redevelopment of the west end addition wasn't really that long ago. so looking forward towards the future, i'm wondering, you know, this -- that the pictures that are full of pictures that are important to us in terms of how we live in this city. and they're important about the corridor of north beach, chinatown, we do occasionally see buildings like the redevelopment of the pingu.n. housing that is very important to the cultural fabric of, you know, china town. or i would argue the laundromat on mission street is to the mission. so, you know, in the context of what is happening to development on third street, in chinatown, in the mission, you know, how do we look at cultural preservation? how do we aggregate, you know, facades, awnings, cultural

corridor, and all of those things, to really get to a policy of preserving time and space for how we live without also getting in the way of, you know, business development. because we know that in the age of amazon, businesses have to keep up and to do things differently, right? so for us it is a fast-moving calculation that takes into account economic development and workforce and transportation and buildings and at the same time we want -- we do want to preserve, you know, what we have -- the wonderfulness of the city. and the more macro issue, how do we communicate those issues that have to do with the preservation of neighborhoods and the context of neighborhood plans? and pier 70, the port, you know, all of those things that are

happening that are moving fast and also with the process improvements that would allow us to weigh in and to hear your technical and also your, you know, knowledge about the specific buildings that we are looking at. okay, commissioner richards. >> i'll be brief because i spoke a lot. to commissioner's point and we had an article in the chronicle this morning and it was breath taking with the shifts in population in the cities that are more diverse and less diverse. san francisco is becoming less diverse over time. and it's pretty scary. on the cultural preservation piece, maybe it's not a ceqa issue but i would hope that this body with the board of supervisors could go to our state assembly people or senators and say, you know, there's this thing called cultural preservation and maybe it's not strictly by ceqa on who slept here and owned it or

whatever for the categories. but there should be an allowance for preserving culture that is outside of what we have today. because i'm worried about cultural preservation too. and one last point, in the context of the budget, and i think that you folks managed the preservation piece, i know when we did the density bonus program that it covered 30,000 parcels. i remember i think that it was kiersten and paolo got up and said here's the 30,000 parcels and they kept peeling it away and these are the rent controlled ones and these are the historic ones was one of them. and we eventually got the number down to 215 parking lots is what it only applied to. but somewhere there's got to be a map, a database, of the city that has been surveyed and what has been identified and what districts. and the reason that i'm asking that is that we just -- in the light of sp-50 and our things going on, our market had survey data and we looked at the

octearia plan and we said that our neighborhood is a california registered eligible district. it's been 10 years now since the plan has actually been -- you know, the survey was done. so we contracted a contract to go back to commissioner moore's points the age eligible ones now, and 10 years have moved by and re-survey the ones that you didn't before and survey the rest of the neighborhood and list it on the register. and other neighborhoods we're talking to as well, there's context statements for eureka valley and others and so i want to understand the level of surveying and how many contact statements. and, like, how this all fits together and where we're at. >> commissioners, the department staff. if i may respond through to the president. >> go ahead. >> we are prepared to -- that's a great comment, commissioner richards. and we're prepared to present an overview of the city-wide program to the historic preservation commission for phase one at the end of february. we'd be happy to come to the

planning commission and give you that same presen presentation ad the same time if your calendar allows. or, if not, we can directly respond to those questions. which neighborhoods have context statements, which cultural communities have context statements. so we can identify how migration patterns have progressed over time. but also where have we surveyedd properties and where are there deficiencies. >> right. judging commissioner perlman was on after you. >> i think that most of what i wanted to say was really -- you know, specific to points. and i don't think that we have the time to really get into that. thank you though. >> sounds good. to the point on the survey, when you bring that before us, tim, if you could also give us your best assessment on a timeframe of what needs to be done, how can it get done -- how long will it take with the resources that have been allocated. and how many additional resources could be used to get it done in a year or two years.

>> i have done that calculation so we'll be happy to share that with you. it's a wide range. >> okay. so i have three comments. one is in regard to our charter. and to commissioner richard's point about our review and comment and why it's not broader. i just don't think that review and comment is adequate, especially on the draft e.i.r.s that involve demolition of historical resources. so i don't have a specific proposal yet but we need to explore how the historic preservation commission can have more than just a review and comment role in regard to that. i would like us to actually have a vote so that any dissenting votes could -- could those reasons before those dissent votes could then be shared with the commission. that would elevate the conversation. the draft e.i.r.s that come before us are demolitions.

