i'm here to support my friend ellen johnck for the hpc position. and i served many, many years for decades on the rincon beach advisory that saw the development of the south beach neighborhood and the ballpark. ~ you also may know that i'm a member of the city hall preservation commission and hold a building preservation seat. i was appoint today that by mayor newsome and was reviewed by this committee sometime ago. my -- in spite of my 40 years involvement with preservation and 30 years with civic center, there were questions raised today about my qualifications. supervisor campos was the chair and had to spend a good deal of time with me going over that. and when he was done and read the 150 pages i gave him of documents, he couldn't figure out what the problem was. the moral of my experience, and i think is relevant today, is that with preservation -- you can come to preservation from a whole variety of experiences. it isn't one narrow thing, like being a nuclear physicist where you have to be licensed. and there are many, many ways of coming. a

those of hpc and this commission were pretty uniform in their recommendations. add clarity to what is the first discretionary action that would trigger the beginning for the ability to appeal. two, consider extending the appeal period. and three, ensure longer appeal periods for projects that don't have notice. and finally, as you heard, conduct further outreach. fourth, discuss the outreach first. as your packet describes, the broad group of community organizations, environmental groups, and folks from historic resource groups have participated. the majority of the comments in the ordinance were received in the fall. in your packet is one more recent letter with seven concerns and i'll be handing out additional letters that we've gotten since the packet was published. the comments are quite diverse and cover a range of different concerns from process related concerns to very detailed and specific legal concerns. to help you understand these comments, the department categorized them in and attempted to catalog the comments in exhibit c. exhibit c lists over 54 t

pearlman in 2009 prior to the hpc's commissioners being appointed. we did not recommend mr.earlman at that time, feeling he was inappropriate for the seat which he was being proposed. again, we have the same problem. we haven't had a chance, however, to interview him once more, but the consortium is against his nomination. thank you. >> which seat did you interview him for in 2009? >>> i was trying to think just a moment ago. i don't remember. >> all right, thank you very much. >> thank you. seeing no other public comment, public comment is now closed. because of the way this was stated on the agenda, we have to make an amendment. colleagues, can we have a motion to amend the motion to confirm the appointment of jonathan pearlman to the historical preservation commission? >> i'm sorry, just as a point of clarification. can you read into the record what exactly the error is on the agenda? >> when madam clerk announced it, i mean read out what this is on the agenda -- >> um-hm. >> -- on the agenda itself, it says motion approving/rejecting the mayor's nomination for appointmen

so, you know, i think that there need to be ways and i think the hpc can be a leader in helping work with the planning department and the historic planners to come up with, you know, much finer look at building by building because, you know, we don't always look at every building in the city every time you build a building. we should be looking at the existing, you know, the specific building and its context. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> i received a round of communications with individuals who have a history of advocating for historical preservation who are unfamiliar with you. and if appointed to the hpc, will you be willing to meet with these advocates and work with differences, work with different perspectives -- that is historic perspectives? >>> of course. we're all in this together as san franciscans. you know, i come to this place from a different perspective. it doesn't mean it's not, you know, very much celebrating and caring about historic buildings and san francisco. i've been here for 24 years and expect to be here for the rest of my days. and, you know, i thin

those of hpc and this commission were pretty uniform in their recommendations. add clarity to what is the first discretionary action that would trigger the beginning for the ability to appeal. two, consider extending the appeal period. and three, ensure longer appeal periods for projects that don't have notice. and finally, as you heard, conduct further outreach. fourth, discuss the outreach first. as your packet describes, the broad group of community organizations, environmental groups, and folks from historic resource groups have pa

this is an unprecedented expansion of the role of the hpc and another increase in cost and time and delay and confusion. the legislation would also require automatic consideration by this commission of a negative declaration even if no one appealed that negative declaration within the statutory period. if there is any subsequent action

this is an unprecedented expansion of the role of the hpc and another increase in cost and time and delay and confusion. the legislation would also require automatic consideration by this commission of a negative declaration even if no one appealed that negative declaration within the statutory period. if there is any subsequent action by the planning commission, anyone could come forward at that time well past the deadline to appeal, and request that the commission consider the negative declaration. in addition, the legislation would require this commission to micro manage planning department staff. it would require that this commission would have to approve every single change to any administrative staff bulletin, to any checklist, to any form, to any processing guideline that planning department staff came up with. i'm sure that there are other issues. we've only had two days to analyze it. this legislation had a total at the top called the community alternative c-e-q-a legislation. i'm not sure what community it's referring to, but it's certainly not the broad san francisco community

