's a couple extra steps that we still need to take to finalize these to bring them to hearing but we're certainly committing to these dates to bring these items before you. one that i wanted to point out is that the december 17th hearing you'll see there will be discussing a new article 10 application form. if you recall, section 1004.1 of the code when we were talking about the code amendments so long ago, the commissioner decided to defer developing criteria for reviewing landmark designations or proposed landmark designations until

such a time that this commission could really sit down and figure out what those steps are and what kind of information you'd like to see. so based on the previous landmark application form and what we've heard at the commission over the last couple years we're going to create a new form, this is a form for the public to fill out so they are -- it's much easier for them to submit nominations to this commission in the future. right now we've been doing it kind of on an ad hoc basis where it's a much more informal thing where we ask them to provide info, we bring that info to you. now this will have a more structured format and we'll have that application ready for you by the end of the year. you'll also see that there's a couple landmark initiations that are part of your work program. there's a couple that are community initiated. things seem to be moving at a good rate on those community initiated

designations so we think this schedule's realistic. the last item, new era hall, as you recall we gave you the completed d designation report. we're still talking to the property owner. it's at the discretion of the commission and we'll let the property owner know if you wish. the performance measures that begin on page 2 and continue on to 3, i mentioned these earlier in the summer, but this is the first quarter where we actually have data to show you. again, there's 4 performance measures, these measures will change over time. the first is a goal to prepare landmark designations and the whole process within 150 staff hours and you'll see in one of the apen deeses in

the report which ones are over, which ones are still on track. we think this is an adequate performance measure given that we've spend from 100 hours on a landmark designation up to 200 hours. this is just for individual landmarks. as you remember, the bose park which had over 90 properties was well over 500 hours but that's to be expected when you have a large area that requires a large number of community meetings and engagement. the second performance measure was with regard to the application which we'll have at the end of the year for you. this is, again, just a performance measure to keep us on track and make sure we get to you by the end of the year. we can always revisit or change this performance measure after it's been achieved. the third is base order that application is a commitment to bring those applications to you within 30

calendar days so they are not languishing in our office or there aren't any other issues that we have to divert our attention to. we're still bringing those to you in a timely manner so you can respond and decide whether or not to include them on your work program. and then the last performance measure is because there's a lot of time that it takes us to prepare these reports because we're providing you more data instead of doing a quarterly report, we're suggesting that we give you a report every six months. we can certainly do it more often or at the discretion of the commission, but we thought six months was reasonable, given that we are collecting more data and supplying you with more data at the time of the report. the next section of the memo outlines the landmark designation process in a very simple fashion, but i shared this with president hasz and vice

president wolfram at one of our last meetings and they thought it was very helpful and that we should include it in the memo to really give the full commission an idea of all the steps it takes to bring something through the landmark designation process. so this essentially is what we've translated into the new graphic that you'll see on the progress report, which we'll talk about in a second. so the current landmark work program then begins on page 5 and this is largely the same information that we've provided you in the past. what we've done here, though, is really two things. one, we're trying to provide you more accurate and up to date information as to the status of these designations and we're doing that not only through the narrative of the completed tasks, which we're fleshing out a little more than we have in the past, but this graphic that shows you all the steps. you'll see that

some, it appears the landmarks report is almost done, some it appears we've done a little bit. that green bar that i'm talking about now is the result of a couple things. one it could be that staff is working on the report actively. two, it could be that it was an intern project and we have a designation report completed by an intern but preservation staff has to thoroughly vet that report and make sure everything is accurate. the other scenario could be that the property was part of a survey so we have a dpr a or b form so it has some of the initial research that we need but it doesn't have the full-fledged narrative report that's required. so what you'll see for active cases is the first few are the ones that i would say are in the close estate of completion, then we move on to active cases which have been owner or

community initiated and that includes the rube goldberg building, which we've discussed at a couple meetings, 149 9th street which is a change in article designation. 2 henry adams is still on here. if the commission wishes we could pull it off of the work program but that's entirely at your discretion and we defer to you, so for right now it's documented as part of your work program. and then they go on and you'll see that they are all the same properties that we've discussed before, including those we identified as part of the transit center district plan that was added during the adoption of that plan and also the three properties we identified as part of the jay chess. and then just the last item i

