residential projects that are not affordable, or not necessarily affordable, section 309 of the plans code governs our review of those projects. there are exceptions that can be granted. there is a planning commission for anything over a certain threshold. that would not be changing. we would be with this ordinance adding two exceptions that you can get from planning code requirements. those are usable open space and dwelling unit exposure. that is about the amount of open space any unit has to look out upon. in most cases, these projects have to get a variance from the zoning administrator to proceed, because the requirements simply are not compatible with the high rise tower in a downtown environment. so this would add those two as exceptions and planning section 309 there would be a hearing for the projects, but it would lepp us to review -- help us to remove one layer of review. neighborhood notification. right now, we do notification

for any public hearing, this hearing. the planning commission hearings and for certain building permit applications in residential areas and commercial areas, those are often referred to as 311 and 312. new construction, alteration or changes of use, we need to do notification before the planning department can approve the building permit for that application. the way it's laid out in the code, there are 30 unique requirements we have to fulfill. sometimes 150, sometimes fewer, sometimes 20 days, so on, the notification once we start to look at how to imply phi this. -- simplify that, the staff said these are so complicated, you can have a minor error that can delay by two months. and we looked at how much paper it generates, three tons of paper every year, not even the hearing or posters. we also realized that many of

them were not sending notification to tenants, but to owners. many didn't have the multilingual language requirements and none of it is on the website. so it's a case of things getting added in over time and now is the time to look at how to achieve public notification for all the same things that we're currently notifying for. there are a number of things that when notification is required for a building permit, that means it can't be approved on the same day, it has to go in the backlog and you have a four month delay right there. so those are the issues we see right now. this is a chart that was created by the staff. this is what we use to track what we're supposed to do, depending on the case. the different types of hearings and approvals. you can see the mixing and matching and 31 flavors of notification that you may or may not need to do. the proposal in the mayor's ordinance is to standardize a

lot of those. there would be new planning code section, 333, it would establish uniform requirements for mail notice, posted notice, the posters and near the site, on the site and online notice. so the notification period would be 20 days in all these cases. most of the notices have a 20-day mailing period now. 20 days for everything. for the mail notice, 150 foot radius around the property, some cases 300, some cases 150 right now and this would create an online notice. this would replace the newspaper notification, like for today's hearing for example, when the planning commission has their adoption hearing for the planning code amendments, 20 days prior to that a notice had to run in the newspaper. so instead, we would notice those hearings online. in addition, the online notice would provide a way to download and print the plan sets of whatever the building permit

application was. right now we mail out the 11 x by 17 that generates tons and paper. and so instead, we would be sending out, giving ourselves the ability to send something smaller, the half sheet, post card, has all the information and a way to get the paper plan sets and have some at the planning department as well am finally, we would -- this ordinance applies to multilingual instructions to all of the forms of notice and would also allow us to have the posters that go up, be as small as 11 x by 17, not necessarily that small, but could be. the issue is there is different code sections, 30 x 40, 36 x 48, let's just have one that is determined by the zoning administrator. there is one type of alteration on a structure that currently requires notification that would

no longer require it under this ordinance. otherwise, any hearing or type of building permit that requires notification would still require it. the one exception is limited rear yard addition that is permitted under section 136.c.25, we refer to it as the rear yard popout. the reason for that, it's a limited amount of space and constrained in the planning code. that's actually in the planning code, this little diagram. it says that you can go, if you're in a district where you have 45% rear yard requirement, you can go into that rear yard requirement, never as far back as into a 25% requirement, never as far back as 15 feet from the property line, but go back from the existing structure 12 feet into the rear yard. if it's two stories, you can go on -- with maximum 300 square

foot increase or maximum 360 if it's a two story addition onto a home. what does this have to do with approving housing? it takes up a lot of time. there is a whole list of things you can approve without notification. that is one thing called out. it has to go into the queue and there is a 4-month delay. it takes up staff time just reviewing these projects. so with something that came up when we were doing the improvement plan, that was something that is taking us away from looking at larger housing projects and approving the housing element. the final component which is the reason we're here today and the most germane to you, there are amendments to articles 10 and 11 of the planning code in the ordinance. the issue that surfaced again as