and the conversation and the negotiations with the project sponsors are relative to urban fabric. they're not relative to protecting the resource. and that's where our hands are tied. you know, 450 o'farrell and the one on california each have different issues but they're demolitions. and the site at 3333 california was what was the problem and the new development didn't really protect or even adhere or encompass anything that was important or significant about the site. the building was a whole other conversation. 3333 -- or 450 o'farrell, it seemed to me that there was a simpler solution or evaluation if the lightwell had been placed over the historic resource. and that evaluation wasn't available to us. so understanding how those -- you know, the conversation

around if we're going to keep a facade, why do we keep it? and why it's important, so it's not just some weird appendage to a housing development. and so then that goes into the preservation alternatives. and, you know, our resolution 746 with good intent i think that the unintended consequence is now that we are seeing multiple alternatives to full preservation alternatives. and multiple alternatives. what is lacking is that the full preservation alternative doesn't fully evaluate, in my opinion, whether the proposed project program and objectives can be accomplished. and if they can't be accomplished, why? so if we had one alternative and we were evaluating that, we could have a much more robust conversation around that. but our commission saw this, you

know, continual demolition and we wanted more information so that if we were going to be -- which is the next topic item -- if we're going to be retaining building elements -- facades and that sort of thing -- we wanted to do it in a meaningful way. that's why we ended up doing part of the partial appendages. so maybe our assessment on whether the draft e.i.r. is adequate or not -- instead of a review and comment -- maybe we take a vote on it and we actually vote on whether our commission believes that it's adequate and why or why not. >> city attorney, did you want to weigh in on this? >> with all due respect, under the charter -- >> can't hear you. >> you cannot hear? >> can you hear me then? under the charter, explicitly the historic preservation

commission has authority to review and comment upon the environmental documents. so i think that you would be exceeding the authority under the charter to take an affirmative vote. i think that you could perhaps find ways to do more than what you're doing and do different processes. but to vote on the adequacy of a draft. e.i.r. is too much. okay? >> thank you. commissioner moore. >> thank you president hyland for saying what you did. it begs the question as to whether or not you need to start raising the issue as to whether or not your role is adequate to what's at stake. and i think that is a difficult one when it comes to the interpretation of the charter but that is one which i think

that is pressing given that we all jointly agree that the tools that we have together aren't quite enough for us to responsibly -- or for each of us and each group is trying to do. and i think that i would definitely join you to ask as to whether or not the charter restrictions, they empower us but they also restrict us a at t time with the basic condition of how we look at how things have changed. we are basically up against money as being the highest value in preservation and that is in historic preservation terms, not an objective that can be met. >> commissioner johns. >> thank you. if we cannot vote, that is we, the historic preservation commission, is not allowed to vote on the adequacy of the i.i.r., is there -- e.i.r., is

there anything that prevents us from voting on what we believe to be the preferred alternative? that is the question for you. >> thank you. the attorney. >> city attorney. i think that you can -- as a matter of practice right now when you express your opinion, we can reach consensus on a particular alternative as, in effect, you're quote/unquote voting. but you cannot understand your voting as an approval of the draft e.i.r. because that would be utterly premature. that's why ceqa has a process for comments and then the certification falls within the purview of the planning commission. >> i wouldn't have imagined for a moment that we were doing any such thing. [laughter]. >> commissioner perlman. >> thank you. i think that commissioner moore said how do we translate, you know, our dialogue to the

planning commission. and i think that we do have the opportunity to just have a robust conversation and it's just the matter is how do we get that to you. you know, i have seen the reports and they're a paragraph or two. and part of that is the staff interacting with us as well, because the staff interacts with us and interacts with your commission. and it's literally just sort of a technical conversation on how we translate our robust conversation. and i think that we often feel limitations and we're often told that we have limitations from the staff tells us, you know, that we can only talk about these things. and i think that commissioner black's comment that we could do a lot more is well taken. but i think that is really the question is, you know, do you get a report that is just verbatim of what we discussed? or there's a summary of each one

of the commissioners, say, you know, i like this one for these reasons, and that's translated to you. but some way that it seems that it's just a technical question. i don't think that we have it change the charter to get to a reasonable way of communicating. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner richards. >> so to your point and everybody's point, apparently, the most time-consuming for us would be to force us to watch your proceedings. so we can actually hear word-for-word and see the expressions and hear the public comment. and i sat through one on buchanan and some of them are not short so it does have workload. and maybe i would do that as pay matter of principle in the future. and another one is to come and to do a presentation on us these ones. it doesn't seem like there's a lot of them, so i don't know that it's a huge amount of work. but there's you can't vote and i'd like to have a majority opinion and the minority opinion. and the majority thinks like the supreme court does.

