if you so choose to include anyo the san francisco historic anyo preservation commission regular hearing for wednesday, june 6, 2018. i would remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. please silence your mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. and when speaking before the commission, if you care to, do state your name for the record. i would like to take roll at this time. [roll call] commissioners, we do expect commissioners wolfram and hyland today. your first task today will be to elect an interim chair for this week's hearing. >> if i could suggest that we do this in order of seniority,

commissioner matsuda, i nominate you. >> i second that. >> okay. >> very good. there's a motion to elect commissioner matsuda as chair for that hearing. on that motion -- [roll call] very good. motion passes unanimously 5-0. places us under general public comment. at this time, the public may address the commission on matters in the jurisdiction of the commission, except agenda items. each member of the public may address the commission for up to 3 minutes. i have no speaker cards. >> is there any member of the public that would like to make general public comment? >> my name is arnold kohn. hello.

i want to give you another reason why project 2016-0100719ca, 3620-36-40 and 1595 north point should not be permitted to demolish the park area and garden shop building in the southern portion of the law. recall, i previously provided you copies of historic city official documents about resolution 88 and block 459. the project developer hired page and turnbull consultants to prepare a report showing that no historical significance was identified for the property the project developer then gave a copy of that document to the planning department

the page and turnbull document completely ignores the 1974 resolution 88 passed by the landmark preservation advisory board, which explicitally defined the entire area of block 459, lot 3 as the historic landmark 58. prior to 1974, then owners of block 459, lot 3, restored the manufacturing gas plant office building and from resolution 88, "added an equally impressive garden shop and handsomely landscaped spacious areas." that shop and landscaped area is being proposed for demolition. the 1974 landmark resolution 88 recognized the shop and landscape area as in historic

entity. the 88 advisory board defined the entire area of 459 lot 3 an historic landmark. because the page and turnbull document ignores 88, it's irrelevant and needs reworking. >> thank you. is there any other member that would like to make general public comment? seeing none, he can with move on to other matters. department matters? review of past events at the planning commission, staff report and announcements. >> tim frye, planning department staff. one, reminder that the staff

will be presenting your proposed landmark district and the mint mission conservation district as well as expansion of the kmmf district to the planning commission at tomorrow's hearing. as you know, these will all move forward with central soma area plan package. and, finally, a reminder that next week is the request for hearing at the board of appeals regarding the pioneer monument c of a and we'll report back at the outcome of that at your next meeting. >> what day is that hearing, if you know? >> i believe it's next wednesday, which is the 13th. >> commissioners, commission matters, item 3, president's report and announcements. chair reports none. item 4, consideration of

adoption draft minutes -- >> excuse me a second. i did have a question on the commission matters. mr. cohen was here before and he was here today. is that something that you can at least come back to us at a future hearing to understand what -- i mean, he's obviously quite insistent about the issues going on there and we don't know what that is yet. >> sure. happy to clarify. there's a certificate of appropriateness that will be before the commission. if you feel strongly, we could prepare an informational item or staff report. >> do we know when the c of a? >> we should have this discussion under comments and questions, coming up next. >> i'm sorry. so sorry. i jumped the gun. sorry about that. >> quite all right. quite all right. item 4, consideration of adoption draft minutes for may 2 arc meeting and may 16 regular

meeting. i have no speaker cards. >> i have a motion? >> we should probably ask for public comment. >> can we have public comment on the draft arc minutes from may 2, 2018? any public comment? >> or the regular hearing of may 16. >> or the regular hearing of hpc minutes for may 16, 2018. hearing none, any comment from the commission? >> move to adopt. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion then to adopt the minutes for the arc may 2 and the regular hearing of may 16, 2018 -- [roll call] so moved, commissioners. motion passes unanimously 5-0. now places us under item 5, commission comments and questions. >> i have a question. when is that c of a going to be

