to manage initiate landmark designation of the r l gold bergberg building. >> as mentioned the consideration for the landmark consideration of the l goldberg building on gough street in san francisco. the building is located in the heys valley. this is a regularly scheduled hearing.

the draft landmark designation report was prepared by senior historian on behalf of the requesters jackie nail or and upton. the building constructed in 1911 is under historical building. adding weight to its significance is the retention of three extraordinarily rare storefront. the building was designed by bear demand joseph. the building is constructed by the pulitzer prize winning cartoonist

ruben goldberg. the building may have tangent recognition. the landmark states this interior building retains a high point of integrity. staff concur that they do appear to be original features. however historically private interior spaces they do not appear eligible for landmark designations. currently there is no known designation of the building. from the neighborhood valley association in support of the item. however the property owner, kenneth hersh has expressed this building not be designated. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions.

>> no questions. so we will open this up for public comment. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment -- thank you very much. jackie nay lor, i live in the building. it's exciting to be here. i want to thank you so much and i spoke with jennifer george, ruben goldberg's granddaughter. she wishes she could be here. she's in new york. she thanks you for considering here grandfather's building for resignation. every building in hopes of being landmarked has demolished. we ask the commission preserve the building landmark status for architectural and association

with rue goldberg preserving both interior features of this building. we are hoping that at some future date this might house the rue goldberg museum. i want to introduce edward yarbrough. >> so, i first wanted to speak a little bit about rue goldberg association and the difficulty we had to make it a concrete association but lots of circumstantial evidence. rue 's father max raised the family at the house on laguna street after rue's mother passed away when the children were quite young. the house was a center of life for the police department, fire definite, -- department, the fire

commissioner and police commissioners and fire marshall. the house always had a sense andrew speaks about this in his writing, a sense of, there were poker games, artist, policemen, firemen were made up of a lot of the crowd. so it's not surprising to me that as we see in the directory in 1915 and early 20th century, the primary residence are firemen, musicians, living in these two very large flats and then when the chronicle reports as i was showing at the landmark designation report that rue would come back from his primary residence in new york and stay in san francisco at his hometown, he would tell his grand daughter jennifer george bedtime

stories what she thought was this fantasy world of putting a building with his name in the cornice as there is it says rl goldberg building. that's how he dreamed of how he had a building with his name in the cornice that is part of reconstructing san francisco after the earthquake and he told her what it was like being in the earthquake in san francisco. this association is a clear reflection of this building. unfortunately about three or 4 months before this process started, the

90-year-old late aunt or nieces of rue gold berg passed away. if we had been able to get an oral report that would have given us more ground. >> thank you. >> next speaker? >> good afternoon, commissioners, beverly upton. i'm so happy to be here thop -- on this day. thank you very much. i hope to advance your approval for our hope for the status of the building. i wanted to thank you for your wonderful report and this love for our building. i want to thank jackie for all of her hard work and jennifer george. for

bringing rue's memory alive to all of us. to london breed, our supervisor and valley brown who told us how to get to the planning commission. and of course the man himself rue goldberg, we learned so much about him and we are honored to live in his building for 25 years. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner pearlman? >> are you okay? >> i was in a meeting yesterday and three times during the meeting someone in the meeting referred to rue goldberg devices they had created and i was able to tell them about the hearing today and what that spoke to me was the power of this man from san

francisco who, you know who is still very much alive in the lexicon of our world today that people know specifically and talk about rue goldberg devices. so i thought that was pretty important and while i appreciate that we don't have the define tive information, he is the guy who put up the money and built the building. i'm very excited about this and you know, we often landmark buildings because of their architecture and we say this is a beautiful building but it's really fun to have one that is so much associated with person who had such a great really big personality and contributed so much to american culture. so thanks so much. you guys, unbelievable. you have done such an

amazing job and it's great to get the public to work so hard to landmark buildings. thank you very much. >> commissioner matsuda? >> i would also like to thank you. you are one of the models to put this on the fast track for the program. you got it done in record time. the letter we received today from the hayes valley association says that this home has been to many artist and writers. i'm assuming they are attracted to this building because of the owner. i would like to make sure this is a part of the permanent documentation that will exist hopefully after we pass and the board passes this building as a landmark. >> any other comments, questions? >> commissioners? >> i move that we make a recommendation to initiate

landmark status for this building. >> second. >> commissioner frye? >> commissioners, apologize for interjecting. one item that would be helpful to clarify at this hearing in anticipation of the next one is that while we certainly agree that mr. goldberg's association the this building is apparent, the designation from the city attorney listed before you list only under architecture. if you believe different, there is no opposition from us, but we would like that clarification because it does have ab an impact on the ordinance moving forward. >> commissioner pearlman? >> i'm not sure it matters. it's in the ordinance and talks about rue goldberg. i'm hoping there

