Transcripts For SFGTV Historic Preservation Commission 4616 20160410

The meeting, each speaker has up to 3 minutes, i do have one speaker card. Mr. Jim hasz. You may recall several waoex agency after the planning staff made a report to you on the Civic Center Public Realm plan, i made comments regarding the response to the rec and Park Commission for the plaza and other matters relate tog the public realm. I now want the share with you the comment with had list rfr of civic center to give you depth on those issues, in my transmittal letter to the may yo, there are two points you will find in the history, one tha, the Panama International exhibition is largely responsible for the reyeasting of the civic center in city hall, the businessman behind the ppie had no competence in the existing mayor and wanted their own person as mayor, so they ran james wolf who was successful and was elected, he then used the resources of the ppie company to get the planning started for the civic center and talked them into giving a Million Dollars to build the auditorium. The second major point is that he recruited join gail lo n howard to implement the project, howard was the most distinguished ark teblgt in the bay gayer and then possibly on the west coast at the time. He had been chosen by mrs. Hurst to replace mr. Bonard as the planner for berkeley and worked ton buffalos world fair in 1901 besides being an imminent architect. Howard laid out the civic center plan, chose the location of city hall not only the Old City Hall site but on the van ness site, planned the plaza, did the whole public realm, now, and this in fact on his involvement is not well recorded in the documents for the National Trust or the registry, historic registry or on the landmark, howard is not mentioned, theres a lot of claptrap in there about daniel bern ha m whos dead by this time and daniel would was a crank by then, so i think its important that the today, that the all the documentation relating to civic center highlight howards role ask the fact he create add comprehensive plan and that should be a template for everything we do into the faou chewer, so i wrote this history for the edification of the public but as a tool rerestore and enhance civic center to the level that mayor ralph wanted it to be, and i hope you will participate in the positive nature of making this happen. Er thank you, would anybody else like to make Public Comment on a nonagenda item . Seeing none and hearing none, well close public hearing. That will place us under department neater, item 1, directors announcements. Er i have no particular announcement except to refer to you to the written directors report in some upcoming meetings, i will point out that the housing balance report came out this week, its a report that we do every six months as a result of some legislation that was passed by the board last week which looks at the percentage of Affordable Housing that is planned or has been built over a ten year period, i would refer you to that, its an interesting document, it kolas out every six months on a rolling basis and a look back ten years ago, and the Planning Commission is having a hearing ofn this item tomorrow and the board is having at the Land Use Committee on this report on april 18th. With that, im happy to take any questions, thanks. I have one question about the tree survey. In it, it says in addition to identifying existing trees, we will be serving vacant site tos help determine low dashing for new trees, the term vacant sites, is that a vacant i long the sidewalk, is that a site where a tree could be planted but in front of a building that doesnt have a tree or is that a site with a vacant parcel . That is a good question, i dont know, and ill talk to staff and get back the you on that. Thank you, sorry. Er seeing no further questions, we can move on. Thank you, commissioners, item 2, review of past events of the Planning Commission, staff report and announcements. Good afternoon, commissioners, tim fry, Department Staff, a few items to share with you in this weeks staff report, the first is last week, the Land Use Committee of the board of supervisors forwarded a positive recommendation to the full board for the proposed filipino Cultural Heritage district, this was an ordinance that was introduced by supervisor kim, the Planning Department is actively involved with the community and the Supervisors Office in providing Technical Support for the identification of a task force that will provide some solid recommendations i believe within 60 days of adoption on how to move forward some more meaningful efforts to support the Cultural Heritage district, so well report the you on our efforts in the future. The board of supervisors also passed the landmark designation for the cal house or it had its First Reading yesterday at the board of supervisors, there will be a second reading next week ask then it will be off to the mayor for signature, and then yesterday 3545 on on dog ga was introduced, so that will be refer today the Land Use Committee shortly and well keep you posted on our presentation there. One item to just i forget is supervisor pesker sign today as on as a sponsor to the [inaudible] designation, the program for article 10 individual landmark plaques is under way, we sent out a notice to all article 10 landmark Property Owners, received a very good response. We quickly filled up the first 25 applicants for the Pilot Program and we hope to and the deadline isnt until april 15th, were creating an informal database so we know to phase this first 25 and hopefully nr the fall, well do the next 25 or 350 bh the budget is approver. Were going to prepare a list of those first 25 landmarks for you with their addresses and the landmark and pass those out and you can know bh the plaques are installed so if you want to drive by to see how they turned out, you can drive by and see them. Those conclude my comments, no formal report from the Planning Commission, there was one approval last week regarding an addition to an automotive support structure that justin will cover in the facade presentation, so im going the let him cover the outcome from the Commission Last week when he talks about the proess and cons of that project and in relationship to the broader conversation youve been having about facade retention. I have a question for you, do you have any information on how many legacy Business Applications have been is there an update . I do not, but i will reach out to the office of Small Business and get you an update for your next hearing. Alright. If theres nothing further, we can move on to item 3, the certified local government 20142015 annual report. Er commissioners, tim fry, Department Staff, as you know, every year as part of our clg programmatic agreement, we prepare an annual report based on the states fiscal year outlining the clg activities for the city and county of San Francisco. I received a couple of comments from the commissioners which we will make some small edits and updates, some information. I would say the one section i did want the call to your attention was pages on pages 22 and 23, these are the goals that we outline with you every year, we have a short summary or a paragraph here that outlines how we met last years goal under section d and then section e is the goals weve outlined for the next fiscal year. Happy to report under last years goal, we were able to achieve all of those goals and then but if you would like to discuss them in more detail, im happy to do so at this time, and then section e again to call to your attention the goals weve identified, theres 7 goals weve identified for this upcoming year, as one to complete our Historic Preservation design guideline Public Outreach, and finalize our recommendations of the hpcs Cultural Heritage assets committee, to complete the Public Outreach and initiation of the Cultural Heritage preservation element of the general plan, to complete the first phase of the citywide Cultural Resources survey to maintain consistent presence of preservation staff at the planning information center, and on the residential design team, to help with questions regarding Historic Resources and klein compliance compliance with the standards, to work collaboratively and diligently with parks and recreation, public works, mta, etc. , to help shepperd large citywide projects through the ceqa review process, that was the other part of that sentence, and then the last two were to continue our or to continue to promote Community Sponsored landmark designation and is to continue to develop and promote economic and zoning preservation incentives. One other item just to point out to you is the citywide Cultural Resources surveyed coordinator position was posted a couple of weeks ago. The deadline for the resumes is april 15th and we will try to quickly interview and hopefully find a worthy candidate very soon and well certainly they will keep you updated at a future hearing about the efforts of the Pilot Program on that first phase. So, unless you have any questions about this clg report or any edits and you feel and you feel its complete and acceptable, well in regard it on to the office of Historic Preservation, again, for compliance with the programmatic agreement. Thank you. Any additional comments or questions . Are we going to take Public Comment on this item . If you would like to. Why dont we take Public Comment, if theres anyone from the public wishing to comment, seeing and hearing none, well take Public Comment. That will place us on commission matters, item 4, president s report and announcements. The only report i have is i extended the rec and Park Commission hearing to speak on behalf of the mothers building that was a very interesting hearing, there was a lot of support for doing something with the mothers building, identifying funding possibilities, so it was kind of the first step in that process. Commissioneress, item 5, consideration of the adoption, draft minutes for arc march 16th 2016. Any comments or questions, commissioners. Er does any member of the public wish to comment on the draft minutes for march 16 for the arc and march 16th for our regular hearing . Seeing and hearing none, well close Public Comment. Do i have a motion to adopt . Move to adopt the minutes of those two meetings. Second. Thank you, commissioners, on that motion then to adopt the minutes for march 16 regular hearing and the Architecture Review Committee meeting, commissioner hasz, commissioner johnck, commissioner johns, commissioner matsuda, commissioner pearlman, commissioner hyland and commissioner wolfram so r, so moved, that motion passes unanimously 7 mf 0 and places us on item 7 for commission comments and questions. Any comments or questions . Commissioner hi hyland. I want to update the commission on the waterfront range update plan for which commissioner johnck k is on the working group along with me, we had our meeting and the Planning Department was presenting the citys plan for the response to the Sea Level Rise and it was a lively discussion, very informative. The one thing i took away from that meeting is and i cautioned or i challenged the working group to think a little broader and more positive about existing and Historic Resources and cultural assets. I got the sense of the idea of keeping everything was kind of a negative approach to trying to think about how to preserve these the peers and the important buildings that some fall on the line of whether theyre going to be economically feasible to save or not, so i did speak up on that, but it eases moving forward, we do have another meeting e ner the next one or the one after where the Historic Preservation is the topic for that meeting, so if you want to attend, that we can get the information for you when that is, well report back as well. Yes, and its open to the public o so the San Francisco port commission, if you go to port website, theres a whole web page for the Waterfront Working Group and Historic Preservation will be the meeting in may. Alright, thank you. I think we can move on item 7, new Mission Theatre Rehabilitation Project and compliance. Commissioners, tim fry, Department Staff, at your request, staff has prepared can you hold on for one second we need a motion to recuse commissioner hyland. The new Mission Theatre is a project that [inaudible] was involved intimately with so ill make a motion to recuse commissioner hyland for this item. Second. Er thank you, on that motion to recuse commissioner hyland. calling roll . Thank you, commissioners. Tim fry, Department Staff, at your request, staff has prepared a draft letter for president wolframs signature and your concurrence to support the new Mission Theatres most recent project to convert to an alamo draft house theatre for the 20 rehabilitation tax credit, again, its in draft form, i just caught one typo which i will fix, but if theres any additional edits or information you would like us to add or strike from this let e were happy to do so and forward this on to the National Parks service. It seems like a good letter. Lets take Public Comment on that. Would anybody like the speak about this item, so please come forward. Commissioners, im naomi marolio with architecture resources group, we were the kument tant for the project and i want to thank you for your support, encourage your support. We were obviously disappointed with the decision of the state office, we know that theres still another round of review and appreciate the specificity on the standards that tim put together, as some of you know, the alamo client was came before you all and spent xwiet a bit of time negotiating some of these changes, so thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, im kathrin petrin, Founding Member of save new mission and San Francisco neighborhood Theatre Foundation here just to speak for a minute to the issue of the tax credits for the new mission rehabilitation, both of our organizations enthusiastically support the recently completed rehabilitation