-- >> it's likely several months out so, we're happy to provide an informational update. >> even if next time, you could let us know what is going on with that. >> sure. happy to. >> maybe if you could include the in the staff report the specific land resolution 88 that he's referring to as well as the block 459. >> sure. >> thank you. any disclosures or any announcements from the commissioners? >> seeing none. we can move on to the regular calendar, item 6. 2017-014684pca. establishment of cultural district ordinance. planning code amendment. >> i'm diego sanchez. i'm joined by shelley from planning staff. we will be presenting an ordinance that amended the administrative code to create a process to establish cultural

districts from the city. the department supports the intentions and efforts of the ordinance. however, as indicated in the case reports, we have recommended amendments to the ordinance. we'll be discussing these later in the presentation. at this time, i would like to provide an opportunity for catalina morales of supervisor ronen's office time to present to you. it was their office that sponsored this legislation. so without further delay -- >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm here representing supervisor ros ronen. we've worked to incorporate information from city departments, community leaders and supervisors on the board. this legislation creates an official recognition of cultural districts of san francisco in a clear, formalized process.

it provides a framework for departments to invest resources into protecting culturally relevant businesses, arts, festivals, and affordable housing through the creation of the districts accompanying funds. this legislation shapes cultural districts as community tools within neighborhoods. we think of cultural districts as areas that certain committees have established themselves historically in san francisco, areas where communities have brought a rich diversity of cultural, artistic and aesthetic traditions and life to the neighborhoods they inhabit. for example, we have the latino culture district 24th street, district 9, south of market, and the tenderloin. these are areas where communities that have been

marginalized and oppressed have gone to seek refuge and establish themselves in the city. there are also neighborhoods that make our city and san francisco an amazing international travel destination. it is these neighborhoods that prevent san francisco from becoming the cookie cutter city where every neighborhood looks and feels the same. supervisor ronen believes that we must do everything we can to strength and preserve the rich cultures of our neighborhoods. it's a critical part of our effort to combat the displacement that's led to shrinking the iconic diversity of our city. because of the housing and affordability crisis in san francisco, we're losing the people that make up their cultural districts, but we're losing the businesses that have been around for decades that provide the rich cuisines and products you can only find in those neighborhoods.

we're losing the art and cultural organizations that exist for these communities to express themselves and bring vitality and art into our lives. we're even missing that place making that made us the envy of the world. supervisor ronen has created a formal concept of a cultural district as a way to fight back and say yet to cultural change. we have five cultural districts in the city and two in the making. supervisor cohen is working with community in the bayview to create an african-american arts and cultural district. and supervisor sheehy is working to establish the lgbtq castro cultural district. the legislation that we're going to be discussing today is about ensuring that the districts thrive. and also about providing a framework and support to enable new ones to emerge. the main components of the legislation are, creating a clear purpose and set of goals

for the city and establishing cultural districts, including stopping displacement of vulnerable communities. providing economic opportunities. promoting affordable housing and home ownership. attracting arts and entrepeneurship and promoting the city's tourism industry. two, defines what a cultural differestrict is and establishe process for creating new cultural districts. three, clarify and formalize the role for city departments in providing support to cultural districts, data analysis, programming, and guidance, in economic development, leaving culture and art, community development and affordable housing, public infrastructure, planning, and zoning protection, among many others. and, four, provides a structure for financial support and public oversight when funds are

provided to cultural district through public grants and private donations. through both creating a fund and giving the community an opportunity to create a citizen advisory committee for each. this is a collective effort. we want to thank ryan sheer from the mayor's office of housing and economic and work force development for helping us collaborate with many departments, including the art commission, the planning department, the entertainment commission, small business office, public works and many more to strengthen the legislation. we had many, many meetings over the course of the month to discuss many of the changes including some of the amendments that you will be discussing today that are already discussed. big thanks to the cultural district organizers that

provided input and are active in protecting vulnerable communities every day. we had a wonderful hearing in rules committee where we have -- had over an hour of public comment from a very diverse group of people in support of this legislation. we look forward with the opportunity work with cultural districts to protect the unique identity of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, commissioners, preservation staff. i will not rehash the entire staff report for you. i do want to reiterate that the department is very supportive of the cultural district program. it's a concept that staff has discussed with this commission over the past few years. and so we're very happy to see that the ordinance has such wide support amongst the public and the board of supervisors. however, there are a couple of

recommendations that we have to tweak the program that we think will bring some clarity and -- bring clarity to the program. so if you have any questions about the considerations that we discussed in the case report, please let me know. otherwise, i will skip to the recommendations for amendments and provide you with a little background on those. the first recommendation that we're making is to create a more inclusive definition of cultural districts. the -- and there are four -- >> i will stop you just so everyone knows what page you are referring to. page 11, right, on the staff report? >> that's correct. these are the recommendations from staff. and also, if you would like to review the definition of cultural districts that is listed on page 6 of the case report, which i will read for you right now.