and then you have dissenters. i'm the minority but i still have this issue. that would work too. >> commissioner johns are you still on? >> i don't have a monitor. [laughter] my colleague here, thank you. i want to get to very practical recommendations that both of our commissions do a better job of organizing ourselves so that we, for instance, us, the historic preservation commission, does a better job of calling, you know, we're not going to call a vote to approve anything, but we're going to reach consensus and we could work with our president and vice president to organize ourselves better, particularly with we get to talking about what is our preferred alternative. or i think we could do a better job on that. and i would ask the planning commission to organize their

agenda. and that i think that we would try to figure out how to present to you. i thank you to commissioner hillis for going to the government website and listening to the, for instance, the conversation on 3333 california. and, you know, i often do that on other types of projects and things that i'm following. which is often a good way to hear the debate and to get the different viewpoints. but many of you don't necessarily have time for that. so if there's a way for us to present more of the views, even if -- hopefully we have reached some concensus and a preferred alternative. or, again, my whole goal is to establish more of an invocation of an attitude and a predisposition in the whole development community towards a full consideration of preservation amidst the multiple goals that we all have to deal with in planning for the city. so that's what i would ask. >> thank you, commissioner wolfram. >> i have a question for staff

relative to the issue of timeliness of the -- of when we present our material. we're getting the draft e.i.r., often it's a week before, and the staff has to write the letter and then we'd ask more staff to potentially write more letters. but is there a way that we could -- the hearing could come earlier? i'm just curious about the e.i.r. process. >> okay. so there's two hearings, right? because there's the h.p.c. hearing on the alternative. i think that could definitely happen earlier and i think that was actually the goal of changing that. is that instead of having a fully developed alternative coming to you under the a.r.c., we would do that more as a scoping activity. and then we do provide notes on that. and then we can figure out potentially how that would get to planning commission. so we'll look at the process on that. and come up with how is it best to get that information to the planning commission and when it should go to them. and the other question -- so

that i think that we're sort of addressing some of these is that we'll provide, obviously, more detail in that information. and it will also be the full h.p.c. that will comment on the alternatives and they'll come earlier in the e.i.r. process. on the full review on the e.i.r., that's more challenging because it happens during the public comment period. so what we have to do is to schedule the draft e.i.r. review and comment on the h.p.c. and the planning commission and then staff has to turn around a letter on your review of the e.i.r. and then get it to the planning commission. so i we can work on the schedulg of that and we'll look at that as a process to get that essentially -- maybe more time in between that so that we can get it to you earlier and that the staff has time to do that, to do a more detailed letter, but that's that window. >> the planning commission has always has two hearings, right? the draft e.i.r. and then the

final certification. so there's more of a window -- we're providing our comments before they have their comment on the draft. but we never provide comments before they do the final certification. so i'm wondering if that gives us more flexibility. >> i'm saying what we're trying to do right now is to get your comments on the draft e.i.r. also given to planning commission at the time they hear the public comment. >> the draft. right. >> would it be beneficial to have it come back to the h.p.c. prior to your hearing on the certification, the final e.i.r.? is that too late? i guess too late to change anything. >> because that's the point at which you're making a decision, right? you're not making any decisions when you see the draft, you're just taking public comment. >> okay. and miss gibson looks like she wants to weigh in on this. >> i just wanted to add that we have actually decided that it would be beneficial to produce a transcript of the h.p.c. hearing to assist our staff and

developing the letter that reflects the h.p.c.'s comments. and perhaps it would be helpful that we provide that transcript to the planning commission to enable the commissioners to more readily to review the comments and not have to necessarily watch the hearing itself. so we'll explore how we could do that and getting the -- you know, the timing of that as allison indicates is tight. but we'll review that. and we'll get back to you. >> okay. thank you. oh, i'm sorry. did you want to weigh in? >> i wanted to kind of summarize what my concerns have been and that is that there are at least three projects that have been before us recently in the pipeline of this entitlement process where it was very clear in my opinion that more of the preservation could have been

incorporated into the project without losing the full development or the full, you know, without compromising the project's goals. and that's why, you know, i kind of have been raising the flag and saying, hey, you know, if we just densified the site over here, we could open up the site in front of the building and it would be a much better project. and those options aren't before us to comment on. and so we have been asking why. and then how can we help you in guiding those projects in a better way? >> can you be specific about what projects you're talking about? >> well, the one that we talked about denseification -- >> 333 california, there's an opportunity to dense few the 65 feet all along california and not build in front of the resource. which is the site that made the resource -- and resource is more than just the building. but by leaving the site open in

front of the building and dense flying another portion of the site, we could achieve the program and yet keep what's important about the site. even though what happens to the building may be a demolition. >> and 450 o'farrell. you know, the location of the lightwell -- the project in and of itself required some zoning changes or approvals, you know, what do they call it -- but, you know, the zoning administrator had to make a determination of some other parts of the site. so the lightwell could have been, you know, in a conceptual massing place the over the actual resource and the development could have happened around it. but that option wasn't before us. >> hold on. through the chair, please. commissioner richards, did you want to say something? thank you. >> you struck a chord with me with what you just said. when the project alternatives