wanted to point out as part of the landmark designation report, there is a formula that helps us pick which one to work on first rather than another. it's really about the access to data, the responsiveness of the property owner, and i would say just an overall sense of urgency perhaps like the rube goldberg building, as you indicated you'd like us to work on that and we know that is changing ownership and is going to be converted so that seemed to be a more urgent case for us to work on rather than another one that may be in the pipeline. if there are any of these that you would prefer us to work on sooner rather than later, we're certainly amenable to those suggestions. and then the performance measures are

the first attachment and again i'm not going to go through this line by line, but it is, i believe, self-explanatory. certainly happy to address any specific questions you may have about any of these designations that are currently on file. and then the last portion of the report you'll recognize from the summer, this is the memo we put together for the three community initiated designations that we most recently discussed, the goldberg building, the old -- university mound old ladies home and the lang house. as you know, we're actively working with the consultant on the goldberg building, but the other two we have not received any direction on to date. so, with that, that concludes my comments. again, happy to discuss this in any way you think is most effective. that's it. >> thank you very much. and

mr. fry i will say thank you for including that whole process and that graphic really is very, very helpful. >> i agree. >> what a great change. thank you. commissioner matsuda. >> yes, i totally agree. i like this temperature bar, color bar, to let us know very clearly where you're at. i also like just a very simple 1, 2, 3 approach about how a building becomes a landmark. is that going to be, is that already on your web site or will that be on your web site? i think that will allow people who have kind of a, maybe, a fear, i don't know how to describe it, they are a little mystified by how a building becomes a landmark or if they want to take that route, i think this will really clarify a lot

of misconceptions or myths that are out there about, you know, the process and what it takes and it just makes it seem like it's a very do-able thing and hopefully will encourage others to consider it. so i really like that and would strongly encourage that that be placed as soon as possible. just the whole thing of this chart here on the designations and being able to figure out when it was introduced and where you are at in terms of the hours billed and the remaining gives a really good indication about what needs to be done. so thank you very much. >> uh-huh. >> commissioner pearlman. >> yeah, thank you very much. this is, in my year and a half here this is, to me, the simplest, most

straightforward, clearest document that i've ever seen from the planning department. i mean it really helped me a lot because, i mean, i know the basic steps but having the list was great and i concur on the bars, the color bars. i think all of that, you know, was really excellent. i did have just one question on your performance policies about the fourth one about doing this every six months. i get it that there's a lot of data, but now you actually have a data base that's already built, so it seems like anybody working on any one of these projects would just be putting the information in. if i spend 5 hours on it i'm going to put it right into the data base, on this document, which i presume resides with the staff and it could easily be produced every three months. it didn't seem like there was any additional work because six months seems like a very long time. half a year seems like a long time for us not

to have any idea --. >> it was just a suggestion. but you are correct, we have standardized a lot of this so we can just run a report and we may have to tweak a few things just to provide some clarification, but if the commission would like to see this quarterly we're certainly amenable to that. again, we just thought because it's so much data to absorb at one time maybe six months made more sense than 3 or 4 months. >> i think we all absorbed it really quickly. >> that's good. >> when you have a data format it's not that hard to print a report. >> that's true. okay. >> i, for one, would like to see it quarterly as we've had it before. that's great. >> commissioner johnck. >> i congratulate you, it's a great report and echo the previous comments. as i was looking this over, what i was interested in as a fairly new commissioner is thinking about what are the gaps, what's missing? and

so i was interested to read preservation bulletin no. 19, potential san francisco landmarks evaluation form, which apparently was adopted in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2000, identifying priorities as far as themes or what we're trying to accomplish with categories of landmarks. and i wondered if you are continuing to use that, is this -- this looked like it was helpful. well, it's 2014 so it's 14 years old. is there anything we're doing now or need to do now particularly in the context of developing recommendations for the preservation element of the san francisco general plan whether this needs to be updated? but at least this i thought was the most helpful type of thing as far as what i was interested in, what's missing. could staff comment on that? >> commissioner, that's a

great comment. as a refresher to all of us, we use that bulletin but we also use, i'm going to say it was 3 years ago, 4 years ago now, the commission identified a couple other priorities. one i recall being properties that were significant for criteria other than architecture, looking at more significant events, significant persons. i think also trying to steer more towards the cultural heritage aspects of designation. the second was modern resources. if you look at our overall designation program it is lacking in terms of properties constructed or designed during the modern era. and then the third that i recall, and i feel like i'm missing one, but the third that i recall is focusing on areas that may seem to be underserved by