of the new Mission Theatre by alamo draft house, in recent years, weve been working under the assumption that there was no question that alamos rehabilitation would meet the secretary of interior standards, from our perspective, the project successfully returned this shuttered 1916 theatre to its original historic use, respects the existing historic fabric, fully restores the historic character of the new mission, all while meeting the new standards. For the last 15 years, weve studies ways the reuse the building to support other uses initially in the interest of avoiding demolition, the earliest scheme to program the balcony for another use was designed by preservation analyst carrie when it was called by city college of San Francisco which sought to demolish the theatre and later many other preservationists studied how to make the mission viable. The changes that allowed the building to return to its historic use are primarily those that [inaudible] finds ejectable such as the location of the kitchen and installation of three Small Screens in the lower balcony, but in our opinion, these are minimal interventions and really represent a fair compromise that returness the mission to its historic use while ensuring its long term success, so today San Francisco neighborhood Theatre Foundation is also submitting a letter to National Parks asserting our position, we are going to ask them to reconsider shipos findings and take a look at this example of a moving palace rehabilitation, ill transmit electronically to the Planning Department as well. You know, 15 years ago, a future reopening of the new mission as a film venue seemed very unattainable, and we deeply appreciate many evils who made it possible, esspshlly Planning Department staff would worked diligently on the project, so thank you. Would anybody else like to make Public Comment on this item . Seeing and hearing none, well close Public Comment, i think it doesnt sound like we have other comments but the letters that wed like the submit. Very good, commissioners, that will place us under your consideration of items proposed for continuance, theres one item, 8 for case number 2013. 0384u, the African American Historic Context statement is proposed for continuance on may 4, 2016. Anybody want to talk about the continuance . Would any member of the public like to speak on the continuance of item number 8 . Do we have a motion to ko n . Ill move to continue this item. Second. Thank you, commissioners, on that motion then to continue item 8 to may 4, 2016, commissioner hasz, commissioner johnck, commissioner johns, commissioner matsuda, commissioner pearl land, hi hand and wolfram. That passes unanimously 70 and places us under your consent cal abasing all matters here constituted a consent calendar are considered to be reteen by the Historic Preservation commission and will be acted upon by the single roll call vote of the commission, there will be no separate decision of these ie steps unless a member of the commission, the public or staff so requests, in which event the matter shall be moved from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or future hearing. Number 9, 2016001903coa, 950 mason street, i have no speaker cards. Er does anybody want the take this off of consent . No. Any member of the public wish to request this item to be removed from consent . Seeing and hearing none, do we have a motion to approve the consent calendar . I move to approve the consent calendar. Second. Thank you, commission necessaries, on that motion to approve item 9 under consent, commissioner hasz, commissioner johnck, johns, matsuda, pearlman, hyland and Commission President wolfram. That motion passes 730 and places you under your regular calendar, item 10, 2014. 0462cwp, the un plaza living Innovation Zone, certificate of appropriateness. Thank you very having us today, im kathy from the Planning Department, paul shafm is out of town and im presenting on his behalf, im here to present to you the un plaza living Innovation Zone, [inaudible] living innovation films are temporary installations, the goal is to activate public space by prompting passers by to engage with the structure and with one another, these are typically installed for one to two year, the program was established in 2013 with the installation of the [inaudible] an installation designed by the explore tor yum, we have brouktd free [inaudible] to the Market Street corridor, this year, we intend to install two more [inaudible] including the one were present today and another project that will be cited on folsom street near the asian art museum. We anticipate coming back to the commission in the summer with more to present, the project spon sord by the asian art museum, art exchange, although they are temporary, lizs are meant to inform long term Planning Departments, [inaudible] the unn plaza liz [inaudible] these pathways will be punctuated with acoustic phenomena for people to play with such as mammoth hies and xylophones, they have been working closely with Community Stakeholders to develop the design of this liz unplaza, this is creating a place for families and children to enjoy, as well as visitor tos the sti. We intend to install the living Innovation Zone in late may, early june, we brought the un plaza liz, since then, project sponsor has acted aon the recommendations made by the committee including outreach to the heart of the city farmers market, we with eve been work witching the majors office on disability and they reviewed the first ada submittal, we will continue to work with them to ensure the project is ada compliant, we are in the the . Do you want to hand them out . Theres 8 copies, i hope thats enough. And they could just be add today the back of the packet that you currently have, i also have a digital copy. Great, thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions before we take Public Comment . Would anybody like to comment on this item, if so, please come forward. Seeing and hearing none, well close Public Comment and back to the commission. Commissioner pearlman . Thanks very much, i wanted to compliment you on the advice that you took our advice about the illustrations of this because when it came before the arc, the drawings were very loose and these are excellent and really describe the project clearly and youve addressed the issues, the ada issues and all those is use about circulation, so i just wanted to compliment you on what i think is a great project and you know in particular, you know, this particular view that you did showing it in context with [inaudible] in the back grown, i think its a great public art project as well as an educational project, so i look forward to this happening. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Ram . I think we know the department has been working a long time to activate public spaces and to kind of experiment if you will which is part of what was the original driver for the living Innovation Zones and i want to thank the explore tor yum, the first one at the urba guena lane, its longer than we anticipated it to be, and it survived, i want to thank the planning staff and kasz see, this has been ground break ining a wi of thinking differently on how we activate our public spaces and with a lot of collaboration between partners, folks that we normally wouldnt collaborate with, its been quite an interesting experiment, a quite interesting process, and i think more of this is to come, and we are looking at it as ways of testing out concepts that we could then make permanent on the Market Street rebuild, so theres a lot of ways this will inform our work in the long run and on a permanent designs solutions, so i want to thank everyone involved and thank you for your support on this. Thank you. Commissioners, commissioner johnck . I want to congratulate the explore tor yum and the Planning Department for working on this fascinating project and im specifically interested in the concept of the cross pollination inner activity between historic, our streetscape, art, cult yourself for solving it in such a great way. Yeah, nas a good idea, thank you. I thought these were warrior colors, you know. So, do i have a motion . I move to approve the project and support the staff recommendation. Second. Thank you, commissioners, on that motion then to approve the the certificate of appropriateness, commissioner hasz, johnck, johns, matsuda, pearlman, hyland, wolfram. That passes 70 and places us on item 11, 2015004228des, this is a landmark application, this is 235 valencia street. If i could have the overhead, please. Good afternoon, commissioners, shannon ferguson, Department Staff t item before you today is a community spon sord landmark designation for 235 valencia street, this item was heard on march 2 and continued to today, we have received Additional Information from the applicant, several letters of support from the community and Historical Research analysis from the Property Owner. I have previously noted the property was found not to be a Historic Resource during the intermission north Historic Resources survey, given the extent of survey area, this examined properties for architectural significance unless there was information to e yait under events or person or criteria, based on the new information provided, staff has determined that hap jones played a significant role in the development of motorcycles as a business and the development of mote Cycling Community in San Francisco and the bay area, he created the first motorcycle blue book which was based on the kelly blue backs format to provide industry pricing and he participated in many race and is rides, however, 235 valencia lacks direct association with hap jones direct life, he ran a successful Distribution Company after he sold a majority interest in the dealership that was located at 235 valencia, [inaudible] the subject building does not appear to meet the designation priors for local article 10 landmark designation established by the Historic Preservation division, as part of the landmark preservation, those are understood represented landmark types including landscape, modern design buildings, low f buildings located in geographically underrep seabed areas and strong, culture or ethnic associations. The buildings eligibility for the california register is inconclusive based on the new information provided because 235 valencia street should be compared to other property and is the San Francisco Motorcycle Club headquarters identified as 235 valencia best represents hap jones contributions. Based on review of the additional informs, the department does not recommend to the Historic Preservation Commission Initiation of 235 valencia street for article 10, the Property Owners representative and the applicants are also here to speak to you too here today. Thank you, do we have any questions for ms. Ferguson . Well take 10 minutes for the applicant to spaoem and then well do 10 pin nuts for the applicant and have Public Comment after that. Can i hand this to the commission . My name is loresa and this is the original image of San Francisco Motorcycle Community members before the 1947 hap jones Birthday Party riot and events on august 10, one month and four days after the misreported and sensationalized event that frougt hollister not rightly that the perception of out law and hoodlum into the national substance, this is the image of San Francisco civic pride, of member ofs the Motorcycle Community, we chose to meet at city hall to begin their ride to take their xhem creative photo, at the center of the photo is the man behind the event, the man who was a National Champion motorcycle racer, the man that ensured the security and success of the second older Motorcycle Club in the united states, through his leadership as president and by providing for the purchase of their clubhouse t man who mentored no less than four of the San Francisco motorcycle dealers you see list ined the landmark report, all employees and sponsored championship racers who later went on to their own successess as his peers and his competitors. The man who created the motorcycle blue book, a National Publication legitimizing national transportation, providing uniform trade manufacturing for [inaudible] the mans whose life work was incubating motorcycle sub culture, the man who did all of these things at 235 valencia street at the center of motorcycle commerce, a selfmade san franciscan named hap jones. Hi, commissioners, my name is loren jones, im happen jones son, a native san franciscan, i was born in 1950, and weve got some pictures here, a couple of what you may have seen before, we have some other ones, regarding 235 valencia, my dad bought that build ining 1940, he eventually sold the business to my uncle dave golden, but he retained ownership of the building and was attach today the building. It was in our family for over half a century. It wasnt sold until after my dad passed away in the 1990s, regarding the fact of whether his motorcycle business, his Retail Business was more important than his wholesale business, this is how he got his start, he started with a small bicycle shop, retear shop, he had a location on another area further down valencia street for a couple of years and then in 1940 when he purchased this building, this is where things took off, and even after my uncle took over the building and took over the business, my dad still owned a share of the business and his name was still on the building until 1972 was it, when it was finally changed to dave golden motorcycles, so for that whole period from 1940 to 1972, it was hap jones motorcycles and thats where people thats who people thought they were buying their motorcycles from. Heres a picture of my dad with dave golden would was his brotherinlaw and closest friend and even after my dad moved his business back down the alley and turned it into the hap jones distributing company, the wholesale business, he and dave golden were still completely actively involved working together on the retail