are looked at and the project itself is proposed, what i'd love to see on this sheet and in addition to the profit margin, if we can, is the number of variances and things that were we to grant them to achieve these things. so, you know, because -- that ends up coming back to us and the city administrator does his thing and we do our thing, i'd love to see that on here. because we don't know that until the final project is picked. how many exposure and how many exceptions so i think that it's a great, great point. >> the pertruro power station is a very good example of what commissioner hyland just said. there's five total historic resources but three specific ones that the developer just wanted to get rid of. and with some fairly simple -- you know, they were going up higher -- you know, they were getting all sorts of allowing the develop pent, so reorganizing it in a certain way would have allowed the room to preserve that whole central

area. and we discussed that as, you know, as a viable alternative but we didn't see it. you know, i mean, that's what we talked about at the a.r.c. and it comefer came back to us as a completed thing because we never see it again after it goes past the draft. so there's a way that we need to talk about that with you so that you know that is something that we thought that was really -- i mean, that was very significant. because those buildings are going to get bulldozed or death squadded if we don't pay attention to that. >> commissioner hillis. >> i just wanted to comment. i don't think that there's anything procluding you have having a hearing on a specific project post the e.i.r. so you all -- if you think that it is valuable to us, you should do that. i don't think that there's anything -- you can talk to the city attorney and others about it, but i also want to point out that your role is to preserve a resource, right? and i think to some extent and you take this into consideration also is to build more housing

and to provide more affordable housing. and sometimes those go against each other. i mean, in -- i think that happened on 450 o'farrell, even if something could have happened where you preserved that facade, i don't know if you were really preserving that building which was a church. i mean, you might have preserved the facade and ultimately -- at least it was my opinion -- it was better without that facade. sure, if you kept the whole building and you were able to put housing above it and kept that but none of those alternatives were eventually going to do that. so i was comfortable with that decision. but i think that, you know, you think that the projects are heading down the wrong path and there's a viable alternative that gets the program, getting the affordable housing and gets the housing, you know, -- you know, and again on 333 california, you might be able to get the program elsewhere, we'll see as that goes through the process whether that is the case

or not. but i would suggest that you do that. >> okay. commissioner richards was on the board. and then commissioner hyland. >> what is interesting is that there seems to be a disconnect between your good ideas and the scoping process. so i would love to have your alternative like you said on 333 california as one of the alternatives, literally listed in the e.i.r., you know, with all of the different aspects of it and it's hard hearing it way after the fact, like, we hear a concept but we can't really tell the number of square feet and the number of units and so that's what i think -- and we'd love to see the schematic too like you have up here. so maybe you can connection earlier in the scoping process and put your heads together and go, hey, this is -- h.p.c. preferred alternative and have it to be listed. >> commissioner hyland. >> your point is well taken, commissioner hillis. and the issue for us is that

it's too late in the process. almost when we're -- even when it gets before the a.r.c. it's almost too late in the process. so how do we get -- how do we influence the development of the alternatives and those things that are studied in the e.i.r. so that these ideas can get incorporated? if it's at the end of the process then we become obstructionists. >> yes, commissioner hillis. >> the process isn't over until, you know, the planning and then ultimately to the board of supervisors on many projects. i wouldn't be too concerned that it's later in the process. i think that we get bogged down in the -- the e.i.r. alternatives are meant to give, you know, broad kind of levels of variance that could happen in a project. and there's an alternative at 333 california and there's other alternatives. we don't need every alternative that ultimately may be under consideration to be in the e.i.r. it's just the impacts have to be

able to fit within that. so oftentimes we take projects and we marry two alternatives or alternately through that process, alternatives get married and something comes out of the project. that is not necessarily a specific alternative in the e.i.r. so i wouldn't get entirely bogged down in that. and that's part of the issue that you're having is that you opine on this early during the alternative process and things happen with the project. and it gets community input in, and further review by staff and it goes down a process in changes. and maybe to not one of the alternatives, but some in between. and i think that, again, that's the time -- if you feel compelled -- to make comments. >> okay, commissioner richards and i will just call to your attention that it's almost noon and we still have not tackled number two on the agenda. >> so one of the scoping document comes out with the project sponsors, you know, the desired outcomes or objectives can't the a.r.c. meet and actually go over what they are and say, here's what we think,

staff, what the preferred alternatives should be? to commissioner hillis we have the permutations of this and that and i would rather to see an h.p.c. alternative or a partial rather than five different variations. >> i'm curious what miss gibson feels? >> the question about timing and whether earlier in the process there can be input by the h.p.c. that then gets transmitted to the planning commission. i understand that is the desire here. as allison indicated we do feel that it would be possible to have the first hearing before the h.p.c. rather than the a.r.c. and to have that earlier in the process before there is a lot of investment and development of alternatives. so that then there is a greater, you know, sense of flexibility to influence early in the process. that was our intention before, but we do hear that, you know,