the definition provided in the ordinance is that a geographic area or location that embodies a unique cultural heritage because it contains a concentration of cultural and historic assets and culturally significant arts and business services and a significant portion of its residents and people that spend time in the area and location are member of a specific cultural or ethnic group that's been historically discriminated against, displaced and oppressed. so staff is recommending four slight changes to the ordinance that we think will open up the definition of it and make the program more accessible to more cultural groups in the city. the first would be to replace a single word, the word "unique" to refer to cultural heritage with "distinct cultural heritage." we believe that the word unique

implies that the geographic area is singular. and that this does not necessarily reflect the fact that many cultural groups have several geographic locations throughout the city. an example we provided was the chinese-american community that has strongholds -- probably not the right term, but homes in both chinatown, inner richmond and other areas in the city. the second recommendation for amendment would be to strike the clause from the definition that reads "that historically have been discriminated against, displaced and oppressed." removing this clause, we believe, would remove a barrier for certain cultural groups to the program, but provide a more -- provide for a more inclusive and diverse district. instead, we are recommending that -- a third amendment, which

would prioritize the recognition and stabilization of communities, which we think would help communities that have experienced discrimination and oppression allowing for a prioritization process for their designation and sustainability. and then the last amendment under this category would be to strike the suggestion that district boundaries -- we understand that cultural groups have shared geographic areas. we feel that encouraging cultural groups to design discreet boundaries that would not overlap would inhibit their ability to identify their authentic home place. and we also think it creates -- could create tensions between

groups, if there's a sense that they have to draw a line between two, separate groups. so we'd like to make that recommendation. the second recommendation is to amend section 107.4, process for establishment of cultural districts, to utilize a cultural district working group model. we believe that community stake holders need to be at the fore front of any process to establish a cultural district and that the ordinance should specifically create a requirement that interested communities organize themselves into working groups. this is the model that has been used in existing cultural groups. we believe it works really well and we would like to see this continue through this program. the cultural district working group would have the duty to assemble stake holders, develop aims of the group and preliminarily determine the cultural assets that need to be

preserved and enhanced. this assures community consensus, understanding and support for the cultural district, and we think it would make a positive exchange to the ordinance. our third people days is to amend section 107.6, responsibilities of the mayor's office and housing and community development, to establish an interdepartmental advisory group, in lieu of a boarded a viesry committee, which would assist with the cultural district work groups. many of these issues are things that were discussed between october and now and this is something that was discussed quite a bit. the planning department does feel that creating board-avenue pointed advisory committees for each cultural district could create some issues with capacity for the cultural districts, as well as create some opportunities for conflict of interest when it comes to

distributing funds. we're advising instead that the city create an interdepartmental advisory group and that group would work with the working groups, which we're recommending that the cultural districts would develop. recommendation for is to amend section 107.5, additional steps for cultural districts established before june 1, 2018, to amend the reporting requirements for cultural districts. the ordinance calls for preparation of a cultural history, housing, economic sustainability strategy. we believe this is a very important tool to support the districts. we know that developing the strategies takes a lot of time, both time to draw in the community and make sure we're truly representing what the community needs and what their concerns are and what they would like to see in the future.

and then to draw in together the data and the reporting required for the strategies. the ordinance also requires that the city prepare for reports in the first two years of the program. these are to address the existing cultural districts. we're recommending that there should be flexibility in the ordinance that would allow for extension of that 12-month deadline that's currently set without going back to the board of supervisors for a legislative change. and then the last recommendation is concerning amending 10.100-52. we would like to clarify the possible uses of resources in the cultural district fund. it will be a rule to safeguard the districts and we feel it's best to clarify its uses a little more. the potential to use the fund

for projects and programs that are physically located outside the boundaries of a district. we think that would be key. specifically, we believe that opportunities for housing may occur nearby cultural districts, but not necessarily within the district boundaries. and we would want to pursue any opportunity to creep eight housing that we can to support the district. so knowing there is that flexibility would be key. we also see there's a potential opportunity here to link the cultural district plan to ceqa mitigations regarding cultural resources. this is not something we've explored with our legal team, but we feel there is an opportunity there and there are some questions to be answered. so i would leave you with that. i know it's quite a bit of information. please let me know if you have any questions. >> thank you. are there any questions from the

commission? >> shelley, if you could just expand a bit on what you looked into. what has worked? in past discussion and approval of cultural districts and, of course, when i first came on the commission, we were looking at the japantown and i was very excited to see how that worked and i see there's a couple of people in the audience that participated in that. i'm interesteded to hear you expand upon what has worked to influence these recommendations, particularly the group, the advisory group. >> i can speak best about the process in japantown.