store up the alley on 235 valencia. Just regarding my dad, heres a couple of things we didnt show last time. He had a bad arm injury and wasnt eligible to enter the military, so during world war ii, he led the Civil Defense motorcycle core here in San Francisco. I just wrote something down today and i wanted to read it word for word, in the past ten year, the city has become an increasingly disturbing example of history being obliterated by greed, and i went to play land when i was a kid, i swam in the fly shaker pool, i even visited the sutra baths before they burned downswing obviously that was an accident, but the point is i love San Francisco, im not a mote cyclist, im a composer, i wrote a 15 movement piece, the premier was of the San Francisco conservatory of music, were going to do it again in a bigger venue th ex year, so the point is i just think, this is a small thing, this is a small building but it does have, i believe it has a real significance to San Francisco history and i think that it should be a landmark location. Thank you. Thank you. From the applicant, does that conclude your comments . Thank you. The representative of the ownership can come forth. Good afternoon, commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to respond to the 235 valencia land morning application, my name is greg ham bugger from deg and we are the Property Owners, were the landmark application response process, our team has gained greater insight into hap jones, the entrepreneur and motorcycle enthusiast. While hap story is colorful and impressive, our team focused on happens history and relationship to 235 valencia, rather than his broader past. Chris mcmorris and hander miller with jap consulting as well as holster with preservation consulting [inaudible] chris is with us today and will speak to our findings, through this process, we have met some of the property neighbors and better understand their goals towards commemorating hap, our team shares their appreciation for history and haps story, we look forward to working on the community with our residential project well be recommend ining the near future and there will be opportunities to acknowledge haps history through design, and now ill turn it over to chris mcmorris. Good afternoon, so im chris mcmorris, partner and ark tech b churl historian with jrp, so chris asked me to review the nomination and to sort of assess the evaluation and the approach that i took was really to look tat issues that were here as if i was going to be evaluating the property. The bulk of our analysis foes on the significance of the property under National Registered criterion b for the association with an important person, we did this by applying the standard practices that we would do in our business by looking at National Register buell tin 32, for instance, and much of the review that we ended up doing and what were looking at is this is whats in your packet at the jrp report and i aom going to summarize it a bit here is much of that review ended up looking at sort of making comparisons to assess the potential for the significance of the subject property and each of those comparisons or many of the comparisons i should say presented issues that challenged the relative historic importance of the subject property. And i do note that some of the comparisons are perhaps more important than others but ill go briefly through them. The first major issue that kind of came up on this topic was how important motorcycle sub culture is within the history of San Francisco, particularly in the mid 20th century, and i didnt find compelling evidence that it seemed anymore important to the general history of San Francisco than it would to any large urban sent ner the mid 20th sentbacker sfrj ri, partly what we did was looked for notable motorcycle events during that time period, we also compared this Historic Context with that of automobiles in San Francisco, other types of sport and recreation in San Francisco as well as other cities that have an Important Association with mote cycling, so looking again at that assessing of the review of National Registered criterion b, we didnt see that there was a direct connection that has an Important Association with hap jones major accomplishments in mote cycling, and as staff noted, there this difference between his parts and supply, Distribution Company and the general motorcycle dealership that he had. As well as many of the other prominent activity that is are mentioned about hap jones are really not directly associated with this property you know, he was the first mote cyclist, the first person over the Golden Gate Bridge and did a lot of motorcycle activities and owl the sponsorship activities, so a bunch of these comparison that is we made were looking at things like, okay, how does hap jones, hes a colorful individual, very prem innocent in mote cycling and a successful businessman, how does he compare to others, in term of this building, associated directly with mote cycling and having importance in that context, it seems the San Francisco Motorcycle Club building at 2194 folsom street has a much stronger relevant to this motorcycle cull khu, we look and try to compare it in the ways in which other buildings in San Francisco under criterion b have been found eligible, so theres two relatively recent landmarks we looked at as well as the National Register listing that were found eligible under criterion b and associated for people who are important in the mid 20th century, and those examples really demonstrate how a significant individual would was directly associated with those nominated properties and that the properties associated with the significant portion of the productive life in the field that a achieved the significance, san jordans bar on third street, the marcus books, gimbos pop city on fill more street, abstract artist, she did a lot of her work at the house, so the association of hap jones in 235 valencia, it doesnt have that same level of connection can x the level of significance that those examples have, the other fact about this motorcycle blue book, we looked into tla and he adapted a long established sort of kind of publication for this industry. Two things, one, it was a iod latively short time per in which the book has association with this property about two, three years, and then the other thing is i didnt really find the evidence all that compelling about what the impact, the Historical Impact was of the motorcycle blue book and how that would associate back to this property so theres a lot more in that report and i am here available to answer questions, and we also i want to take the last few minutes to just note that we did make this comparison with automobiles in San Francisco using the auto row support structures Historic Context and the survey that was done with that, and motorcycles by the way were not mentioned i think theres one mention of motorcycles in that context so theyre really not addressed in that Historic Context and automobiles have a much wider impact on our urban environment and there are a lot more buildings associated with that, so in some sense, you can see why there would be an automobile could be text, and there really isnt one for motorcycles. The other thing to look at sort of comparative properties in San Francisco that are other sports and recreation, other ones im familiar with include like the San Francisco golf club, and the pacific rod and gun club which was recently found eligible at a vernacular lan skaip within its significant of skeet and sports shooting, theres lots of theatres that are city landmarks, the point being that those locations of sport and or recreation were the locations of those sports and recreation, as opposed to 235 have street, many of the tours of the activities may have started there but the recreation occurred else wr i, so i made some comparison in the analysis of, okay, well, this would be like the Sporting Goods store that sells the specialized sports store nas selling the golf clubs, not to demean hap jones at all, were talking at about the application of the National Registered criteria, particularly criterion b, were trying to go through making the connection between the person and the building, and the level of importance there. So, im going the stop there and im available for questions. Thank you, anybody else from the ownership side wish to speak . Before we go to Public Comment, are there any questions for either the applicant or the owner, commissioners . Commissioner johnck . So, the ownership, my question is what do you propose to do to the building, if we landmark this, what, you want to build residence there . Were looking at a multifamily mixed use project right now, yes. And you would have difficulty doing that if this were a landmark . It would be very difficult, yes, if not impossible. Thank you. Er i just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. At this time, well take Public Comment. It looks like loren jones and [inaudible] you spoke previously, right. calling speaker names . Good afternoon, commissioners, my name is kelly hill and im a long time San Francisco resident, i already considered mote cycling to be a more mainstream aspect of culture in the city, in my opinion, this has to be one of the best motorcycle cities in america, ive been amazed by the number of bikes parked downtown by like minded men and women professionals who choose this efficient form of transportation in their daily life. When read thing numerous support letters from citizens, the role of the building at 235 valencia and providing a lighthouse and the gateway into a life long passion of motorcycle is clear, the building has become symbolic to motorcyclists across the country and for residents in particular. Also clear are the crier o criteria for designation this building needs, a, through the creation of the motorcycle blue book and the events that took place at this location, the significance of our past and hap jones in his 48 Year Association with the building at 235 valencia, the distinct i can Mission Revival ak texture period of the building unchanged. Historical preservation allows us and those that come after us to witness the cultural esthetic and history of a place and time and to maintain a tangible physical connection to this past. It is important within the modern urban fabric to continue to tell a story and preserve a legacy for future generations, we encourage the comprising to place 235 valencia street as a designated landmark and to encourage the reluctant owner to [inaudible] the mills act and other available resources to utilize this building in their project and to give it a continuing and thriving life. Myself and my partner ins this landmark effort will work on belaugh of the Property Owner to garner the support of the neighborhood and greater San Francisco community for their future projects at the site. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, my name is sven hyberline ive been ride ago nonmote nonmotorized bike past that building, i enjoy the type of bike, those wonderful Old Industrial buildings, but ive always wondered what was in there, so when i heard the story just a little while ak, it reminded me and just allowed me to go on to a tangent of a personal story because i understand about motorcycle culture getting lost in history. My father, i was born and raised in germany, my father in the 1950s was racing motorcycles on motorcycles, theyre called nsu, they were huge in germany and for a while, they were a huge manufacturer, right around the time that hap jones was here, and how it brought all these people together and it was after the war and there was an incredible sense of community and its hard to imagine nowadays with automobile culture, we heard about the automobile is more important, right, but motorcycles sensed to be i know in germany and i know here from what i read, a rel lie significant part of peoples lives and culture and before it got demonized, so i was thinking and then i read up about what happened in and around that building and the Incredible Community and the people coming and going and what that meant and sort of that San Francisco maverick experience which prated me to the neighborhood too and it brought that building into a new context for me and with everything thats happening right now, all the change and sort of all the forgetting of history, i think its really important that we remember history and especially for San Francisco where we dont like the chain Stores Coming in and all of that stuff, we want to maintain the mavericks and the people would brought this unique spirit to city and i think mote sickles and culture and hap jones and what he created is really an integral part of that and to me p its a really intriguing story and i would love to see that building kept that way and the story around it to be brought to more people and maintain for the future generations. Thank you. Would anybody else like the speak on this matter . Seeing and hearing nonefinger well close Public Comment. And we are back to the commission, commissioners . Commissioner hyland. Im really struggling with this because i have a couple of concerns, one is i do think that the approach to this analysis is nationalizing the potential significance of this motorcycle culture. Sorry, which analysis . Well, the owners analysis. The owners analysis as well as planning staffs analysis. And i think that the challenge here is that its an unremarkable building in an area that could use some housing pretty well, but my struggle is if it were a gay or lesbian auto shop, it might rise to a higher level and because its not, it doesnt, and i would suggest that it does, i think that the motorcycle culture in San Francisco as the Research Shows is, you know, its significant and if this were an on go ij business, this would be an exact type of business that we would propose for the legacy business registry, so im really struggling with how to acknowledge and recognize the significance of that