we were doing the improvement plan was, hey, there is a lot of things that the historic preservation commission has delegated authority to us to approve the certificates or the permits to alter administratively, but those things still need to be appealed, people have to have the ability to appeal them to the body because they're getting a certificate or permit alter that involves not being able to be approved same day. it has to go into the queue. has to be a 3 or 4-month delay. one of the scopes of work we're talking about, ada, automatic push buttons on doors. this is for folks that are mobility impaired, have a push button to operate the door. that is one thing. business signs or awnings. rooftop equipment, skylight and the historical landmark plaques themselves. these things would be no longer required to have, if we're in a

conservation district, a permit or if talking about a landmark being building, they no longer have to have the certificate of appropriateness. they would have to conform with the guidelines in article 10 and 11 already. and i think if you look in the ordinance, you can see each one of the scopes of works listed out, it says as in conformity with the standard in 11.6, depending on which article we are in. so these are -- here is tim frei with the planning department who can talk to you about the guidelines. >> good afternoon, commissioners. in your case report i want to point out to the three items that are specifically related to your review, starting on page 58, that is section 333 of the code which will change our notification requirements which jacob just reviewed.

as you recall, the articles are complex, sometimes it was 300 foot radius of owners and occupants, sometimes just owners and sometimes not with the historic district, so this helps us tremendously in unifying the notification procedures city-wide and we believe we'll still give proper notice effectively to the areas where the public may be concerned. the majority of the planning code amendments related to article 10 start on page 63 of your packet. specifically, as jacob mentioned, there are very routine scopes of work that we still have to take in. we cannot approve over the counter, that this commission is delegated to us. as you know through the delegation, it's been a very successful program. we've only had maybe one or two -- actually it's like two or three, requests for hearing out

of the hundreds of permits and entitlements we've reviewed. so we feel fairly confident that these scopes of work will remain routine and this does not preclude any planner from approving these over the counter, preservation planners still have to review the work and will apply our guidelines, which are mandated to be based on the secretary of interior standards and are codified in articles 10 and 11. as you know, for article 11, which is located solely downtown in the c-3 zoning district, your properties that are under your purview generate just as many entitle the for all the certificates of appropriateness

we do city-wide every year. so we're looking at 300-350 in total on an annual basis. they're for ada upgrades, tenant improvements, or changes where it's signage or awnings and the like. and rooftop equipment like boilers, chillers. elevator overrides. those sorts of things. we anticipate and we've sort of roughly looked at the numbers, we anticipate that is going to reduce the number of article 11 permits by almost 50%. which is going to be a huge savings in terms of our time that we can have those preservation planners then working on much more complex projects that are in our queue. that are currently waiting for our planner to review, because we have the backlog we do. and then finally, because you've instituted a historic landmark program, we would like the city

sponsored landmark plaques to be approveded over-the-counter rather than the 20-day waiting period, because they are fairly routine, the city is paying for them, so we don't anticipate controversy around those elements. so again, the specific language related around those code amendments. these guidelines are based on the precedence this commission has created over the last ten years and the secretary of interior standards, so an awning that is only anchored within the opening of the store front that a free hanging valance, that the signage is located in an area that relates to the architecture. those are the types of guidelines that we'd be using when approving these

over-the-counter. rooftop equipment as i mentioned, looking at the overall location, height and dimension of this equipment to make sure it's clearly not visible from view, making sure that low profile skylights are being used so they don't disrupt historic roof lines. and then finally, i would like to expand on what jacob said. it's not just for ada, but we would be able to approve making entry landings level so that a person in a wheelchair can have independent access into that tenant space. so there is a little more flexibility under ada we will be able to employ. that concludes our presentation. jacob, anything else? jacob has one small thing in

closing and then happy to answer questions. >> just in closing, to clarify the changes in ordinance, there were three things. one thing was a couple of small changes to properly reference state law. the second thing was actually to have a different operative date for the portions of the ordinance that deal with all of notification, procedure changes that i mentioned. those would not be operative until january 1, 2019. remainder of the ordinance would go into effect 30 days after the mayor would sign the ordinance if it's passed by the board of supervisors, that's to give the planning department time to implement all the procedure changes, and technical investments we need to make. and the third piece is to properly implement the changes to article 11 that tim was going over. we had those drafted in a different way.