we also have a representative from office of work force development and she may be able to answer questions about oewd's role. they were strong partners in past works as well. and both of those projects, we had very much a community-led process, where city partners were there for technical resource exploring a historic context statement for development of an ordinance and development of strategy document. we've also helped with guidance as to how to inventory both the

tangible, physical properties that are key to preserving within the cultural districts and giving guidance as how to go about this physically as well. our role as a community development specialist and the planning department's role has been helpful in that we're able to go in and provide some structure around how to do public outreach and how to make sure you're talking to all the groups that -- the stake holders, providing a structure for developing goals, a vision, and objectives for a project. and then basic technical support and pulling together reports and making sure that the community gets face-to-face time with the departments that they need to talk with and the commissions they need to get in front of. i hope that answers your question. >> so you are experience with

these has been a strong foundation for these recommendations, it appears to me? yeah. okay. great. thank you. >> commissioner johns? >> commissioner johns: have you discussed these recommendations with the supervisors office and if so what is the result? >> some of the recommendations -- i should say that the -- these recommendations as presented in the case report, we did forward to the supervisors office last week once they were prepared. the recommendations are based on conversations that we've had with the supervisors office and the topics, i believe, are familiar with them. we had not given specific, written recommendations to the supervisors office prior to

this. >> commissioner johns: so far as you know, do the supervisors object to any of these? >> i can say we've had discussions about the pros and cons of some of the issues, but i could not speak to specifics. i will let carolina speak it if they're supportive of not of the proposed amendments. >> commissioner johns: thank you. >> any other questions from the commission before we open it up to public comment? thank you. >> is there any member of the public that wishes to submit any testimony?

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm terry beswick, historical society in san francisco. we've been collecting, preserving and sharing our lgbtq history for 33 years now in san francisco. we have an archives downtown, which is one of the largest collections of our queer history in the world and a small museum in the castro and we're trying to build a larger museum in the castro. we're hopeful about that. one of our many projects -- we work on historic places preservation and have been in support of the cultural district efforts and i want to applaud -- take this opportunity to applaud everyone, including the planning department, m.o.h. and oewd and supervisor ronen for the legislation. it's badly needed. we don't have any clarity around

how cultural districts are formed. i was also confused about what a cultural heritage district was. it's confusing. so i think we get a lot of clarity about what we have currently and how we can continue to support them. i'm concerned about the fact that we're coming here today to revisit legislation that was recently passed and having participated in the community process to hone the changes to the planning code. i want to say that there was a very deep and thoughtful process in creating this legislation. and it was also the political process, and so there was give and take back and forth and i want to acknowledge that. i'm concerned that we're coming here where we don't have unanimity with stake holders, including the existing cultural districts. i'm working hard to create a castro lgbtq district.

if we don't have unanimity at this point or even broad consensus around some of the points, i'm concerned. i also just want to note that many of the proposed amendments can be achieved without opening up the legislation again and making changes to it. i think that's an important and key point. some of them are provided for in existing legislations as well, which is not to say that i don't agree with all the proposed amendments. i think that some of them are legitimate and should be executed on, but i don't think it's necessary at this time. my point is more specifically to the question of developing consensus before we reopen this and take it to the board of supervisors. i think it's important that the city departments work together and work with the board of supervisors and the major stake holders to make any changes that might be necessary and i think we can do that administratively.

thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. my name is mike garcia, founder of the cultural coalition. first, i appreciate the comments of supervisor johns, is it? this legislation was just signed by the mayor a week ago. it was a long process to get to this point. it passed unanimously. it had eight sponsors and before mayor farrell what's dissent, he was co-sponsor. we actually have had time to let the legislation and ordinance go forward and it feels like -- it feels like an attack on the community by this department and by staffers. and that's very concerning

because, to echo terry's sentiment, it's a very long process. and we came to a consensus on what we could achieve and we would like to see things go forward in a different manner, but not the way it feels like it's happening today. i think i take a special concern with recommendations 3 and 4 of the proposed amendments and legislation. i think we developed a process that works for us that is nimble, to really meet community needs, and to apply additional requirements on, which is to make it harder for communities to do this. in terms of being involved with the cultural coalition, we have worked with cities for profits that are unique.