and not hamstring the property you know, so the one thing that i guess this commission considered prior to my joining it was the auto shop row discontiguous district and that was decided that it didnt meet that criteria, right. It was a survey, not a nomination. Right, so it didnt rise to the level of being nominated, so i dont know, im in favor of supporting this nomination, only because i think that the analysis at this point potentially nationalizing something that may not be important to me personally but its certainly important to the culture of the Motorcycle Community. Commissioner purl pearlman . Thanks. I just wanted to sort of relay a story that happened about 15 years ago at the landmarks board when we were asking the public for nominations for local landmarks and a woman got up and she showed a rather average house, 29 russell street is a little alley street off of hyde and russian hill and she was telling she talked about the house and we were curious and she showed a picture of john carawak and jack cassidy, she said, he rode dora [inaudible] in this house, now, it didnt end up on the landmarks designation list and it was never landmark but i live in this neighborhood and on the billing across the street which was redone, it was an old garage on you probably know the building im talking about, it was redone just a couple of years ago, there is a wonderful photo plaque that shows that photo, it tells the story and its directly across the street from 29 russell, and so ive talked about this before, about the issue of we dont have anything in between fullon landmark in some way to note our history in the city, and ive talked about being in philadelphia, you walk on the streets downtown and youre overwhelmed with learning about history because there are signs everywhere that are unrelate today the buildings next to them because the city has changed over centuries there and i think this is one of those cases where i struggle as well but i kind of agree with the jrp report that the tie together of mote psychcycling history and the veltion ship of mr. Jones versus this particular building and his life are not so tied together and i think one of the supporters, kelly, im sorry, i didnt get your last name, you used the term this place was the gateway to mote cycling which i think supports what the jrp report says and its like its a speeder good store and you buy your club and is you go to the golf course and play, here you get your helmet and your gear and mote psych and will went out for the road, so it didnt tie together, you know, the two facts about mr. Jones and the motorcycle and culture. So, im included not to support this, im sort of disappointed that we dont have a program that we could put together a really nice plaque that could be incorporated into the new building there so when you do walk down the street and you see this wonderful plaque and you see a picture of mr. Jones or that one in city hall, thats something that talks about the motorcycle culture because revering the building alone will not reveal is mote cycling culture, so thats one of our challenges all the time and im not inclined to support this, i agree with the straf report, it doesnt feel like it rises to the level on the toindbacker kind of landmark weve done on the others, the cultural landmark weve done with marks books, you know, and those kind of landmarks. Thank you, commissioner johns. Commissioner pearlman preempted me and very nicely, i agree with him completely, and i was impressed with and a closed question which i think this is, with the thoroughness of the report and our staffs analysis, there is an element here i think of on the one hand, theres a feeling that, well, motorcycle culture in San Francisco is important, okay. People can disagree with that, just the same way people can disagree with the importance of various styles of architecture, but assuming that it does have some importance, because people in San Francisco have been enthusiastic about it for a long time, that does not mean that if we well, that is not a reason for landmark or not landmark this building, and if we dont landmark the building, i do not think that is a reflection that the commission doesnt think that the motorcycle culture have some importance. I think that to me, its a question that this does not fit the criterion that we should apply and have applied in landmark a building. Now, particularly one i would say that is not architecturally distinguished, i would be interested just to follow up on what commissioner pearlman said in whether or not the Building Owner when some other use is made of this property has thought about including in that building or new use some kind of an explanation, a photo plaque like the one commissioner pearlman mentioned or some other display that would allow newcomers to the neighborhood to have an appreciation of what was there before, and that might reference the motorcycle culture of San Francisco and it might indeed reference what i think was remarkable about hap jones which was the remarkable ability to have a national or International Distribution for Motorcycle Parts which contributed enormously to the culture because in a way, it kept it going, so i would be interested if knowing whether the owner would make that kind of an effort to well, help resolve this. Do you want that answer right now . Yes, that would be good, at the appropriate time to have it. Yes, your question, ive enjoyed about learning about hap and we can definitely address this with some kind of plaque or acknowledgment. Thank you. Commissioner johnck . Thank you. I think something is missing from this discussion, and i think something is missing from the staff analysis, i think something is missing with all due respect to the owners analysis about whats important here about the building and its context. For me, i think the points in favor of landmark and this is a struggle, theres no question about this for me, this is a struggle, but my sensitivity to as i say these gaps in analysis relate to looking holistically at the building and its street context, this neighborhood context, this architectural context, the culture, yes, but to me, thats all this discussion about the motorcycle culture, or wlo it meets that or to me is not as important as looking a the building in it context and i think theres elements in all these areas that point to landmark or some kind of preservation, and it may not meet an explicit standard that weve used in the past right up to that but i dont know what else is our vehicle for me to have some kind of preservation status for the building or and some kind of what is its future and the posterity for historical preservationfinger i see a role for this building in our attempts here, in our enterprise, so whats the answer . I dont know whats the answer, but i would lean definitely in favor of a landmark recommendation absent any other solution. Thank you, commissioner hasz . Thank you. So, i rode for 20 years street and dirt, even raced in the baha1000 and very involved with motorcycles, i built a restaurant two doors down from this building and never had any idea of hap jones history. What would seem to me is that hap jones bought the building that the Motorcycle Clubs in and thats a continuous operation, it seemed to me that would be a more appropriate bidding to be talking about landmarking and putting a plaque on because it has direct representation and people still know its a motorcycle entity. I just find it tough to save a half block building, this thing takes up literally almost a half a block for this dedication. If anything, if it were to be land mabbacker marked, it would seem to me it should just be once again just a little facade with a 5 or 10 foot setback at most, a little bit less than we did at townsend thats a discussion later on in our agenda. It would be really tough to bind down that building, no matter who owned it, the whole building for half a block because of this. So, i think that a representation of the Motorcycle Club building seems more appropriate, hap bought that building, motorcycle enthuse isles help run a clubbing it just seems more fitting than that, so i would not support this. Thank you, commissioner pearlman . I wanted to respond to commissioner johns comment about the in between that commissioner, youve been very supportive on many projects about the gripers of putting Program Information about the history, you know, in some of these high rise buildings that have been built on, sites that have had Historic Buildings, and i think weve already gotten the commitment from the Property Owner that, you know, i dont know if were going to see it again because if its not a Historic Building, tlas something that gets wortsbacker worked out with the staff and the project sponsor, but some way to talk about exactly what commissioner hasz is talking about, that we can get that history and that history in a plaque and some kind of presentation is so much more important than the fabric of the building because of the limitations it provides and it gives something that anybody who comes by, for instance, commissioner hasz when hes looker for his next restaurant, look, this is this motorcycle guy is right here, i didnt know that and its here, i think were miss hating from our whole Preservation Program in the city so we have this middle ground bh we have projects like this, its interesting, it has value, its important to the culture, but the building itself, you know, isnt, and specifically isnt in a per se, so thats where i am on that. Thank you, commissioner matsuda . I too have struggles with this, with the building. I dont have any struggle with figuring out and wanting to recognize the Motorcycle Community and hap jones because this is a really important story and thats what were about is to really highlight some underrepresented individuals and communities and i am not sure no doubt about that, but what im not sure about is the connection to this building, what was pointed out is that there is this to clinton park, i dont know if thats what you were focusing on, where it has already been determined as a historic on the registry, and possibly nominating that as a landmark and including the story of hap jones, but im still on the fence about that. Commissioner hyland. I have a question maybe for mr. Fry, and i dont mean to draw any comparable comparisons between the two, but the building thats landmark that commissioner pearlman a that involved with, the names quilt where catch restaurant is currently so, if that property was identified as and the property itself lacks is incredibly lacking in integrity which this commission landmark, if that property were to be a development proposal, what would be the process that that Property Owner would have to go through . I mean, what is the protection of that building as an architectural structure in this process . Tim fry, Department Staff, if were speaking in particular about the names project building, because the building is significant, for other reasons than architecture, i believe well, first of all, a certificate of appropriateness would be required for any certification of the building, the certificate of standards which are the benchmark which this commission the the department uses to evaluate changes would still evaluate any proposal to modify the building under the standards and how that modification affects the overall integrity of the billing or the reasons its important. Design and architecture may be lower on the list than other features or other aspects of integrity, but its still the physical fabric that is what we tie our strong associations with the building and in particular, the names project building, while it has some modifications, it still does retain a high level of integrity of the building itself, it has its massing, its shape parapet, some of the clay elements, it may not have the store front or some of the interior features that were associated with the creation of the quilt, but there are still some physical or tangible aspects of the building that would i think this commission would be concerned if they were removed as part of our proposal, so again, i think weighing the significance of the building or why the buildings important with whatever this sort of theoretical project would be, you would have to take all as pelting of integrity into consideration. Thank you, thats a good explanation. Commissioner johnck. I have a question to commissioner [inaudible] i propose the building would be proposed for demolition and it would not come before us, we could not ask for some kind of a preservation solution or anything that we may want the owner to do now, we would have to recommend that now because we would not in regards to this property. Can i ask a followup question, whats the historic status code . I thought it waser being changed. The current status code, thats a good question, the current status code is a 6l, and that was identified under the most recent area plan survey. Based on this new information regarding hap jo ens and the association of the build witching the broader motorcycle industry and Recreational Activity in San Francisco, i think its safe to say from a ceqa purpose that we have enough information more, its a category b again, i think the information is inconclusive, i think the Property Owners analysis brings up a lot of interesting questions that we think need to be explored further is there seems to be a collection of buildings, a very small collection of buildings that are soreheaded with motorcycle history and motorcycle industry in San Francisco. That we think needs further study, thats why our recommendation here is this building seems tied to that larger graup but we dont know if its the most significant, the building thats most significantly associated with hap jones, so i think for the purposes of a project coming in tomorrow, further ceqa review would have to be completed. If the building was found to be a resource either through a further semantic district