we could be doing it better and differently. so we're going to modify the process going forward. >> thank you. commissioner perlman. >> given the timeframe i'm wondering if we can make this a quarterly joint commission, you know, to do something on a regular basis. because this is a great conversation. clearly, we're not going to have time to get to part two if we have to end. so it's an investment of two hours quarterly and then we can have specific topics and maybe just one topic each time that we meet or something like that. >> perhaps officers could meet -- just quarterly meeting of everyone is a lot. and we also have joint meetings with rec and park and health and -- >> (indiscernible). >> yeah, so maybe we could talk, you know, about, you know, officers meetings. and then perhaps set a specific meeting where we look at what

the staff has done and to see if there's any process improvements that have actually led to the goals that we intended. >> we don't have a hard stop. we just want to be respectful of the planning commissioners' day. >> we're supposed to have our regular meeting at 1:00. okay. commissioner wolfram. >> i would caution our commission a little bit that i think that our goals should not be trying to find the perfect alternative. remember, that there's a sponsor there, they have a project, and they're trying to get their project build anbuilt and they'o get the alternative built. we can spend time on having good alternatives but our role should be conveying to the planning commission why we think that the resource should be saved. not to get too obsessed with all of these alternatives. because the sponsors do not want their alternatives built. that's not their goal. and it's a procedural matter and i think that as much as we can

afford the commission about the historic resource and its importance and they can weigh that in to the discussions of the alternatives but -- i mean, i think that commissioner moore said that there's a sponsor there and they've got financial objectives and the reason they want to demolish the building is because it most likely does not meet their financial objectives. not that they are anti-preservation but that it's want meeting their project. >> commissioner moore. >> i wanted to throw out an idea if we are not able to meet more than once or twice a year that there's a possibility for forming a sub-committee on joint topics of interest. that is very possible, commissioner wolfram and myself, for a number of years of helping small business and working with the small business commission on a schedule. and we have that ability too if there are selected people who in their own group get selected to be on a sub-committee, that would be one other alternative.

>> commissioner johns? oh, it's you. >> as a segue to commissioner moore's point about even having special times when we have a discussion and conversation busy topics of special interest, i want to acknowledge that what i think is significant about this conversation is the evolution of the former landmarks advisory board into the historic preservation commission as a charter is today. and the very representation of the interests and the expertise and the skills of the people on the commission today reflect quite a much broader view of historic preservation, living heritage, thank you very much, as well as beyond the building. we all have our skills and thinking that has expanded to consider not just the cornice, per se, but beyond the building, the people, the landscape, the natural landscape and the

cultural landscapes and the district, what is all around us to create a holistic view. so these conversations bring all of this into play today. >> thank you. commissioner richards. >> a last suggestion, maybe we do a default once a year and if there's nothing to talk about the officers cancel but at least we kind of put a placemarker in. >> good idea. >> sounds good. >> commissioners if there's nothing further on item one we can move on to item two. and as commission president hyland stated there's no hard stop for this hearing but we do need to be cognizant of the next meeting. item 2, retain elements policy. >> good after, commissioner, tim frey, department staff. i'll be presenting along with my small, who manages our design team in the planning department. i can handle this hover you see beneficial -- however you see beneficial and i'll stop after a

slide or two to see if there's any questions. if i could go ahead and get the overhead sfgov-tv. thank you. commissioners, this is a topic much debated at the historic preservation commission and i will give you a short bit of background. but, first, i wanted to recognize justin grving in the audience because he was instrumental in doing tremendous outreach to the h.p.c. and for the h.p.c., to fully understand facade retention and it's a much debated and maligned topic within the design circles but specifically the historic preservation. we think that after many rounds with the historic preservation commission and meeting with san francisco architectural heritage that we have finally reached a point where we have a draft document that these commissions can review and if there is

interest in moving this forward that we can now move to stakeholder outreach and getting more feedback from the public to implement the documents. so, again, there was a lot of discussion around -- at the commission, at the historic preservation commission, about the role of historic fabric. are we talking about specifically historic buildings? are we talking about historic neighborhoods? or are we really talking about the character of neighborhoods no matter what they're made up of in demonstrating a particular identity as many commissioners have mentioned with the distinct identity of san francisco. and so just to reiterate, you know, the commission originally brought up this topic in 2015 when the commission was deliberating on its preservations policy, knowing that a number of preservation

alternatives included some kind of facade retention component. at that time the commission felt, you know, this really isn't a ceqa issue as much as it's a design issue that goes beyond sort of our ceqa analysis. and we should be giving the public stronger direction on what would constitute a successful project or retaining certain elements of a property. so that discussion started sort of in earnest in december 2015 where justin presented a number of projects throughout the world that have incorporated some level of facade retention into a newer, larger development. at that time the commission felt that that was helpful but wanted to get a better sense of what was happening locally. so we pulled a number of projects that have happened in san francisco -- occurred in san francisco that have been built over the last 25, 30 years. we presented the original drawings. we talked about what went right,