so in chinatown, who will be the key stake holders to move this process forward? it's been very slow because they have so many possible stake holders. but we're helping communities find their ground and create districts on their own terms. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm honey mahogany, cultural lgbtq district. i'm super excited about the cultural district legislation. the cultural districts coalition went through a very long process. it's been years in the making, where we sat with community members, where we talked to community leaders, where we worked with various city departments, and worked closely with our individual supervisors to make sure that while we're

creating this legislation, we really looked at all the pieces that were most relevant and also of most concern. you know, you've heard this many times that san francisco is in a time of great change. and the city has done a lot to make concessions for and solicit business of tech industries that have helped to grow the economy of our city. unfortunately, it's had detrimental impact on those that live here i'm a native san francisco and i've really seen the changes in the city. this legislation first and foremost is mitigation effort, to mitigation the impact of tech industry money and make sure that san francisco does not lose its heart and soul. and one of the reasons that people come here -- yes, we have beautiful buildings and beautiful victoriians and parks, but it's the people that make san francisco so special. and a world-class destination. this is an effort to really

protect the communities that are most marginalized, that are most in danger of being pushed out and losing their homes, their businesses and cultural inheritance that's been based here in san francisco. so i think it's very important when considering any amendments to make sure that it is not the people who already have the money and the clout, but looking at the mitigation impacts and those that are really most vulnerable and historically been discriminated against and marginalized and pushed out. that is a key cornerstone of this legislation, something that i would hate to see tampered with. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i who like to commend supervisor ronen and her staff and community advocates that participated in this leadership

in introducing the legislation and for the extensive efforts to get the legislation passed. by any measure, this is a very significant milestone for cultural preservation efforts in san francisco and that should be commended. of course, the need for a consistent definition of cultural districts dates back to the early work of this commission, including early efforts by commissioner matsuda and then commissioner allen martinez, to recommend a separate destination approach. that was shortly followed by heritage's own policy on sustaining san francisco's living history that made the same recommendations. so i'm very pleased that we're at this point today. i guess i'm perceiving the amendments differently than the

other speakers. i see it in ensuring the success and effectiveness of the cultural districts to be designated under the program. and perhaps more than any city department, planning department, has played a significant role in establishing and administering the existing cultural districts in partnership with the communities they represent. so i do believe that the recommendations of staff that have been involved firsthand should be taken seriously from those practitioners and professionals that have firsthand experience working with the communities and understanding some of the challenges, definition issues and challenges that have been countered so far that have limited, in my opinion, the success of the existing cultural districts that we have in san francisco today. so i'm choosing to view the proposed amendments in the most constructive light possible.

we want to support the cultural district legislation and the need to have consistent explanation of the districts and benefits and restrictions. but we do share some of the concerns raised in the staff report for you. top of my list is the definition of what can be considered an eligible cultural district. of course, the existing districts and proposed districts before you were strongly supportive of being eligible for this designation, but it raises question to me about other areas facing displacement and in some cases already been recognized as important. what comes to mind is the garden district and port of san francisco's efforts to protect maritime heritage in san francisco. thank you.

>> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is karen kay. as most of you know, i've been very involved with the japantown cultural heritage area. and have been so before jhs and bmp and the community downtown task force. when i looked at this legislation, i was very concerned because it did not come to japantown through our jhs process. it did not come to our cultural heritage commission because we asked and we were told, there are amendments on the way. so we waited for the amendments. and we never got a complete copy of the legislation that we could review and give a recommendation to the japantown task force.

the passage of the legislation itself through the board of supervisors from the time it went to the rules committee was so fast that there was no time to analyze and give a good, solid recommendation based on the experiences we had as the first jhs in san francisco. and i think that we have some really good insights. one of the things i'm really pleased about is that the staff recommendations are completely in line with the issues i saw. and i think that's really important. it speaks very well to how staff looks at these areas and these projects. and how they thoroughly vet them and how important that role is. and i'm very, very concerned that the legislation does not

require hpc, just three city departments, and it doesn't have to include the hpc and it must. this commission, your staff, they're the experts and are really good. and i cannot imagine why they were not included, why they were not given more advanced notice before the final draft came out. i'm very concerned that the legislation establishes these five-member bodies as the sole input, primary input perhaps is better, for advising the board, the mayor and the mayor's office of housing and community development. jhs is a community-based process. i think it needs to be changed.