they actually fit much better the way they are listed in the reintroduced version of the ordinance. it will take those scopes of work completely out of the purview of something that needs a minor permit to alter. that's why it was reintroduced. with that, that concludes our presentation. >> president wolfram: thank you very much. why don't we take public comment on this item? any member of the public wish to speak? i have one speaker card for richard frigby. >> you don't need to fill one out, but we'll have richard come first. hi, i'm richard. just a couple of thoughts. one thing, the planning commission is in the process thinking about, talking about developing historic district

guidelines. and so, here, one of the things they said the changes would be minor to conform with article 10. they apparently think article 10 needs to be modified. so my question is, how is -- what we don't want to do is agree to something here and then when the new historic guidelines come out, we find out they don't agree with the new historic district guidelines. so my comment is, why don't we work on the historic district guidelines that they're very committed to and then after that, see if we can find a way to incorporate this into it, as to doing this piecemeal. so follow notifications, 20-30 days, this is piecemeal. this is one more layer of piecemeal to the process. so seems to me the historic district guidelines which a lot of neighborhoods have a lot of feelings about, should be focused on. and then we can deal with these "minor changes".

thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i usually go to the planning commission, talking about demolitions. a couple of things i want to point out about this proposal. and that relates to you, because it's on page 59 of the legislation. with the new section 333, what will be sent out to people is probably going to be a post card. and i think that is worrisome to me, as someone who does get 311s and gets notices. i understand the paper issue, i think a post card and all these things that follow from page 59, in the beginning, all these things are going to be put on a post card and i think that's really difficult for most people who may have a concern to

understand. whether it's a regular project or a historic project. a post card can get lost, overlooked. right now, if you get a 311, it's in the big envelope. i'm not sure what you send out for the certificate of appropriateness, but i assume it's a regular letter-sized envelope, which is probably more noticeable than the little postcard. the other thing is putting the plans online. i don't know about you, but i cannot print out 11 x 17 plans from my house. most people can't. bless you. i think that's a really serious problem. and with the reduction in time, 20 days, it's not a lot of time, someone has to take -- within that 20 days, go down to the planning department, and see if they can get the plans if they can't print them out. or you can go to the ups store,

but it's very expensive to print out 11 x 17 plans. i have more concerns that probably come up to the -- i'll speak about tomorrow at the planning commission, but these are things to think about. plan accessibility and the size of the notice. and 20 days, that's a very short amount of time. thank you very much. >> president wolfram: thank you. any other speaker wish to comment on the item, if so, please come forward. we'll close public comment seeing none. i have actually one -- this a minor comment but one thing that jumped out, the notice, posters. and the requirement for a notice poster every 25 feet, that means opt ferry building you would have 64 notice post-ers. i'm wondering if that one should be changed to a building of 25 feet and less, one poster. 25 and 50 feet, two. i'm concerned about the damage

to the paint on the ferry building, we have 64 posters on that building. maybe that one could be modified to be a little more flexible. commissioners, comments? i think these are great improvements. i'm thrilled we're doing stuff to streamline the process. i think these are all going to be really helpful, so it's a really great package and impressive presentation. thank you for such a clear presentation. commissioner johns. >> commissioner johns: this is fantastic, i don't know what the difference is between printing -- you still have to print something. i don't know if the staff has any comments about how you -- you're just trying to save paper? >> yeah, absolutely. the main thing was to make the requirements consistent so we