what went wrong and at that time the commission felt, okay, let's start drafting a policy around this notion but at that point it started to become more like a design guideline document. so we abandoned the policy approach and really started working on graphics. and at that time the commission, the historic preservation commission, felt that the document was going in the right direction and so we have spent the better part of a year working on graphics, but also talking to san francisco heritage to make sure that we were striking the right tone. and that this was -- the focus really was the buildings that the department and you as commissioners are debating on a regular basis. and what we found -- or tried to implement were a number of recommendations. here's some examples of the document in front of you and there are copies for the public here as well. so two major items that we

focused on for the new document are, one, it's just too hard to squeeze this into a design direction for historic resources. it's too polarizing. and it really is a case-by-case basis is what we're coming up with. and we might talk more in detail about what that means. so we decided at the urging of some of the commissioners -- i will say not the entire historic preservation commission saw eye-to-high on this, but after talking to heritage we thought that it was safe to go ahead and put in a direction there that says "this guideline document does not apply to historic properties." whether they're listed or eligible. and this comes slightly out of your adoption of the urban design guidelines document now. so this will be a companion document to the u.b.g.s and as we know that the u.d.g.s where

they don't apply, the historic guidelines will have -- we'll build those to have more direction around this concept. we're just not there yet because we're still in the public information gathering phase of the h.d.g.s. so i can talk more about that later. and then the last thing is really to clarify what is the public benefit of retaining a portion of an existing building into a larger development. and to do that we've developed a set of -- not necessarily criteria but questions that a developer may articulate or a project sponsor may articulate to all of us, including the public, about why they're approaching a project a certain way. and so that at least allows us to have a discussion about really on balance is this the right approach. and that includes, you know, is the replacement building actually a better building and we should be projecting this notion of retaining elements. and there has also been discussion, if they don't apply to historic resources and these are only to be applied to where

the u.d.g.s are relevant, what type of buildings will be affected. here's an example of some buildings within central soma. these properties were not found to be historic resources, but naturally they retain, you know, some architectural detail, they certainly reflect the sort of low-scale light industrial character of central soma. and there are some, you know, i think that some would argue that there is some value in these buildings. maybe just in terms of fine grain scale and the neighborhood context. and so these are the properties that we would expect to apply these retained element guidelines on. and then again those questions. this is two slide combination. so one is to have an articulation what is the visual contribution of the building to be partially retained and what elements to be retained. so we talk about the existing uses of the building and do they

help to establish a pattern within the environment. and then also talk about technical feasibility. as we know that we have seen a lot of projects attempt to do this and the end result is a bit of a letdown for all of us. there are some successful projects but we hear more offer than not, did we actually approve that vent in that location? or aren't there supposed to be more windows retained. this will allow a project sponsor to be forefront about whether or not it's technically feasible to integrate a smaller building into a larger development. and then finally the two remaining questions are, really determining what are the fundamental relationships. we are talking about, one, what is the benefit, and, two, what is really special that we need to keep. so we can artic iewlt arulate ae are and how it works into the fabric of the neighborhood. and finally so we have a way to discuss this in a meaningful way

is to evaluate the replacement building. perhaps there is another design that would be more valuable to san francisco's built environment. and then the decisionmakers and the public can have a discourse about this. so with that i'm going to hand it over to mya and she'll talk a little bit more about how the document is structured. to some of you it will look very familiar to the u.d.g.s and the special area design guidelines drafted by the design team. and i'm happy again to answer questions at the end about how we will approach this topic in the historic design guidelines in the upcoming year. and zahn zimmer who is managing the design outreach document can also provide some information if you so desire. thanks. >> hello, everyone, mya small, planning department staff. as tim has suggested that, you know, this has been a really interesting process for us as well as staff, and it's interesting to see all of you

here today evaluating design review and preservation in combination. and interimly we are collaborating on this project and it's been a rich and valuable process. these are really challenging issues at play and looking at a site and something that you're weighing all the time in terms what the benefits are of a particular project and how it comes forth. and as many of you know that we have been working on establishing base guideline documents. and the residential design guidelines in our district are with the fundamental guideline document there. and we have the newly adopted urban design guidelines for our mixed use and our neighborhood commercial and our commercial districts. and then the forthcoming historic design guidelines. so those base guidelines establish the larger framework of design guidance for these issues. the special topic design guidelines and special area design guidelines are the layer above that that helps us to get into a finer amount of detail, a richer discourse around the

specificity of what could happen in a particular neighborhood or around a particular topic. and so we have ground floor residential design guidelines, for example, and the one that has come most recently is the pulp and pacific, the special area design guidelines that are coming up for adoption. i think that is a good example of how we're doing it in a particular location. so this would be the first one around a particular topic. so these guidelines basically would be formed as a layer above whatever the base document is that applies. we have mostly been talking about in areas where the urban design guidelines apply, but i think this is up for conversation about how it might apply, say, in our districts or in historic districts. there are sites that are not contributors and it might be a typical site within that direct. and -- district. and it might be something to layer over the historic design guidelines. so when we began looking at these as design guidelines