i also find it puzzling why you would go to the mayor's office of housing and community development if your emphasis is to prevent cultural and historic preservation. i have copies of a full testimony for you. thank you. >> thank you. are there any other members of the public? >> thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is robert resky. i participated heavily in the development of the jhs document and came here to -- not just to repeat, but echo some of the concerns that have been expressed by staff and to support the recommendations. i think it would vastly improve the legislation. from my point of view, what was lacking, what i started -- like the concept of legislation

providing for cultural heritage and preservation in our communities. when i started digging into the legislation, i found it lacking, particularly in the emphasis of the need of a community process, which staff analysis addresses. we took years to go through with volunteer work to work out the various conflicts and deepen our understanding of what we were trying to address and preserve and i think that's essential for the success of a cultural district allowing the community to self-identify itself. and it's useful, but in the development, you need to allow for community process. i would support which was

previously mentioned that the involvement of the planning department and the two commissions it serves is essential. having worked with jhs, it was essential to making it work, because they were the experts on formulating in writing what we were trying to conceive in our minds and our imaginations what is necessary to make a community thrive, particularly ones that are under threat from development. i echo the community about the five-person advisory board. it's too narrow and too politically manipulatable. the time frame is to short, given the years that we took. and i think probably most others would really take once they began digging into issues. i'm also concerned about the

added position that establishes overlapping boundaries. it does not overlap reality. and there are overlapping values and multiple interests. buchanan ymca, rosa parks elementary school, serve various cultural communities. i will stop with that. i support the recommendations. i do see them in the spirit of making the legislation better than it is now. thank you. >> thank you. are there any other members of the public that would like to make public comment at this time i will close public comment and bring it back to the commission. commissioner pearlman. >> commissioner pearlman: thank you. can you address -- i'm confused

about why -- it does feel like the legislation was rushed and, what was the involvement of the planning department and you in particular, your group in particular, relative to the supervisors office. why are we in this position where just after this has been signed into law, all of a sudden, it's, oh, there are problems with it. can you address that? >> preservation staff. the planning department staff, myself, diego, tim frye, did work with the supervisors office in which we were invited to several meetings to discuss drafts, various drafts of the legislation. and mohcd and mowd staffed the meetings as well as other departments. we did give input at the meetings. it was our understanding that the ordinance was very much a

moving target, as the drafts we saw multiple drafts. i think we were up to seven or so different versions of the legislation. and we were awaitiwaiting for t wheel to stop so we with have a final piece of legislation, a final draft to bring to the commission. we had expressed that the supervisors' office that it was our understanding that the legislation would require the historic preservation commission review and written comment for the city charter. there was a different legal opinion as to whether or not that was required, but that was our position and we made that clear to the supervisors' office. so when the final draft of the ordinance was published and moved forward, we were taken offguard and given the time

required to set up a hearing before the historic preservation commission, there wasn't enough time in the calendar for first and second read of the full board. i hope that helps. >> commissioner pearlman: it's fine. i appreciate that. i do have those concerns that this is pretty significant. the planning department through preservation staff has been working on this for many, many years. like commissioner jonck and ms. kay was involved in jhs and that was our first or second hearing back in 2013. so clearly this has been going on for probably at least a decade or more. and any rushing of legislation is always suspect. what is the purpose of rushing legislation when not everybody has participated. and the whole purpose of the cultural, you know, heritage

districts is about diversity and the different opinions coming together. so all of a sudden, in creating legislation, it seems like a major part of it, and this particular department -- and i mean preservation staff that are doing the work and an amazing amount of work -- are not specifically included in that and the gestation of the legislation. so, you know, i'm not an attorney, so i'm not really -- i would really have to spend more time to study every single piece of this to understand it. i do feel that i'm strongly supportive of the recommendation to amend relative to, you know, i trust the staff. i've read through it, of course, but i test the staff's deep understanding to try to create a