evident that we, those of us in the professions, architects, historians, the planning department and the hpc need to do a much better job of outreach to educate the public on what an historic resource is and why retaining them is a san francisco value. from this vantage point there is great disconnect in the public's attitude about preservation. it is often perceived as scary or merely a political tool or a wedge issue that hampered progress. what i find most often from the public that i deal with is fear. fear that their home will be considered historic resource or contributor to an existing or potential historic district. and because of that they will have little or no choice in how they upgrade or modify their own property and to do anything will add significant additional expense and significantly more time. as one example, in 2009 i was writing two historic evaluation reports at the same time. one for a small two story ordinary modified house on an alley in west soma, a grand single-family house on pacific avenue facing the presidio in the area that is chock-a-block with the houses of t

we've been in the hpc. their decision is not appealable to the board nor to the board of appeals. and certainly runs counter to the department's stated objectives of clear and transparrottv process and saving people time and money. so, with that i'd love to hear from the department at some point in the near future about what the remedy and what the proper fora for action to remedy inaccurate and incomplete facts from the historic preservation perspective. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. greg. >>> [speaker not understood]. >> [speaker not understood]. >>> all right. david [speaker not understood]. i'm here with the western soma plan as part of thumb tack, this is a private citizen. one of the reasons i really like this plan is that the plan that helps build complete neighborhoods that really serve a lot of needs. part of complete neighborhoods is putting affordable housing in the mix. this plan amends the eastern neighborhood plan which had provisions for housing and the impact fees that were determined kind of were derived from that eastern neighborhood plan. it was kind of

the hpc found that the proposed designation will protect valuable historic resources while broadening the available preservation incentive for owners of designated property. the planning commission found that the proposal was consistent with the general plan would not require amendments to the general plan, and would not conflict with the sustainable communities and strategies for the bay area. the planning commission added that these buildings represent a model for development for the market and octavia plan. no building owner, business owner, or resident has opposed the designation. that concludes my report. >> thank you, mr. [speaker not understood]. colleagues, if there are no comments or questions, we will open up to public comment. is there any member of the public who would like to comment on item number 4 relating to the market street, masonry historic district proposal? i see no members of the public so we will close public comment. [gavel] >> colleagues, are there any additional comments? seeing none, is there a motion to advance item number 4 to the board with recommendatio

if there might be a c-e-q-a appeal pending about a particular building and a project and the hpc may have initiated a landmarking process, that process would be able to continue forward because it doesn't entail any physical changes to the property. so, that's just one i think pretty simple example of what it could -- also there are some minor approvals that maybe could happen which right now are frozen. no one could take any action. and we're saying as long as it doesn't enthai any reversal or any physical change in property, lets the process run forward. >> okay, thank you. ~ and then my other questions i think are sort of related to this first approval action. so, how does the department or the public know what the full scope of a project is when the first, first approval action happens? it's clear to me it can't be a tree planting permit. but some examples would help to understand if it's on a single-family home, a renovation of the garage, but really is there intention to renovate the whole building? how would we know that or how would that situation look? >> so, when we receive

commission has recommended approval of similar proposals in 2006 and both the planning commission and the hpc recommended approval of an earlier draft in 2010 that was contained more elements. but that said, the department is requesting two additional modifications today. first as i said, increasing the appeal window to 30 days. and as you know currently the appeal window for e-i-rs appears to be functional and it is only 20 days. but this type of c-e-q-a document has much greater process and therefore we feel a longer window for the simpler documents with less process is appropriate. to ensure consistency, though, and to cut down on confusion we're recommending that all appeal windows be that uniform 30 days. second, we're asking for increased clarity for when the board is to speak with a decision making body. this may be one of the areas of greatest concerns. since state c-e-q-a law does not require a separate appeal, when the elected body is approving a c-e-q-a document, no separate appeal process would be required under the proposal. c-e-q-a issues could still be raised when a board is co

insiders say the phone will be made by hpc using a version of google android technology. it's designed to direct users to rely on facebook overcome pete go apps and services. >> things like an easter egg hunt for kids, right? not so fast, a discovery in san francisco has kids of all ages looking for a hidden gem. its door leading to wonder. >> reporter: this curious door in golden gate park has imaginations running wild. the door sits at the base. tree near the museum and academy of sciences. >> my mom found a picture on facebook and she thought it would be fun. >> a lot of people have been looking for it and giving their best guess as to who or what built it. that is the spirit or how about an elf. that is what he thinks. >> they look like -- they look like -- they look like christmas. >> they probably wear red and green and white with long hats. >> kind of like buddy the elf or flying wilson? these kids insist they know who is responsible for the door. >> he was just sitting next to us at a giants game and i live by the museum and there is a little tree and there is my