or a district societies with a motorcycle district, that category a would focus an eir at the very least, then there would have to be some mitigation that the department and the commission usually ask for which includes a plaque or some kind of interpretive display, so at this point, you will certainly see it as part of review and comment before the ei reusing is certified by the planning division, but at this pointedbacker point, there is no guarantee thats going to be the findings but i feel comfortable saying i think the department feels comfortable saying the build ising no longer a category ce, not a resource, that theres new information thats been provide ined the record that has changed that and we need to do more study first before saying again if its a c. So, as a followup question, in the past when theres been a survey, the commission has voted to change status code on Certain Properties or Property Owners have come forward, con the motion take an action not at this hearing but at a different hear ifing we wanted to change the status code to that property. Thats certainly within your powers and duties, yes. So, its not completely out of our hands if there was an interest in the commission of changing the status code, of course, there are implications with that in materials of the process, but then the Property Owner would be relative to h is toering i can resources. We could ask that that be done . Technically, you could, one outcome of this hearing would be the commission could find that the building is a Historic Resources for the purposes aof ceqa or the california register, however you do not think it meets the criteria for a landmark designation, that could be one outcome. Okay. Commissioner johnck, do you have anything else . No, that was it. I think i agree with everybody here and to a certain extent with all of the different comments, its a very challenging discussion and i think that i would like in some way for us to recognize hap jones and motorcycle culture but im not sure if that property is the right place too do it and there may be more appropriate properties we can do it at. Im agreeing with many of you and being uncertain on how to move forward. Er i would like to move that we designate this as significant under ceqa if we can, whatever the language for that designation would be. Thats not under the im curious, maybe the City Attorney can weigh in. We have a draft motion here or a landmark designation but im not sure if we can make a different motion, maybe the City Attorney can weigh in on that. Er victoria wong, deputy City Attorney, the issue before you today is initiating landmark, and we can talk more about alternative paths and ways to alternative actions that you can take, but yeah, that can be action that youre describing is not part of the agenda item i would say for todays hearing. Well, you can make a motion of intent and then continue the matter to allow staff to prepare a motion that would then reflect the intent of the commission today is one option. Ill make the motion of intent and ask to continue this item until we can further study that. Second. And the intent would be to change the status code . Commissioners, just for clarification, and maybe with concurrence from the City Attorney if this is the right approach, then the action would be a motion intent not to initiate local landmark designation but to recognize the building is significant for the purposes of ceqa for eligibility in the california register, that would be the motion of intent. Yes. Yes, okay. Well have a continuance then. And commissioner johns, do you have a comment . Based on what just happened, my comments are no longer pertinent. But i support what has just happened. If we can articulate that, thats my motion. Mr. Fry, how long do you think you would need to prepare that motion . Since the cpf conference is occurring during our next hearing, i would recommend the first hearing in may. 4th . Yes. Okay, very good, commissioners, do i hear a second. Second. It has been seconded. Thank you. And commissioners, theres a motion that has been seconded of intent to not to initiate but to change the status code under ceqa and continue the matter to may 4, 2016, on that motion, commissioner hasz, johnck, johns, matsuda, pearlman . No. Er commissioner hyland . Yes. Er. Ing Commission President wolfram. That motion passes 6er 1 with commissioner pearlman voting against. Commissioners, that will place us on item 12 for case number 213. 0225i for the ucsf Research Building and city parking garage expansion, this is also for your review and comment. We need a motion to recuse commissioner hyland. Motion to recuse commissioner hyland. Thank you. Second. Thank you, commissioner pearlman, im sorry, i didnt hear a second. Er i seconded. On that motion and to recuse commissioner hyland, commissioner hasz johnck, johns, matsuda, pearlman, hyland and wolfram so moved, commissioners, commissioner hyland, you are now recused. Rich sucre, Department Staff t project before you is a review and comment on the Draft Environmental Impact report for the ucsf Research Building and city parking garage expansion at the Prescilla Chan and mark sucker berg and Trauma Center campus, on march 12, our Central Review Committee tee of the Historic Preservation committee reviewed this, i have copies of the arc letter here which i did not include in the packets since i just finalized it a short time october, currently a design has not been developed, the design criteria were for the proposed facility to be consistent and compatible with the surrounding San Francisco hospital, include ining the packet were copies of the sdieb criteria as well as the Cultural Resource section of the Environmental Impact report. We did provide an electronic link since the Environmental Impact report is lengthy, to provide a quick summary of the findings of the Environmental Impact report, the project did find potentially Significant Impact to Historic Resources, however with the incorporation of mitigation measures including the design criteria, the project impact Historical Resources would be reduced to less than a significant level, im joined here with dianne woning from uc who prepared a short presentation to discuss the Environmental Impact report. Thank you. Good afternoon, convoying ers, my name is sue carl liel, im the vice dean for the ucsf school of medicine at the sucker berg San Francisco medical. I am here today joined by dianne wong who is the ucsf Environmental Coordinator and also by erica shults who is from the Architectural Resources group. The reason that we want to build this building on this campus is to preserve the partnership that has been between the university and the city for over 140 years, ucsf not only provides Clinical Services but uses this campus to promote and to provide a large area of research to be done for the well being of the city. Ucsfs mission at the general is to provide the patients with extraordinary care that is informed and enhanced by our research there. The Research Community at San Francisco general is made up mostly of the physicians who provide the services to our patients at the general. We have approximately 200 physicians who do research on the general premises. Faculty members from all four of the ucsf schools, all five including the graduate division, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing all do research at San Francisco medical, it is very important that we have up to date modern facilities in order to continue the Important Research that we have done there for many, many years including advances in aids, hiv treatment, as well as all of the health pop si work that we do at San Francisco general, so thank you for listening to us today and considering our design. Thank you. Is this on . Yes. Thank you very much for having us today, dianne woning with the ucsf planning office, i am the environment coordinator for ucsf and we passed out some tellers to you, one is a paper copy of the presentation slides we are presenting today and the other item is the red line copy of the design criteria showing how the criteria were revised based on comments we received at the last arc meeting. I would like to provide you an overview of the Research Building proposal, it is 170 thousand gross square feet total, including 73 thousand gross square feet of lab and research space, 102 thousand gross square feet of Desktop Research and academic and administrative space. The site is known taz bc parking lot which is shown in red there. It is immediately adjacent to the hospital and its for the hospital which is critical for e fesht si and collaboration between the research and Clinical Services at sfgh. This shows a conceptual massing diagram of what was proposed originally. The building envelope would be approximately 80 feet in height, four plates would be about 40 thousand square feet, the Building Height would be about five levels, a little bit about the community outreach, ucsf has held Community Meetings about the sf building for many years now, in 2013, we held Community Meetings in february and june of that year, we also engaged with Community Organizations and neighborhood groups in the spring of 2015, giving presentations of chair of boosters, safe neighbors, the east Mission Improvement Association as well as to community leaders. We also presented information regarding the proposed Research Building at the hospital rebuild Community Meeting on september 30, 2015, and we held a scoping meeting for the Environmental Impact report on october 21st. Just a little overview about this project and the ceqa process. The city of San Francisco was not the lead agency in this situation, the university of california is the lead agency because we are the proponents of the Research Building, the Draft Environmental Impact report however analyzes the two components of this project, one is the ucsf Research Building and in addition, the city is proposing the expansion of a city owned parking structure immediately to the south along 23rd street. The draft eir analyzes the impacts of the project on the sfgh Historic District, the parking structure is not within the Historic District but the proposed Research Building is within the Historic District. There is currently no design, just the envelope is what you see there. Accordingly, ucsf has developed the proposed design criteria. We sought comment from the arc on march 2, the design criteria were revised in response to the comments we received from the arc and the draft eir include ted design criteria as a mitigation measure. We recently published the draft eir on march 23 and we are now seeking your comment before the close of the draft eir Public Comment period on may 9th. And we just have a few visuals for you that were presented the last time so i will go through these quickly, this is a historic photofe in 1938 shows the site on the lower right hand corner there, the hshaped building was the former tour burk loes sis hospital, you can see a little fountain which we will discuss momentarily. Again, the site out lao iped in red along 23rd street. This is a view looking north from 23rd street, at building 9 and the gateway, the guard house and the gate pillar, this is looking south on 23rd street, you can see the existing parking structure in the distance. And this is the historic fountain which is currently in the center of the bc parking lot. In 2008, the firm of lsa prepared Historic Resource evaluations for the sfgh Historic District and it identified character defining features including overall form and continuity age, scale and proportion, fen nest ration and materials as well as color, tex chewer, detail and landscape features. So, our current design criteria includes items relating to siting, height, scale and massing, materials and cladding, windows, street frontage and site features. And i will hand it over to erica shults from arg to talk about how the criteria were revised. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, my name is erica shulgt, im an architectural historian with arg, and im going the give you a brief overview of the comments that were provided at the march 2 hearing and how theyve been addressed in the revised design criteria, to summarize, the design of the research facility, it was recommended that it has a vertical orientation rather than a horizontal orientation, that could be in part achieved by removing the setbacks in the design, and lastly, that we should identify an appropriate location for the fountain because that was a little unclear. And so we did revise the report to address that criteria and here is what it looks like before, and then this is just a general mock up that attempts visualize what that might look like, the design criteria calls for vertical orientation, it could be in part emphasized with corner bays and this design also shows more of a solid massing without the setbacks. And just the last component, we identified certain areas that would be appropriate for the location of the fountain, that would give it a prom nept location with respect to the current building, ask those are the areas that weve identified with the red shading and this is an image that we included in the design criteria. And im happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions . Commissioner pearlman . No . Well take Public Comment at this time. Does anybody wish to speak on this item, if so, come forward. Seeing and hearing none, well close Public Comment and bring it back to the commission, commissioners, do we want to comment on this draft eir, on the adequacy of the eir, any comments, thats our purpose here is to comment, review and comment to ucsf on the adequacy of the draft eir and the Design Guidelines. Yeah, i thought it was just to get a memo, right x of what arc already did. I believe were commenting on the adequacy of the eir, right. So, it was my fault, i neg leaked to publish the arc memo in advance for your consideration to basically show how they responded but in reviewing the design criteria and also in consultation with them, they have incorporated and addressed all of the arc comment and is now as par of the draft eir, since were in the draft eir comment period, the Historic Preservation commission has the opportunity as a whole commission to comment on the adequacy of the eir so, the arc memo and the prior review can factor into your future comments basically or your comments. Commissioner pearlman . Yes, thank you. I did want to thank the group from ucsf for addressing our comments. I think that looking at this form, obviously its incredible diagram mat i can, it is much more in keeping with the character defining features of the district and specifically addressing that tle ear kind of bays at the corners and things we had talked specifically about, so i want to thank you for doing that, so therefore i think they have successfully that the eir, the response to the eir, that they have successfully addressed all of the issues that we have dealt with. Yeah, and i would just say, great comments by arc and thanks for wrapping them in, i think its a good project and i think everythings been addressed. Alright. Commissioner johnck . So, in conclusion, we would say that these are our comments, the design criteria have been included. Is that correct . Those would be our comments. Correct. On the sufficiency of the draft eir. Correct, so as im understanding the department can draft a letter to uc basically stating that we appreciate the response to the arcs comments and support the analysis presented in the draft eir. Yes. Yes. I think we have concurrence there. It seeps to be consensus. Did i take Public Comment already on this one . Yes, i believe you did. Alright. So, i think were thats what well do is draft a letter and with those comments. Thank you, commissioners. Commissionersser it will place you on item 13, facade retention policy discussion. Good afternoon, commissioners, this is justin greving, here to present to you the second half of our facade retention discussion, so just a quick outline of what were going to be doing today, were going to recap the facade discussion sd ution from last hear k, talk about more specific projects in San Francisco that deal with facade retention, looking at both the positive and negative aspect of these projects, and then looking to some next steps for discussion. So, with we last met on december 2, we looked at a number of different projects involving different forms of facade retention, i would say a definition that we have working for facade retention is retaining one or two or multiple elevations of a building for the construction an entirely new building. We looked at a number of different types of facade retention, somewhere just two or three facades are retained for new construction and in other instances, the entire facade of a building was hung on an entirely new construction. We also looked at some of the reasons why these facade retention issues took place, some of them were at the will of the developer or some designing body, a lot of times it would seem some kind of xropz by the will of the preservation kniss and those of the developer and lastly, we decided we would go ahead and talk in ailgts more detail about projects within San Francisco. So, i kept two projects that we talked about last time, and i think that both of them speak to being projects that are not necessarily facade retention, these are both the jessie street power station along with the [inaudible] building, they demonstrate maybe an interesting adaptive reuse rather than facade retention, i wanted to keep them in this discussion and not necessarily talk about them in much detail, going faderbacker guard, i will be talking about three large property types, the first one being downtown projects and high rise construction, the next one would be low scale industrial warehouses with a substantial addition and the third one being Residential Projects. So, the first downtown grojts high rise construction, i would say there are some large takebacks for these projects, oftentimes, determining setbacks is not really a consideration in these projects, a lot of these are much larger projects so they involve an eir or some other larger Environmental Review and oftentimes the facade retention for these projects involve some kind of Public Benefit or giveback. So, the first project that we discussed previously was 1sansome street, as you can see in this diagram, the final ei rising adopted retention of one full sfa sawed and the return bay along [inaudible] street, but the recommendation of Planning Commission, they retained three additional bays and created a harmonious facade along the street, [inaudible] i would say the detractions of this proj was you lost probably what was an impact interior of a banking temple. It feels kind of like a ruin to aed to tha. Another project that we discussed was the 16341690 pine street, this is where you have the facades of two contributors to this auto row Historic District that were retained as a part of a larger mixed use project, the benefit of this was it was as an urban design consideration in materialser o bringing up the massing of a large project through the retention of these two fa sxauds the caoe cruising of setbacks behind those two facades as well as creating a pedestrian oriented street scale along pine street. I would say the detra ks to this project is you have a total loss of the interior volumes of these spaces and i will wonder if there were a means of some other alternatives such as retaining one structure that would have been able to create similar successful urban design along pine street. Another project that we looked at was 1314 polk street, this was a 6 storey 32 unit Senior Housing and the retention of two facades, what was originally market building, the large take away from this is this billing was not identified as a Historic Resource, so in the Environmental Review, there was no question as to whether or not the building should be retained or how the massing of the new construction affected the Historic Resource. I would say there is some benefits to this project in that retention of the store front system along polk street sort of revitalizes the polk street as being an important neighborhood commercial corridor, and its probably the case that these store fronts which have this exw iz transit is the most important architectural element of this element, and i would say the detraction is the conduction that sits above these facades largely have nothing to do with the facades themselves. And lastly, we have 690 Market Street which was a 16 storey building with an 8 storey edition that was completed in 2008, there were some pen fit tos this project, i would say one of the last ones was the removal of the Aluminum Steel frame curtain wall that was added to the exterior in the 1950s and the sandstone exterior that you can see here, this is about retaining an earthquake survivor that was constructed in 189ed 0 and did survive the 1906 earthquake, one of the detractions of this project is initially the developer argued that the only means of creating a successful adaptive reuse of this project was if they were able to add these 8 storeys, so otherwise, it would have been financially imfeasible to remove the glass and curtain wall and restore the sandstones facade, i would say thats probably the same case for every single one of these projects that we looked at, that would always be an instance where the developer would say its not feasible to rehabilitate or retain facades of buildings. So, in these downtown projects, there are some lessons to be learned, i would say because they most often involve some form of eir, there is additional scrutiny into looking into alternatives for projects and i would say in the case at 1samsome street, this was to expand the lofted size, i think in some instances, that creates a false sense of historicism, you have no idea that this facade that you see here was originally four bays, rather than three, however i would say that 1samsome streets creates an active space where it has little public space for people to go out and have lunch. So, moving on to sort of the next typology of facade retention na the low rise industrial building with a high rise addition, this is oftentimes a garage or some sort of industrial factory thats located in a zoning area that has much higher than the existing garage, so you have the conflicting scale of the resources, first the surrounding neighborhood and zoning heights, these are Pretty Simple utilitarian structures that consist with four walls and a roof, how do you use that interior volume and what setback for the addition is considered appropriate. This is one project that we looked at previously, this is 178 townsend, this is a contributor to an article 10 district, and this included a 6 storey addition that was added in 2012. Because it was a local contributor to a historical district, a 37 footed from the original building wall would be appropriate and part of the consideration and evaluating the compatible of the mass of the new structure was that this building was reconstructed over time, so after the 1906 earthquake, it was sort of cobbled together from what was remaining, so this is what you can see now. In addition, there were two historic wood frame trusses that were retained and that was in the first two bays of the building, thats one of the important pieces of fabric to retain for this billing. The question that i would say is the addition is definitely contemporary but is it compatible and does it relate to the existing structure . Another project we looked at was 421arguello, this was in the california register and it was a four storey addition added in 2012, some of the setback considerations, this was an individual resource, as you can see in the drawings that i gave you, theres one elevation from the Environmental Review and you can see theres much more attention to the detail in terms of maintaining come pat nlt of materials and fen nest ration with the historic garage and all of the detail and attention and maintaining compatibility was lost through the current planning process, on the bottom right, you can see and sort to have existing attention to detail and sensitivity to the historic garage has fallen by the wayside through the stages of completion. So, essentially you have, yes, 8 new units of housing but i would say this is a combination of both unsuccessful architecture and sort of unsuccessful retention of the facade. There are two projects that im going the discuss when are currently sort of also also is under current planning review, this is 1335 lar kin, this project was just approved by the board of mri the Planning Commission last week, so this is a 1913 garage build witching a five storey addition that has been approved. This was identified as an individual resource eligible for listing in the national rej ser shocker the setback was pretty conservative, we initially wabt wanted to get a 60 foot setback due to the lot depth being 120 feet, the reasoning behind that, you would have an addition that would read as a secondary struck xhur or as an entirely different billing within that lot. Another positive aspect of this project is that the addition reads as being very contemporary but compatible with the character of the garage. In addition to the compatibility of the addition, i would say that they are going to be reusing the ground floor for parking which is a perfect adaptive reuse of a garage. I would say that attraction to this project is that you have a loss of the mixed use character, the garage and the area as they eventually become developed for use as residences. Another very similar property type that also has sort of different setback considerations is 469edd crk, this a contributor to the National Register uptown tenderloin sdwriblgtbacker district, its surrounded by much high Scale Properties and so in evaluating what would be considered an appropriate setback, there is a conflict between maintaining compatibility with the individual resource which is just a contributor and maintaining compatibility with the neighborhood which includes a very large, i want to say almost maybe 20 storey, very contemporary construction. So, i would say this project speaks to being very compatible with the neighborhood and i would say the detraction to this project is in the uptown tenderloin Historic District, you have a range of contributors, both the high rise, sros and apartment buildings but also these low scale garages, moving forward, i think the garages are going to be the first buildings to go in these districts. Theres two large questions for these auto support structures, one is how to you reuse the interior volume of these spaces, some of the spaces are successful in reusing them for some sort of auto relented reuse, this is 1335 larkin, its been converted into a parking structure. And then the other large consideration is what is an appropriate setback for these additions, oftentimes were trying to if we have a large enough lot size, its possible to allow for a larger addition that reads as an entirely separate structure so its not necessarily encroaching on the existing garage, but it depends on the type of resource, is it individually eligible or is it just a district contributor, were also looking at sort of the neighborhood character, were looking at things like lot depths and architectural detailing. So, the retention and reuse of these auto support structures is a common facade issue that we come across daytoday, setbacks are always important for these types of resources as well as how do you reuse those garage spaces on the interior, and i would say that we have a range of projects that show varying levels of preservation successes and failures. Sort of the last typology of facade retention are these small residential type projects, i would say the large takeaways is that default demolition which are our specific Planning Department calculations oftentimes will lead to