landmarks, meaning they are neighborhoods where we don't have a lot of designations but there are certainly important places or buildings to the community and that's been part of our most recent outreach and our method of conducting community meetings in those areas is always to ask that question, you know, what's important in your neighborhood? is there anything, whether it's a visual landmark or someplace you used to frequent, that you think is an important aspect of your community that deserves protection. so that's one way we go about gathering that sort of information. but if there's anything else that the commission feels we should add to that priority list, for lack of a better word, we could certainly do that. i didn't include that memo in

here because i believe you all have a copy or we've circulated a couple copies of it, but i guess the one final question that i just want to reiterate because i don't want it to get lost is if there's any direction the commission would like to give us on the actual work program in terms of either removing properties, adding properties, prioritizing properties, i know staff would appreciate some of that direction because, again, as you know we're working on them as fast as we can but it all depends on a lot of factors that are out of our control. >> thank you. >> commissioner johns. >> one, i'd like to add my voice to the general comments about how helpful this was. as to whether it should be updated every six months or quarterly, this may be a technical computer type -- if the information is being added to the data base can't this be made available online so it would always be up to date? >> part of it will be available online with our new permit tracking system. so we could check in with you

and at least show the commission how to get access to the information at any time, but that's a great point. maybe we could do both, we could show you how you as commissioners can access it at any time with the public or we could do this on a quarterly basis. >> if you could, i think that would be a good idea. as for your request for things that can be perhaps put on the back burner or deleted, it seems that the time for 2 henry adams has come and gone. so that i would suggest should not be given much attention until there are other developments. >> commissioner hyland. >> i'd like to congratulate you as well on the excellence of the report. it was very clear. >> interesting. >> hallelujah.

>> mary francis did a great job. >> i did have a couple thoughts. one was on priorities, any community-initiated landmark designation should, in my opinion, go to the top because it can really leverage the resources of those volunteers who really think it's important and you want to capture their momentum while they have it. so the community ones that you've identified, the rube goldberg building. we did talk before about resources and we have requested and additional full-time head count in the budget that was denied and i question for you, help me remember, we have one current full-time head count to be distributed amongst multiple staffs currently in the budget for this program? >> yes. that's sort of the

short easy answer. the good news is because, again, we have a backlog that we're dealing with we are hiring another preservation planner by the end of this month and then the good news is if we are able -- when we're able to do that, jonathan (inaudible) who is now on the preservation team, is dividing his time between ceqa and preservation work. he was working on a half time already but it will be solely for designation and survey. that said, we still have grant-related surveys that we're working on as well as other initiatives so it may not be solely designation work but it will, it does account for additional work hours that we can devote towards the work program.

>> i wonder if adding another metric of how much time this full-time head count was actually utilized? because i know the department, your staff as a whole is understaffed and has many different priorities and distractions or important things that come up all the time and i'm coming up on two years now and there hasn't been that much progress on the commission-initiated landmarks. so i'd like to at least keep track of are we putting the time in that we've had actually committed to it. so that's one metric. then as far as the 3 months, i would actually like to see it more often than 3 months. i know it requires you to prepare more for a hearing but if you are reporting back more often then it kind of keeps it in site. six

months is way too long. three months to me up to now has been minimal, so i would actually consider maybe every 6 weeks or every third hearing or something just as an update. >> okay. >> commissioner pearlman. >> tim, i had a question about projects like 2 henry adams where that was community initiated, in big quotes, and now of course is sort of tabled. i assume that the owner is not interested now in moving forward, which certainly reveals their intent of the whole process, but we have all this great information and it is a building that we all thought should be landmarked. so, i mean, does that forever live in limbo unless the owner wants to do something? i mean what do we do with that now? >> i mean, technically,

supervisor cohen can revive the designation at the land use committee and move it forward to the full board if they decided -- there's nothing that requires consent of the property owner to designate a local property. if there was enough momentum they could still designate the property if they saw fit. that said, the designation report and the information and research that we've gathered is still, would be an active part of our data base. so i feel like we have enough information to respond to uets -- either current or future changes to the property in a very knowledgeable way, knowing what's best for the building. if this commission would like to do something with that designation report, certainly look into options. i mean, one thing to consider is we are moving to a system with the new web site where we are going to