have fewer things to trip over. >> commissioner johns: and more uniform? >> right, when you look at something, you're like, well, really, is that the right way to do that? this is a 311 packet, we mail out thousands of these. this one alone, generated 14 pounds of paper, that had to be mailed to 115 addresses and so there is a lot of things for us to send out to reproduction services. and regarding the sizes, absolutely, there is lot of important content that needs to be on there. we're not sure what document will fit that, so it's minimum dimensions of the standard post card and the minimum of 11 x 17 for the poster. and the reason for the delayed operative date is to give us time to work those things out, figure out what kind of equipment changes might be involved. and make sure we get all of the content onto the documents that

is proper. but you know, i got a jury summons the other day, it was on a post card, i'll be following the instructions. there is a lot of things that can come in different formats and is the packet with the 11 x 17 the only way to do it? it's not the only way. it's one way to do it. we are locking in minimum requirements, standard requirements for when and where and to whom these go. and as 311 and 312 were already drafted, it's up to the zoning administrator to manage it. so the question about the ferry building, there is a provision we copied over that says the zoning administrator can determine this is not physically feasible on the posters, so we have that in there. i will take a closer look to make sure that doesn't bind us to do every 25 feet. >> president wolfram: sounded like it was binding, the way i

read it, it was binding. so give is gradation, up to 100 is this many and it's more staggered. >> right, yeah. so that can certainly be recommended modification to the ordinance as well. >> was there a motion? i'm in favor of the packet. >> president wolfram: make an amendment? >> commissioner johns: agree with your mental health. >> president wolfram: thank you. to make the poster requirement potentially more flexible or practical. >> commissioner johns: right. >> president wolfram: we have a motion and a second? >> commissioner johns: i move that we endorse -- >> there is a motion that has been seconded to adopt a

recommendation for approval as amended to require. [roll call] so moved, commissioners that motion passes unanimously, 6-0. this will place us on item 7, 2018-004346 fed, 3333 california street. for review and comment. through the chair, we did acknowledge and grant a request for organized. >> we received a letter from organized opposition requesting a 10-minute speaking time and that has been granted. >> john ram, i'm taking an unusual step to give you brief background on the project. this is an unusually large site for you to be considering and us to be looking at.

i wanted to give you a quick background on a project we've been working on for two years and talk about that in the context of the nomination that you're considering. if i could have a -- i guess it's up. so the site is of course, it's almost 11-acre site in the northwest part of the city. it's proposed mixed use residential development by laurel heights partner. i think those representatives of those firms are here today. it would partially retrofit the existing office building and add new construction for total of 558 housing units to the laurel heights neighborhood. this gives you a quick review of the data for the site. there is as i said, 558 units, about 50,000 square feet of office would remain under the proposed project. there is variant being studied

that would increase that to 740-some units with no office. you can see the retail and childcare components on the screen. it would be a number of separate buildings that with be created partially by dividing the existing building and partially by adding new buildings to the site. i will say within the site plan, there were a number of concerns that we at the department had about the urban design. this is unusual because it's a large site, with a building in the middle of the site, surrounded by the greenery. so the goal as we went forward when we worked with the developers to figure out a way to divide up the site, bring pathways through the site to connect it to the surrounding neighborhood, which is standard for us when we look at these large sites throughout the city, this being unusual, given where it is locked and the fact that -- located and the fact

that it has potential resource in the middle of the site. we worked with the developer to figure out how to divide up the site to achieve their goals and ours. and you can see an image here of what a view of the site and the redone building that would accommodate housing on the site. i'm sure that there are others in the room that can answer more specific questions. as i understand it, the adaptive reuse strategy would retain 60% of the original structure, at the same time, updating the facade of the building and the public access. it's a very large project. unusually large for this part of the city. it's a project we've been working on for a long time with the developer and their architect and wanted to let you know about that as background context before the decision today. thank you for that and i'll turn it over to desiree.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, desiree smith, planning department staff. the item is a national register nomination for the fireman fund home insurance office at 3333 california street. the city has given the opportunity to comment on nominations to the national register. the nomination was prepared by michael corbett and denise bradley for the laurel heights improvement association. the comments today on the nomination will be forwarded to the state office of historic preservation in the form of resolution. the national register anonymous inflation is scheduled to -- nomination is scheduled to be heard tomorrow. i would like to note that the