facades in essence, private interior spaces are generally not subject to ceqa and not subject to our review and i would add that commercial and residential interiors are the first thing to go as sort of our taste and fashions change. So, one project that we looked at was 39 chat naog ga street, largely because it was a 1960 italian billing constructed in the valley, so you can see theres a pretty substantial setback for this one storey addition, ask i think that the building itself sz a resource has a substantial set labeling from the street wall which speaks to its unique character to being a sediment college in the valley, the detractions to this project is the question of what is retained in ers of material retention for such an old building with substantial addition to the rear, the question becomes what has been retained in this project. The last pronlt is 15 baker street, this was identified as a contributor to california register eligible Historic District, its an 1890 three storey townhouse that had a one storey rear addition completed in 2015. Pages 3741 of the packet that you had where the demolition calculations or demolition drawings and you can see that the entire interior was not retained so this was in essence a facade retention project. I would say the benefit to this project is that you have sort of the painted ladies effect, so you still have the consistent row of stick eastlake town homes but the detraction is you have one less sort of intact victorian interior. So, the larger lessons to be learned from these smaller Residential Projects is that our own demolition calculations are not going to ensure retention of historic interiors, and this might be an opportunity for proactive advocacy for the appreciation of historic interiors to take place and understanding of how they functioned but i would also note that publicly accessible interiors can be designate and had theyve been success fri sdig naitd ined the past, so i just leave you with these two examples, both the high bern ya banking, which is being loving new restored and the new Mission Theatre which has an adaptive reuse and restoration project. So, were open to discussing more of these projects in general. I wanted to just give you a brief overview of some different ranges of facade retention in San Francisco and explain which elements might be considered successful or unsuccessful, and then open it back up to discussion in termser of identifying some form of policy or how you would want to move forward with this. Thank you. Thank you, i have a question for you related, it seems a lot of these in a way, its not so much about facade retention but its about addition to Historic Properties, especially all the garage, the ones that were kind of the low rise garage structures with the large additions, and my question is in those projects in which theyre identified as the Historic Resource, at least for the purposes of ceqa, is the department then i mean, maybe i know the answer to this, the department i guess is not really apply thing secretary of standards because the standards wouldnt permit such large additions to structures like that, so whats the criteria for determining what kind of addition can happen on a historic a billing thats been determined to be historic and i guess and i guess then the other question is for these in the ceqa determination, i guess theyre considered to be demolished, is that correct . I would say for a lot of these projects, none of them would be considered demolition per our calculations, and there is language in the National Park Service Guidance talking about if youre going to create a substantial addition to a Historic Resource, thats not going to be minimally visible, its e verbal so it reads as maybe a separate structure, i think thats what were working on with these large scale additions. Commissioners, tim fry, Department Staff, and then the other baseline to keep in mind is that most of these properties are not locally designated, so the only review process associated with the projects was through ceqa, and ceqa that basically two benchmarks that are ways to measure impacts to resources, one is sort of that get out of jail free card where if you comply with the standards, you are eligible for a categorical exempting, the other one is just that baseline or whether or not theres been a material impairment which is a very different level of analysis, and so some of these projects may have been lowered through the ceqa prodress because we found there was not a material impairment that rendered the building ineligible at the end of the day. They can be read as a Historical Resource even though they didnt meet the standards . Correct. So, why dont we take Public Comment first, or do we want to make some lets have some Public Comment. We have some members of the public who may want to comment here. Would anybody like to speak to this matter, mr. King, we dont usually see you in the audience. Hes taking notes, come on, we want some comments. I think we need to watch ours. Is there anybody else who would like to speak to this matter. I know mr. Belle said he washed the come, otherwise, well bring it back to the commission for comments. So, can i just that we have direction, what are we trying to do, should we start at one spot and go to the next so this is all in unison if you will on comments . What does the Department Staff propose in terms of what are we trying to get out of this at the end of today . Thaings a question to pose to you. Do we have additional policy that we want to explore . Yeah, i think any commissioners, any guidance you could provide us, even if its just for discussion today but hopefully in the future giving us a bet r place to start with project sponsors as these are fairly common project type and as youve seen theyre all kind of all over the board, and if we had some stronger direction from this commission, wed be able to give them that information upfront and maybe reach a better end product at the end of the day. Yeah, and i would say maybe theres two parts to it, one is with some of these projects, you might take the one on pine street for example in which the buildings were demolished essentially, is keeping those facades a better outcome given the cost and the support needed for those buildings during construction, is it resulting in better city skaip, better treatment of Historic Property and maybe the money could have gone into a fund to something else, one in where its so clearly a demolition s the result a satisfactory result where theres just that stick on facade, thats one question, the other question is do we want to consider policies regarding the larger additions or the facade treatment for some of the other properties, the setbacks, whats our thoughts about those, maybe thats some place to start. So, great, philosophical and physical, right. Yes. So, yeah. So, i dont have a lot of comment on the philosophical side, except with pine as a great example, so if we dont if we leave the entire building because i know that was a big deal, what was the depth of the building, etc. , each propertys going to be a little different because of how much that building takes up, here and on pine street, you ganged a bunch of properties together to have one site, if we left one of those properties, it would have kept that open space, etc. , however, keeping two of them i think is even a bigger bonus for keep thing integrity of what that block used to be, the heights of that block, what it used to be, i made many comments on this, Everybody Knows it, so ill leave the philosophical one out because i think we can round and round. On the physical side, i went back and looked after several of the addresses, one of them that wasnt in there which i think is important to talk about is on the 2200 block of bush which was this garage, that garage that has a residential addition not shown on this, we talked about this last time and everybody was talking about everybody was talking abwhat a poor job that was, which i agree. That build is a phenomenal building, the historic section of it, i asked myself, whats not working there, what i believe was a successful one is 178 townsend, i believe that was successful, i believe what i see at 469eddy is historic, i think it keeps it nice and even and you capture the attention of the historic facade, what i found on the 2200 block, what i find in 690 market even with the eyebrows that stick out, 412arguello, the buildings that are in back have all these different sort of punches to them, so that its kind of confusing and theres so much going on, and to me, a policy would be looking at a little bit more of a sheer factor to bring a nice evenness, even pine street, you have these little facades but you have a sheer building behind it or nothing at all that brings a cleanliness to it and it bridges out a better Historic Building in the foreground, so my comments are really leaning towards a policy of that or just a leaning, not a policy of a more sheer modern building with the Historic Property in front. In terms of setback, do you have any setback, i thought 178 townsend was too much, but we did that because of the machinery that was once there but is not there, so i thought that was a little bit ridiculous setting back that much, i think thats like 50some feet or something, 37, its too tremendous, where to me, 10 feet is fine, 5 feet sometimes is fine, i thought pine street where they completely set it back was great, gibing an openness behind it to experience a two storey height where they didnt bring the building all the way up, so i thought that one completely worked. Er commissioner hyland . I think for me, all of this discussion is about whats important. What are the character defining features and spaces to these Historic Buildings and whats the impact to the development, not only on the lot that were developing that these Historic Buildings are on but the adjacent ones so i think where i do agree with you on the value of retaining the facades so that the streetscape thats been there continues to be represented can continue. I think the 1634 bush is unsuccessful in many respects im sorry, pine, 634 pine, unsuccessful in many respects because the New Buildings on either side of these that were retained, the facades were retained, these buildings were technically demolitions even though there was significant setback when they were retained but the new construction on either side didnt have any recognition of that mass along the street, and so in our Design Review of these new developments around, i guess we wouldnt have had an opportunity to opine on that through this project, but if we could or if the design of the new structure is responded to the context much better, i think the retention would be more successful, and if and to commissioner wolframs point if the economics behind it doesnt justify what we saved at least the massing and the scale of what happens at the street level, at the pedestrian level is what makes that block so important, on this pine street project, its just completely lost, were saving three of the facades but the pedestrian experience, its kind of like a disneyland. If the facades on either side of the building were slavered, the scale, is that including setbacks so there is a hard two storey it could be a setback of 5, 10 feet. The arc had 28 market before us for the Commission Hearing today, and the conversation was around how this new development fits into the district. The National Registry district. Thats right sx, the adjacent building was a taller building than the as jais sent building and that helps bring the buildings to the pedestrian scale along Market Street there and the proposals werent really acknowledging that. So, i would propose that at a minimum, some direction be given to the design of these New Buildings. Yeah, i agree, last time we talked about pine, you didnt say it that way, i doesnt understand that you were talking about the rhythm of the neighboring vehicles, you said existing, yeah, i totally agree. It could have been better, i could have spoke to it more. And there needs to be authenticity when were adaptively using these auto shop spaces, having some acknowledgment behind the facade of what that space was, it doesnt necessarily have to be a parking lot, but it could be a lobby entrance, you know, like the banking lobby or something, a bigger space that responds to what makes that important, saying a facade, what happens behind that fau saud makes it important, two more things, setbacks on corner buildings are really business bizarre and i think thats what happened on the townsend project, if there was another building there instead of that alley or smaller street, that facade could be closer up, the addition could have been closer up, but we have this definition of what the front of the building is and thats what the setback has to be measured from, i mean, theres a residential building right across from my house on 16th and sanchez where they were required to set it back, they had to set the roof additions back from the front which was sanchez but the addition straight up on 16th street which was a more prominent elevation happened to be the side of the building so thats a problem. I dont know what the solutions are, maybe these are in the philosophical and not the practical, but the last thing on the residential, something that justin said i wanted to point out which i thought was important and that is how tastes evolve and xhaing over the years and the interiorser of these residential buildings over the last ten years have gone so contemporary that theyre just blowing everything out and quite honestly, what i wanted the point out is because of that, San Francisco victorian is lost, the tools that make the victorian traditional mill work are Still Available but the whole business is gone because its being a victim of this very contemporary taste. Commissioner pearlman . So did victorian ism, you know, our body of buildings in San Francisco have so many different periods