forum and legislation that is expanded as opposed to some of the speakers here. i don't think it would be -- i don't think the access and the creation of the districts would be any -- it would not be reduced. the amount of information would be expanded and possibilities are expanded, which seems like a -- the right thing to do, relative to specifically this kind of legislation. >> i remember when tim frye, you first told us about that supervisor ronen was introducing legislation on establishing cultural heritage districts and how excited i was to hear about that. that would further expand, as mr. buehler has said, the history and the involvement of other aspects of the san francisco community and our commission and the planning department. so i was eagerly waiting to see how we could be -- continue to

be involved in this. and so i'm really disturbed that we're at a point where we're coming, you know, after the fact. i have to say, i think -- and i want to thank the speakers today for their very eloquent statements. the folks from the leadership coalition for carrying this forward. i think it's commendable. it's absolutely terrific what you've achieved here to date. and i thank mr. buehler for speaking about our -- reminding us about the history, a good portion of which i've been involved in as well as my predecessors. and then hearing from one of our model districts and the process that we work with to create that.

i like to think of these amendments as being important, very important things to consider, to strengthen what the group and the supervisor have already achieved and i -- i have to say one thing, too, about the development of districts. one of the things i was thinking about, i teach a course at u.c. berkeley called cultural landscape, environmental sustainability and preservation practices. and the whole idea of the cultural natural resources in some of the districts is really important. the parks, park and rec department, i didn't hear anything about park and rec. the water courses, the parks, the foliage, the natural fabric of how the people came to live and inter-relate with these great areas of san francisco.

so i think the melding of all the groups and the natural aspects, too, is an important thing to really consider and this commission has a lot of value to contribute to that process. so i'm in favor of these recommendations going forward. >> commissioner matsuda: thank you. commissioner black? >> commissioner black: i want to clarify, as the new commissioner, i don't have the background that my colleagues do. so is it correct that this in no form has come before this commission? oh, goodness. okay. the other thing that i, again, don't know enough about but would like to find out, it appears to me as a planner, this is really groundbreaking and i

wonder how many other communities have enacted legislation like this. >> tim frye, planning staff. it's our understanding that san francisco is the first city it codify a process like this. >> commissioner black: given that, it makes me really proud that my city and our city is the city that's doing this. i think it's absolutely fantastic. and i'm particularly proud of supervisor ronen's office and the people -- the various communities that participated in this, should be very proud. this will be copied nationally, that i'm sure. having said that, i think it's really important to get it right. and i do think it's a good idea to think things through at a fairly detailed level to make sure it's done well, so that when another city, new york, for example, new orleans, there are

all sorts of places that may want to copy this. and cities do, indeed, copy legislation. i think we want to make sure it gets done right. so i think some of the recommendations that staff have made are very valuable and valuable for consideration. it seems to me that the board of supervisors may choose to accept them or accept some of them or not some of them, but i think it's worthy of them considering it. so for that reason, i'm -- i want to applaud everybody who has got 10 to where -- gotten it to where it is now, but i support further refinement. >> commissioner matsuda: commissioner johns? >> commissioner johns: i agree with the comments that have been made. i think that mr. buehler put it very, very nicely. the staff has had a great deal

of experience in this area. and their experience is valuable. and they have experience that really from a perspective that is totally different from that of anybody else has been involved in this or his -- or has been generous with their time to come today to speak to us. one of the things that's important about this commission is that we, i think, have not only the right, but the obligation to speak to the community on matters of preservation and to make our experience and observations available to the supervisors and it other departments and to anyone who is engaged in something that affects preservation so that we can help

them accomplish what they are trying to do. and i view the amendments proposed by the department in that very light. it is helping them. it is not attempting to usurp anybody's ability to conform a consensus. the supervisors are probably in the best position to evaluate our experience and to make use of it should say see fit. so i will be supportive of the amendments. >> commissioner matsuda: thank you. i wanted to make a few comments. number one, in all of the meetings that we had with the staff of the planning department and historic preservation sub-department -->> commissioner

matsuda: the staff of the planning department. >> we were very clear that it was for implementation. how do we craft the community engagement process. but considering to our city attorney, right, and our role as a legislators, should not and don't need to be part of the legislation itself. so, in fact, we have and we discussed this with the staff here present, that we would be picking up a process with the department, which is the hub of the coordination amongst departments to ensure that we create a series of prosecutors and regulations to figure out how to best implement this, but with communities have to do their own organizing