laurel heights association provided a slight to the department and also to members of the hpc via e-mail on april 30. and that was following the publication of our case report for the may 2 hearing, which was continued to today. that did include revisions, a few substantive changes were made, including some that addressed two of our comments in the report. so i'll elaborate more on those later. first, i would like to summarize the nomination itself. the fireman's fund insurance company home office is on the north side of california street. in the laurel heights neighborhood. the 10.2 acre property consists of two building and landscape, including 4-story office building. that is located at the center of the property.

in addition, there is one-story service building in the northwest corner of the property. the landscape design is out door spaces, parking lots, vegetation. the principle outdoor spaces are the entrance court, terrace and the area around the outdoor area. as stated in the national registry, the fireman's fund home office is locally significant under criteria a for events in the area of commerce for association with the san francisco insurance industry, an important industry in the history 0 the city from the gold rush to the present. it represents the postwar boom in san francisco's insurance industry when many companies built new office buildings. it states that the property is significant under criterion a, development one of the bodies of

the postwar decentralization. the design is one of the principle embodiments of and as an example of a corporate headquarters in san francisco, that reflects mid 20th century principles. the three masters include the architect, edward b page, the engineer firm of john j. gould. construction began and ends in 1967, and the last addition was completed. i would like to point out in the first draft we received, which is in your packet, that was 50 years ago, in 1958, so that period is significant and has since been changed to 1957.

staff has reviewed the nomination which we find to be of high quality, research and well written and agree that the property is historically significant and you a and c and is eligible for registering on the national historical places. as an important example of suburban property type, however, we respectfully disagree that the home office itself or the development of the san francisco insurance industry in the mid to late 20th century have made a significant enough contribution to the city's history and qualify for listing on the national register. it appears that it occurs while the business was housed in the previous occasion at 40147 california street and not in the subject property. the department agrees that the property is locally significant under this criterion, however,

staff does not agree with authors of the nomination that edward b page is a master architect. the nomination includes more information than initially presented, the staff analysis has not changed. the service building is a contributing feature to the campus. this auxiliary building is prominent to the main office building as well as the overall design of the campus landscape. we do not find the service building. our recommendation, the action requested of the commission on behalf of the state office of the historic preservation is to provide comments on whether the fireman's fund office meets the criteria of significance of the national register and to recommend or not recommend the nomination of the property for listing on the register.

you have a copy of the draft resolution. two of the comments that staff proposed to be addressed have already been addressed in the subsequent revision, so we propose striking those items and those two sentences are consideration to end the period of significance in 1956 and the correction of minor typos and gra mat cal errors. finally the department has received four letters in opposition to the designation. and we received another letter today, so i have hard copies that i'll distribute. just in case you didn't receive those via e-mail. that concludes my presentation. before i open it up for questions, we do have two presentations. first from the project sponsor,

the laurel heights neighborhood improvement association. and then from the organized opposition to the nomination which is the owner of the property. >> thank you. would the project sponsor come forward? and ten minutes, will that be adequate? yes? >> good afternoon. i'm denise bradley, one of the two authors of the nomination, i'm the landscape historian. i dealt with the landscape portions. michael corbett is unable to be here today. i wanted to give a brief summary before the laurel heights improvement association, the sponsor of the nomination provides more comments. a lot of this is repetition that you just heard. the project is located -- the property is located on 2.2 achers in the laurel heights

area of the city, consisting of two buildings and landscape features designed to function as a single residency. the property is significant in the area of commerce for its association with the city's insurance industry at the time that the fireman's home office was constructed, it was one of the largest insurance companies in the u.s. and the only major one headquartered in the city, it was a leader among insurance companies in san francisco and its embrace of new ideas symbolized by the way away from downtown. criteriion a is significant in the area of community, planning and development is one of the principle embodiments of the postwar plan of decentralization and urbanization. there is the first to be built