there's obviously a lot of specific information coming from an architectural and a preservation expertise. so we have sort of dove in and began looking at specific ways that projects could address this as a topic. and so we're going to go through them very briefly. there's a lot of detail in there and, you know, you should have copies that were forwarded to you. i have physical copies here as well. and so i'm going to talk a little bit about how these work together as two sets of guidelines, but also some of the specificity of how we're thinking about how you can retain parts of buildings and parts of things on the site. i just want to show how these things fold together. so the special topic -- the special topic design guidelines work with the base document. in this case on the right, these are the urban design guidelines that would apply that are relevant. so you can see that we might have s1, so we both have the same topic and the site design and architecture, and we're not

including any around public realm which is the third portion in the urban design guideline. so they are related and so you have s1 about urban patterns and an s1.1 that is more spe specify about what is important in that topic. so we have two in the site design topic and five in the architecture. and you know that a2 has both a2.1 and a2.2, and so there's different aspects on that one that we wanted to unpack a little bit more thoroughly. so i'll go through these very briefly and while these look very sort of formal and they're graphic and there's a lot of articulated language here, know that this is very much a draft. this is a complicated set of topics. there's a lot of technical, i think, knowledge around arveg architecture in here and it's a beginning process to talk to you about. it we have talked around each site is specific and there are unique conditions on each site.

and things that are special about each site. but there are some rules of thumb that we're developing as we go through this. this is not a commonly found design guideline in different cities, right? so we don't have a lot of other models to look at. but it's really trying to kind of find the best understandings of preservation but to do it in a non-preservation way and decide the best outcome and kind of balance. so 1.1, to sustain the features that define a neighborhood. i like to think of this as looking for the landmarks with a small "l." so thinking of things in the neighborhood and how does a particular building that is not a resource may contribute to a neighborhood either as a location that's important, the physical fabric that is important within the facade. there might be a spire or some other kind of articulated element that is really critical. and it might be a mural, for example. and how do we think about parts of more buildings that have meaning to people but do not qualify as preservation? and s2.1, establish new massing

to be compatible with the context. i think this one is very similar to s2 in the s are sens s is hos within the block or the particular areas of blocks. if you have something on the corner how does it address the massing that holds the corner and with mid-block common space. these are within the urban design guidelines and the residential design guideline and we think that there's a particular way in which you're keeping something on the site and how new massing can then accent that and contribute to that, that fits within the overall pattern. a2.1, now we're on the architecture section. and supporting retained massing and facade edges. i think that is one that is often done very, very poorly and we start to call things facadism. when you keep the face of a building and the outer edge of a

building, if you approach that building from a sort of elevation, from the front, and you start to look at how massing is added around it, there are rules of thumb if you have everything present at the same facade that existing facade looks really superficial and it looks like a postage stamp that is left. so thinking about how things can be brought forward but other things should be kept back. and how you should not do that on more than one edge, for example. this really looks at how the relationship of the edges and how the framing works within the whole concept of the block. so new development can be added but if it's not done with respect to how it's defined around the edges it starts to look kind of tacked on and superficial. so those things are very important. and a2.2, articulate a clear relationship between the new development and retained elements. so once you define what is important to remain and it's about defining the relationship of the new thing to the old

thing. this is often done with what we call an architectural hypen, a vertical hyphen or a horizontal hyphen, which is really a way of demonstrating a volume metric change between what is added and what is staying there. so defining things as volumes and not surfaces really matters. and the other thing to avoid is to have a sense that the volume is helping to continue through and in between the two of them and that also can make it look quite superficial. so articulating hyphens and that's an architectural thing and how it's detailed and how the materials are handled all really matters. so we're trying to get into specificity around these things. again, these are guidelines so it gives approaches and demonstrations and there's no specific means that is required. and the next one is a3.1, harmonize materials and new development with retained elements. so this is also i think goes hand-in-hand with a2.2, which is

to articulate not only volume but material. and material often expresses and helps to express volume. and so in this case, i mean, there's rules of thumb around -- sometimes -- you don't want something to look too much the same and the contrast actually helps in many instances but you will notice if you change the form or the overall sensibility of it and you change the material that it's too much. and if you're able to keep some residences with the material you can probably change the form and vice versa. so finding that kind of harmonious balance where you feel that there's a cadence between what is there and what is being added without necessarily feeling like they're merging or getting too close to each other. those are a lot of subtle differences and those are the sort of design dialogues that we have internally quite a bit. so it's trying to articulate that through example. and a6.1, i like to think of honoring the thing that is remaining. so restoring the existing