will be some plaque if there is ever a rue goldberg museum. as long as that information is presented to the public and that's not lost, which it seems almost impossible to lose it at this point, i'm not sure that it's that critical because it does immediate -- meet the requirements of being a landmark under article 10. >> commissioner? >> i agree with that except this one point. i do think that if not critical, it's important that we do not designate buildings as landmarks for reasons that are not well supported factually. so i think that we should leave it as it is and maybe in the future there will be some evidence that is more directly related to mr. goldberg being in the building rather than just being responsible for

having created this beautiful construction. >> commissioner matsuda? >> one way to maybe highlight this when the plaque program is off and running that we definitely put in a lot of information about the owner and the reason why he's important and then the reason why subsequent artist and writers have intentionally chosen to live here. i think that's a good way to keep this story alive and to highlight something that maybe won't be highlighted in other things. >> call the roll. >> [calling roll]. that motion passes unanimously 7-0. >> can we reopen the

commission matters? >> yes. real quick. commission matters? >> yes, i want to talk about the holiday gathering. >> real quick and from the chronicle may like to get some info, background research, he's doing an article tomorrow. you may want to contact him. okay. thank you. we reopen. >> commissioners through the chair we'll go back to item 5 under commission comments and questions. >> yeah, i wanted to tell the commission that we are planning a holiday gathering. i think you have all received an e-mail about that and the date is after the hearing on the 17th and it would be at 4:30 at don ramon's. i wanted to make sure you get that on the calendar.

city clerk: that places you on item 8. work program. >> commissioner, department staff. as you recall we discussed the landmark designation work plan. you needed more time to mull over the program and discuss over at future hearing and maybe prioritization of a couple pending landmark designation, adding to or modifying the work program. we are here today to just open it up and see if you have any ideas or any suggestions on any pending landmark designations you feel are important to prioritize or if you would just like a current update. mr. landers is already here and we are here to discuss it with you and see how you would like to

move forward. >> commissioners? >> commissioner pearlman? >> i know that 149 tsz street is in the program and they are also working to categorize this as a category 3 building relative to article 11. i'm wondering if there is any benefit to them to then also landmark the building after that or if, you know, i met with the owner and of course their concern is to be able to be characterized as a structure that meets these requirements. one, i'm wondering if there is any additional benefit to the ownership that becomes a landmark, if not, if they are not particularly interested in moving forward, would that pull something off

the landmark works program so there is more time to work for something else. >> all local incentives according to landmark buildings are also afforded to article 11 properties. the only designation that i can think of that would possibly benefit them if they were indiana -- in a n a rehabilitation tax credit which would go to this commission and this commission would provide comment. that is something we can make them aware of. as i mentioned to you before we have a designation report ready to go for this building. so we don't anticipate it will be a lot of work for staff to bring this to a hearing. it's just a matter of making room on your calendar and making sure everybody is available to do so. >> okay. if you can inform them of that, that would be great. i

wasn't aware of any additional benefits and if they are, i'm sure they would be interested to do that. >> just quick comments you know there are numbers of owners initiated that we just covered the goldberg building on san francisco heritage is working on great cloud of witnesses. understanding is atc is still interested in the article description and they are under construction so i'm not sure what their timing is of this date. 2 -henry adams there was some discussion or comments raised at the last hearing about the building is still eligible as aligned -- landmark and the commission was in agreement with that. i'm not sure if it's worth keeping on the program or if it's something that you would like

to keep on the program and revisit it at a future date since we have a designation report on the board of supervisors. the building the historic preservation fund committee awarded rec's and park to hire arg to commission an assessment of the property and what it would take to stabilize and restore the murals and seismic restore the building. once we have that report, we will be asking them to present that to you and that will depend how we move forward on the landmark designation. the remaining designations are up to date in terms of their status. if you have any comments about them, i'm happy to address them at this time. >> commissioner pearlman? >> what is on 2 -henry adams, did

that legislation pass that cohen initiated? >> it's at the call of the chair. if cohen's office is interested in moving it forward now that there is basically a code amendment that will not allow them to change the use as originally proposed, if cohen's office wanted to move it they will because they have the recommendation. >> from our point of view because we've done all the work and the an historic landmark from the city, we should wait and be behind that and if we can contact cohen's office to find out if it's going to move forward and we can follow up that she