outside of the downtown core and it was the first design fully adapted to the automobile. under criterion c it is significant as the work of three masters. the architect, the engineering firm and the landscape firm. it is also significant as example of a corporate headquarters that reflects design principles in landscape and architectural elements. thank you. >> good afternoon, president wolfram and commissioners, i'm vice president of the laurel heights improvement association. overhead, please, which sponsored this nomination and we're pleased that staff proposes that the commission adopt resolution. thank you very much. however the revisions requested

by planning staff are inappropriate because they request more than the national register to have criteria require. architect, historic resource survey states that the property appears to be eligible for listing under criteria a 1 and c-3 and as to architect page, his resume does accord him master architect status. kerry and company is one of the most established architectural fimpls and their survey was commissioned when they owned the property. a master is defined as a known craftsman of consummate skill, or an anonymous craftsman whose work is distinguishable from others by its characteristic style and quality, or a figure of generally recognized greatness in the field. the nomination explains that on

the farmer's fund project, mr. page coordinated the contributions of all, he was described as the master in the degenkolb office and page was admired as the master in charge and took the lead. the nomination clearly documents many projects of mr. page, both before and after this home office was built, including one as to which the aia awarded him award of merit for design of the 1954 house in belvedere. and the work on the fireman fund building that represented his career, made mr. page locally recognized as a master is sufficient. it does not require he build a string of buildings. criterion a is satisfied by a

pattern of events of historic trend that made a contribution to the development of the community, state or the nation. the nomination documents the manner in which they made a significant contribution to the development of san francisco. and does not have to show that it was the most important industry or had a statewide influence. staff argues that a state wide influence is required. insurance was expensive, so a local industry arose. fireman's fund gained reputation for integrity by paying its claims in the 1906 earthquake and fire and many earlier fires, rather than going bankrupt as many companies did and was the only local company left by 1895 and built many buildings. the nomination explains that the

fireman's fund is significant in the area of commerce for its association with the san francisco insurance industry. an important industry in the history of the city from the gold rush to the present and in particular represents the postwar boom in san francisco's insurance industry when many companies built new offices. at that time, fireman's fund was one of the largest insurance companies in the united states and was a leader among all insurance companies in the city. the nomination also documents innovations that occurred after the opening of the home office building at this site. at that time, an important and news worthy source of new business was this category of inland marine insurance that would insure any interest against all perils anywhere in the world, covered motion pictures, athletes and that type of activity and fireman's fund

was second to lloyd's of london in providing this type of insurance. they combined with american insurance company to become the largest company headquartered in the west. as to the master landscape architect, the nomination includes many accolades and awards granted to the master firm of eckbo, royston and williams. supplementation is not necessary, you don't have to include every accolade. as to the service building, staff uses the long standard in arguing that the service building as an auxiliary building that is secondary to the large main building does not play a critical role in the overall design and landscape or setting to convey the property significance. a critical role in the overall design is not required. the rules for counting resources explain that contributing building or structure adds to

the historic associations if it was present during the period of significance, related to the documented significance of the prorlt and possesses historic integrity. the service building related to the documented significance of the property as an example of the international style of architecture where form follows funks. and it was designed to fit within the unifying brick wall and to be a component of it. thus, the service building is considered a contributing resource under the national register of rules and it was designed and built during the period of significance. lastly, as to the letter from the developer to the commission president. with reference to the planning department's modern design, historic context statement, that was not intended to be a comprehensive review and analysis of modern architecture in san francisco, but rather it was developed to provide a

framework for consistent and informed evaluations of san francisco's modern buildings and landscapes. and an appendix does mention architect page and says further research would be required in relationship to him. our association has advocated for all residential development of the site from the beginning. and opposed the developer's request to commercialize the site and change the zoning to retail. the site is right next to the laurel village shopping center which we think adequately serves the retail needs. we've submitted many letters and recently a petition with 800 signatures to the supervisor supporting all residential development. we've also told the developer we're preparing an alternative plan and we think we can develop many if not more residential units on the property, and much