features. if you are keeping something -- and sometimes it's also keeping part of a wall. there may be instances that we can't retain a facade or a whole volume metric expression and it may be portions of things that are reincorporated. that you have to honor the thing which is being retained. meaning to give it dignity in what it had originally been intended. this is the most preservation-like aspect within these guidelines that says if there's possibilities of restoring things, if there are ways of cleaning up and rearticulating things that were there that may have been filled in over time that it's appropriate to bring them back to the state of their sort of highest and best quality. i think that we all know that there are fabric buildings that may not end up being a resources, but they still have prism glass or they still have industrial sash glass or used masonry material or built in such a way that we don't simply build anymore. and there's meaning and importance in retaining that and qualities of retaining that. so this is an option to sort of

highlight that and to make sure that that is part of the final project. and then, lastly, 8.1, and reviving ground floor elements. everything, of course -- often these projects are the ground floor. in many cases it's the bottom few floors that are remaining for these kind of projects. again, restoring and reanimating and reviving those and making sure that whatever original openings were there are maintained and bringing them back to life. and making sure that the volume behind this facade is integrated as a piece of architecture. that the floors are aligning and that fits in with earlier guidelines and making sure that the ground floor feels honest and authentic in the way that it's sitting within the neighborhood and then embracing what is above it. so those are the guidelines as they stand right now. we look for your guidance in terms of some response and in terms of how to proceed.

we definitely would like to begin some community outreach if this approach seems like a viable ongz. and we have -- option. we have a first meeting that is scheduled -- this is our first announcing of this, on february 26th in the evening at the planning department. so we can have the public come in and start having conversations around this beyond what's been happening here within the commissions. and then we are looking very much for good examples and we feel that this is part of the dialogue of this process to -- there are non-san francisco examples in this guideline. it's first time that we have done that in any of our recent dpiedlines. we want a sense of what is the appropriate ways that things have come out and some under construction right now may be good examples so we'll be looking and unearthing these and we look forward to the members of the public and as well the staff and you all to help us to find some really good examples to populate this thing as best we can. so i'm, of course, we're here to answer any questions. >> thank you very much.

we will take public comment if that's okay on the guidelines and then commissioner comments. >> your turn, georgia. >> may i have the overhead please, sfgov. to reiterate what i said before, this one has all of those nice elements, you know, pre-1920, probably even earlier than that. and that's gone now. it's an alteration but it's gone. and this one is maintaining them. and i don't know if that comports with what miss small was talking about, whether it would fit in that, but it's maintaining them. and to me as a novice or as an amateur, it's hard for me to distinguish between these two. i think they both have -- and i do see a lot in the valley where they're keeping anything pre-1920 but after that they're not keeping them. and i think that this one is

very important because it's a 1927, it's a mediterranean barrel front and it has all of the details. these are the things that you're just talking about in your report that i hope that can be considered for maintaining. thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm courtney dam kroger and i'm the board chair at san francisco heritage. i don't have any specific comments at this point because heritage, our projects and policy committee, has been working with tim and the department. and we're grateful for that. so we're, you know, we thank you to the planning department. we haven't seen this current iteration. so we'll be back with, you know, with our comments. so sorry to not say more but i wanted to know that heritage is here and interested in the conversation. thank you. >> thank you very much. any other public comment on this item? okay. with that commissioner black.

>> yes. this topic is so tricky from a design standpoint. we've all seen really good examples and really bad examples. and i don't know that those examples -- those examples have to do with the resource, the setting and the new architecture, primarily the new architecture and how they fit together. and some of the really good projects, even some in this brochure, i don't know that they'd meet the city's guidelines, but having said that we do have to have guidelines because the guidelines need to be developed to guide the lowest common denominator. for example, a project that has a really limited site or a difficult resource. or objectives like really getting a lot of square footage in a location where it's appropriate for a lot of square

footage. and how to balance those competing objectives is really difficult. and it makes the development of the design guidelines really difficult. so this is a really complicated task that you have taken on and i think that overall it's pretty good. and what i like most about it is that the dpiedline guidelines a. and you're allowing for good design to happen. you're not being so specific where you say that you must have x number of feet of setback or x amount of hyphenation. but it throws the process of getting good design on staff -- broad guidelines allow good design, but getting there puts a lot of pressure on staff. so i recognize that and it puts

pressure on our commissions. so i think that this is pretty impressive. i can tell that it's been a long discussion and struggle. these are hard to do, really hard to do. >> thank you. commissioner perlman. >> thank you, i want to compliment justin greving and mya small and staff, because i do think that this has come quite a long way. i have been working as an architect in san francisco for almost 30 years now. there was a time in the 1990s when there were -- they were called guidelines but they were actually laws. like, you have to set back 15 feet. it doesn't matter what the building is, it doesn't matter that the structure line is at 14 feet, it didn't matter. so this has come a really long way into the sensitivity that, you know, every building is unique and every time, you know, a client comes to me with their latest acquisition, it's like,