moved the landmark designation forward. >> great suggestion. we'll contact cohen's office and get an update. >> commissioners, i see no other comments. i'm going to open to public comment and we'll finish it off. there is no member of the public. we'll close public comment. commissioners? >> commissioner highland? >> i don't know if i missed it. did you mention cal house? >> i did not. the report is complete. mary is out of the office for an undeterminate period. unfortunately, we ideally wanted to bring it to you in november. that was postponed due to her absence. i will commence with her to see how far along she is and the report is almost complete. i would say out of anything on this list, that is the

most likely next designation report that you would see. >> what about new era hall? >> i have done outreach to the property owners again. the property owners which are the crossroads training company, the last time i spoke to them they had a lot of questions about the designation for the swedish american hall being they were both historically hauls and community related structures and both constructed by the same architect. after today's hearing i will check with them to see if they are still amenable. they were just apprehensive about the responsibilities of landmark designation. >> in response to your question about priorities, i would propose that the ones that have a lot of staff

time already put into them that they get completed and that any other community initiated or owner initiated nominations that can get moved forward without that much staff support. >> i think that's a great idea. >> the one other that i would recommend then is the sailor's union. we have a lot of work completed. we have been talking to the property owner. they have known for some time of the city's interested in designating this property. sailors union and then sunshine school. those would be the two others that would be at the top of the list. if you are in concurrence with that, we'll do our best to get them in front of you. >> just as we are on, with the sailors union, because i spoke to their attorney and sounds like they are ready to go.

>> they are prepared for the discussion. there is still some debate about providing accessibility to the interior that we think there are some good solutions. if we are able to solve those, they will be much more amenable to an interior designation as well. >> lastly, the steel mill building on 17th street. someone during public comment came before us maybe a year ago and gave us a bunch of information on that? >> the core events. >> does that need to come into this? >> what's the status? >> at that time the commission did not indicate pursuing interest in that. we have designated the property in the is survey, we found one brick building on the site was eligible under the california register. i don't believe the department

would concur that it's eligible for local article 10 designation. the member of the public that came was trying to make a case that the entire site was eligible as an historical resource. we can bring it back to you if you like, but it didn't seem at the time that there was any interest from the commission to pursue it any further. >> i think it was a public comment. >> this has been a battle or portrero hill for a long time and they are trying to save the building and gettis detonating as an historical resource. i don't think they were interested in landmarking it and they were trying to prevent demolition of the building. >> the brick building is being partially retained as part of the new proposal. i think there was some dispute as to whether or not the other structures on the site were

also historical resources. >> commissioner johnck? >> yeah, i was interested while i agree with the criteria, with the priorities of the work that you have done a substantial amount on the community to initiating, i was wondering with where we are with the modernist category. for instance on page 12, the russel house, i was interested in that. it says own notification case tracking. just curious when you notify the owner and i will just take the russel house, have you had any feedback at all or did they say no, we don't want it? >> in this case yes, we did have as part of an initial development of the program, the property owners

did indicate that they were not amenable to landmark designation. however we left it as keeping the door open for future discussions knowing this were some other low hanging fruit that we can address now and possibly reach out to them in the if you the to see if they were open to something similar to designation. willsky house, our last contact with the property owners at 3655 clay street that they were amenable to landmark designation but again with other priorities and the fact that willsky house will require a substantial amount of research, others came before that. >> commissioner wolfram? >> i would like to push the ones where there is a lot of staff time and it's also important to keep the list going. some of these houses in pacific heights will be important,

these modern houses to move forward and another question was there was, i can't remember the name of the property in west portal that was the retirement home. >> was it called the university house? >> further out. >> the one with the local residents signed. university mound. we've already forgotten. [ laughter ] that is one that we, i don't know whether there was another category where we have this main list and we prioritize them and there are these that will be back filled and we'll start moving forward. i think that's an important one to keep tracking. >> certainly. >> another question i had for you, there are some really big

projects in the city moving forward in hunters point and treasure achltd each of those have resources there. have any been landmarked. like treasure island with the airport building and there are some that were planned to be kept. i didn't know what the status of those were and since those projects are now moving forward, the question of whether they were added to the list? >> >> if the commission is interested in learning more about those projects and whether or not there are any properties at those sites that are worthy of decision -- designation we can bring in staff to give you an overview of those properties. similar to what we did with the transit center plan what we brought to you a collection about 27 buildings

to designate article 11, we are going to be doing the same thing as part of the central soma plan. we are trying to incorporator at least package more designation to work with area plans as they move forward and other large projects. say it fits better when we are doing an area plan. if there are these large development sites are also interest we should have a conversation about those and which ones you are more interested in and we can see what opportunities there are. >> we saw at the landmarks preservation board a long time ago and there's the glass building and there was a couple out there but we never land marked and we just commented on the alterations. that came even after this other meeting, right? >> >> since i have been there there has never be