quicker than during the 15-year period that the developer is proposing to implement his plan. also, we did inform the developer by e-mail before we submitted the nomination. and during the month -- [bell ringing] -- the state evaluated the nomination, the developer made no objection to the substantive content of the nomination. but, during the years we met with them, both uc concealed the historical significance of it from us. since the developer plans to demolish 51% of the home office, the fact that he'll study -- [bell ringing] -- shows that the national register process will assist with ceqa. >> president wolfram: thank you, your time is up. you can wrap it up. >> for the record, we did not request the continuance on may 2. staff requested it, so the director could be here.

but we did oppose it. and so we agree that the overall support is appropriate, but the revisions are not. and we'd be happy to answer any questions, but i have copies of the letter that i e-mailed to the staff. >> thank you very much. so at this time, we'll -- the developer has i think a 10-minute period they would like to make statements? you could come forward and we'll take public comment following that. >> president wolfram: we have your april 23rd letter ready. or is this different? ok. this will be helpful thank you. >> president, commissioners, mr. frei, thank you for the opportunity to speak today to provide you with additional

context for lhia, i'm referring to the acronym, laurel heights improvements association nomination. as long time supporters of historic preservation and many of the projects being adaptive reuse, we recognize the importance of the work this commission does and fully respect your role and responsibility and that of city preservation staff. as you may be aware, and as commissioner -- director ram pointed out, we've been engaged in extensive entitlement for the last three and a half years. we take pride in the community outreach and distinguished from the two to three community meetings for most development projects, we've held over 125 individual and community outreach meetings to date, that

includes over 10 organized neighborhood and stakeholder groups. our outreach since 2014, has included many meetings with up to 10 or so members, whose homes face the currently open space on the site. so be clear, lhai has been opposed to the project since the beginning. most importantly, in the hundreds of pages of documents and correspondence that i have here in this binder, exchanged between us and lhia, they've never expressed any concern about retaining historical aspects of the property, nor suggested we retain the existing building. consistently their issues and comments have focused on scale, density, height, use, traffic, noise, homelessness, vaguery, crime and other typical development related concerns. with respect to the building

that they purport to want to preserve, over the past three years, and this is since the time that we informed lhia that we wanted to incorporate the main portion of the existing building into our design voluntarily, lhia has consistently criticized the existing building for the design and used terms up as "oversized building", "massive office structure". lhia has been specific in our meetings with them over the last three years, that we should follow the lead of the cpmc development because they do not have any publicly accessible open space. and this incidentally was a project that they've expressly supported before any historic assessment has been done. they stated to us that, we hope you will see the light and

change direction with a project that would conform with the established patterns of surrounding residential neighborhoods. incidentally, our project that we do have proposed that you saw up on there on the screen, we're taking what is currently about a half acre of usable open space and increasing it to over 5 acres of open space in our revised design. we believe that lhia's interest in the property's historic quality is not genuine and their true motive is to delay our efforts to entitle the proposed housing project as they have from the beginning. and as such, we respectfully respect this commission and request them to concur with the staff's analysis of the nomination report and request for modification of the nomination as set forth in the staff report. and we are available to answer

any questions. and i'll now turn over to greg miller. >> you have about five and a half minutes. >> ok, i will be brief. good afternoon, my name is greg miller, land use council for the property owners. i ask that you concur with hpc staff recommendations regarding modifications to the proposed nomination, specifically we agree with staff that under criterion a, neither fireman's fund nor the insurance industry rise to the required level of significance. we agree with staff that most of fireman's innovations were prior to the move to the site and we agree that the development of the insurance industry has not made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of california's history and culture. we also agree with staff that

under criterion c, the project's architect edward page is not a master architect. he was no prolific and we see no evidence of his influence in the community. and the city's exhaustive survey of mid century modern buildings relegates any mention of mr. page to one line in appendix b, which is quite telling when you consider we're talking about a 10-acre site with several large buildings on it. we also believe that the nomination reports this character defining features needs editing. we submit that alleged features such as the circular garage ramps, exposed peers and the service building should be removed. as you see in the slides i've provided, the service building

is a similar utility building intended to be hidden from view. it does not relate to the main building or convey role in -- play any role in the significance of the property. thank you for the overhead. if i could have it back again. so, i just wanted to point out, here's the service building. here's the main building. you've got a tremendous amount of distance between the two. you've also got all this landscaping in here that basically blocks the service building from view. and if you look at sort of how it's been designed and the parking around it, it's almost been isolated on its own island. the main building itself also turns away from the service building. there aren't any clear direct views to it. here's a close-up of one of the entrances to the service building. again, a very you utility

building. covered parking near the entrance. here's a shot, looking for from the parking lot west toward the building. again. here's ventilation area on the west wall of the service building. another shot of the service building, a different entrance to it. here's a view of the exterior wall of the service building on laurel street. you can see again, blank brick facade with the three windows in it. another shot of that same laurel street facade, just from the immediate sidewalk there. this is looking south.

again, really a blank street wall. and again, another shot there of that same facade. then here it is continuing along california street. there is really nothing breaking that wall up, other than the little bit of landscaping there. that's all i have. we're available for questions. we have about a minute and a half left. don, do you want to ... >> good afternoon, i'm don, development and i've been involved in the ceqa process discussed before. i wanted to give you background on the ceqa process. the initial study was issued on the 25th of april, the comment period is on the 25th. the initial study identifies four categories to be studied in the environmental impact report,

one of which is historic resources. the planning staff is preparing a response to the hra prepared by lsa for the initial study. the key conclusions are consistent with the staff report before you today that the property was determined eligible for the inclusion of california register under criterion 1 and 3, which are functionally equivalent to the criteria januaryion a and c. we'll be coming back to you just before the certification hearing and on march 21, we were before the arc to review the historic preservation alternatives which are currently being evaluated and completed with the project sponsor and the planning staff. >> thank you very much. so at this time we're going to take public comment. does any member of the public want to speak to this matter?

if so, please come forward. you'll have three minutes and a warning buzzer at 30 seconds before your time is up. >> hello, my name is milo. i agree completely with the applicant, the site does not meet the criteria of a historic site. and that designating it so would not be the best use of this land and these buildings. and that san francisco as a city would benefit far more from converting it to housing rather than preserving it as is. preserving it actually has negative impacts far greater than any positive of memorializing a mediocre building for an insurance company at a time when the

country was expanding in such a way that is environmentally harmful. and now we know to be the case. so moving forward, we would all be much better off, if instead of the sprawling campus, there was housing for people to live and to achieve their dreams. and to create the history of the future. which we're stifling by sometimes needlessly designating bland buildings with meager justifications of historical significance. so, please, don't grant this site historical validation. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm richard, i live across the street from the site and i wanted to make a couple of

comments because my words were quoted in the comments incorrectly as often is the case. humongous, oversized, massive, true i wrote those, but i wrote those when you took a low sprawling building that matched the contour of the land, cut it in half and put three stories on top of two buildings and end up with two square massive humongous oversized buildings, it was not a reference to the fireman's fund building that stands there today. thank you. >> my name is chelsea. i live around four blocks away from the building. i walk about it, i run by it, bike by it, almost every single day. and something i really notice about the building is that it's closed off as shown in the photos. there is a brick fence around

the whole thing. it's not very accessible. in my opinion, it doesn't add much character to my community, the community that i run, walk, bike in every day. the plans that i've seen for the new development have much more open space, much more public space. and i agree with the committee's recommendation this does not meet historical significance. i went to a college with a very historically significant 1950s architecture library, lots of people came to it every day. i went to unr, and it no longer exists on campus. it was a great building and something we memorialized. but it also didn't reach historical significance. people came from around the country to see it, and if that doesn't meet historical significance, i'm suspect this building does not. i never see when i walk by people flooding the park o