and so many different styles that it is a challenge to say that someone who bought a victorian house is of the victorian period but doesnt map to like victorian na has some responsibility of that interior in a residential setting is hard because tastes change all the time and this is an evolving thing, i imagine there will be a group sitting here 100 years from now and they would say, those modern interiors are so hideous, were putting it more like the exterior of the house, that could be a fad at some point that happens. I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that times are times and not every single thing, my standard line to clients are i hold up a splinter of wood and i say, this is not a splint frer the christ of christ, [inaudible] so i think an important point that commissioner hyland brought up was about hbc involvement like a project in pine, we had solve level of involvement but it didnt have to come back to us because of the nature of what we have responsibility and authority to look at, so that we lose that opportunity to say, okay, were saving these facades but the rest of the streetscape doesnt work at all to suggest the scale and the detail and the the kind of fen straying patterns and stuff st street had, its ao nice building as i saw it go up, so i assume that a good architect could absolutely respond to the concern about the loss of streetscape by taking out the other buildings, so that i think thats something that the staff really because it doesnt come back to us, but the staff really could be either asking us, you know, at that point when it does come to us because were not the Planning Commission, we dont really comment on design of the overall new building when it comes up, so i think theres something to how projects march through the process where its sort of out of our control x then it comes back and we look at Something Like 42arguello and that looks terrible, bad architecture, but its not a project that has ever had to come back to us because its at a several level as a contributor or it could be designated where it doesnt rise to the level where we have some control. I did want to ask about 42arguello and maybe you know, mr. Frye about justin referred to the type of fact that it got bled away in termser of the details and things and how did that happen and was it that there was no enforcement at the time so the developer just did what they wanted . Kim frye, Department Staff, thats a good question, its something we havent looked into yet given the timing of the presentation, but it does seem to be a wlak of coordination on our part where there were certain parts of the design that were agreed on during the environmental phase that didnt make it into the final permit set which did affect the compatibility and our environment review. Yeah, its surprising that projects at dbi always come back to the planner to review, even down to the windows and things. Not always. Thats part aof of the issue. Okay, if thats the problem. Yeah, i mean, i think that theres a couple comments that i have about some of the projects were looking at, i agree that the issue of whats important is the thing that has to be respected, that, you know, i think one of the projects had like a 60 foot setback on 120 foot lot, well, 120 foot lot is only 20 foot deeper than a standard 100 foot lot, 60 feet on a lot is 50 of the lot, and so that seems really excessive and i think if its designed well, like commissioner hasz talked about the plainer quality, that that would work at 30 feet as well as 60 feet, and again, each one is in context, theres one thats set in i think its in the tenderloin on eddy street, that one is in these buildings and the new addition steps up and its set back much less than the you know, so the amount of setback i think is something that is obviously from project to project, but there really should be a good rational. I mean, 60 feet for a plane or build, thats a simple building, that seems like a lot of loss of value for that property and i dont know how many units could be created in an additional 30 feet that could have created a lot more value and more housing, so the whats important, i think we of course think that the historic value is the most important, but theres a lot more factors whits a building that is not a landmark building, its a building that contributes and that youre saving the building and i agree with commissioner hasz on the 178 townsend building where, i mean, i dont know how successful it is, it looks like this modern Glass Building fell on top of this older building, and it is set so far back that it doesnt feel its relate today the building so thats another one and i did want to say though that 178 townsend has a bronze plaque on it that tells you what it was, that it was the California Power and light building and when it was built and the basic information, so i appreciate thats there, thats an aside. So, i think the most important piece is the hbc involvement and how do we have more dialogue about the design of a building where somethings going to be incorporated, some piece of a Historical Building is being incorporated into a new building where we only get that opportunity if its in a district or its a landmark, you know, where we dont get that opportunity in most cases. Thanks. Thank you, commissioner johnck . Well, my thoughts go to accomplish something for what we want to recommend to staff about what they do next here, getting back to the beginning question you asked, karl, what do we do here . We want to my understanding is we want to avoid project sponsors just coming in to get a historic hook and just save a piece aof the building, and the way to avoid that is to have some kind of protocol framework with these topics, setback volume, historic materials, integrity, it sort of gets at our local standards approach visavis the federal standards and the secretary interior standards, do we want to develop something more specific and maybe we have something already, and i think maybe we do, but all this discussion is good, but youve all talked about some key things, key components, setbacks, volume, the reuse of interior volume, streetscape, design, etc. , so all these components would be in this is what were looking for, for the Historic Preservation be treated in these components and frankly i keep thinking of the Mining Exchange which wasnt part of this thing, and time will tell because it hasnt started yet because of construction, but to me, they the developers of that said with some discussion with the staff and us too that this building, the interior is superior and theyre saving the lobby, as i remember, theres a certain amount of volume. Theyre taking it away and putting it back. Well, theyre ce reconstructing it which is even better as i first looked at that and then theres a certain setback and obviously theres going to be a high rise behind it and some park space, i would be eager to say but what looked like it was being presented, it wasnt facade, they were trying to address the totality of what were trying to get at, so i think when all is said and done, the totality of it, its more weve done more in the design and asking folks to look at these things, setback, you know, interior volume, adaptive reuse, its kind of a protocol i guess what i would be interested to see us come up with, some elements of it and maybe we have a rating system, 178 gets a 10 or a 9 based on [laughter]. Take the address and divide it by 5. So, if staff could say, oh, well, you know, according to setback, the interior space, 178 townsend, we gave it a 10 or a 9, who knows. Thank you, commissioner johns. One of the really great things abmy position on this commission is im not an architect, im not a preservation architect, im not a builder, im not a designer, so to a certain extent, i can listen to the discussion which in a way i think i fermented by asking that we consider this and that we discuss those projects and the elements of the projects that we consider to have worked out nicely and to then figure out why they worked out and the ones we consider to have been a mistake that we try to figure out why in the context of that particular project it doesnt work out very well, and weve accomplished that a little bit. In a way without getting philosophical, i dont think that what happens behind a building is what makes the building important, its of interest, but you cant preserve it forever. In a way, every adaptive reuse is part of just preserving the facade of the building, you know, we have a magnificent structure on montgomery street if california on the northwest corner that was an Office Building and then became a hotel, its the omni hotel, completely well, a completely different use of that building, i think were going to have another one. I used to work for the [inaudible] Santa Fe Railway company and when we came do San Francisco from the headquarters in chicago, we had meetings at the western headquarters which was the adam Grant Building which i believe is about to be turned into a hotel if things go the way the developer wants. Well, alright, adaptive reuse is what goes on behind the building, what makes that building important, fo, i dont really think so at all. And i appreciate the discussion about, well, the streetscape and all that, if you look around San Francisco, theres some enclaves, some clocks blocks that do have a unified streetscape, other blocks of San Francisco are just totally bizarre, nothing seems to be related to anything else other than, well, its masonry, and it was built before 1925, well, theres a certain value in the bizarre, you know, looking at it not from the design point of view but from a historical point of view because after all, it was the expression of an age, not necessarily a consistent expression but an expression of everybody saying the downtown area wanting to rebuild quickly after the fire and earthquake but with some sense of style, so what i got from this discussion, in some instances, dealing with some specific properties, one thing is going to work but will be bizarre in another. Townsend, that thing is just ludicrous, just ludicrous, and there are a few others that i think are really from not the designers point of view, but maybe the historians are quite successful, i think the old i think it was originally the anglo Bank Building at 1samstome street, the direction o the planning staff to look at these things, well, i would say you first have to consider what are we saving, what are we trying to do, are we trying to create something that was never there but suggests what was there. Are we trying to preserve a reminiscent, a mem zanies reminiscence of what was there, preserving two store fronts and calling them pedestrian friendly on pine street, youre out of your to commissioners and the staff, by definition, were talking about projects here that dont meet the typical reading of the structures ta afk the interior standards because the additions are substantially greater than the existing building, the question is what do we do in those cases, what we have been doing from a ceqa report is requiring generally most cases, not every case a full eir because theres a Significant Impact on the resource, and the challenge with that and im not saying thats a wrong thing to do, im personally challenged with this as well, the project sponsor will often say, if youre going the get me to do an eir, i will get an eir to demolish the building, is it a Significant Impact on the resource, thats what were constantly struggling with and if and you know, maybe the answer is yes or no, i dont know, commissioner johns, i would disagree with you on pine street, i think we could create a better pedestrian on pine street than what has existed there, whether saving these facades to do it, i dont know, thats generally what were trying to do is create a better pedestrian environment on these streets, so i think one of the questions is what we do when the addition is much bigger than the original resource, and secondly, is there a room to throw out a project that always that everyone seems to have strong failings about, is there projects like project 178 townsend where the addition is radically very different . To me, that is what more of what i see in a european context where they do encourage the additions to be quite distinct from the original building. We tend not to do that in the u. S. , we tend to make the additions more architecturally compatible in scale and materials. The question i would have, is that their best solution in flightier what becomes the physical characteristics of the resource, whichever those approaches is the resource more obvious and more publicly visible. Theres thoughts about direction, right, one suggests there should be more of a contrast so the resource is more observe and others suggest it is too jars of selection of the resources being varied by the new construction, those are the questions were constantly faced with, what i hear you all saying is maybe there isnt one answer to this, we have to look at it on a case by case base and is the design of the addition is really what is the critical factor here no matter how big or small it is, but i just wanted to place that in the context of what the smafr staff is deal witching on a daily basis because this is coming up a lot more with the Development Climate that we have and the zoning issues that we have. Maybe ill just throw in a few things here, and one thing i think is related to i think we have two thinking tings, one is the additions and the topic of the facades in the spirit of the west [inaudible] center, in termser of the additions, the one thing i throw out there, i would encourage the department maybe expanding the tdr program because im working right now for example on a project, its an existing building, it ma a very high floor to floor as the owner said, can i add a mez mez mezzanine, no, you cant. Some development may be offset to other sites leaving the Historic Buildings more in tact. I believe that we should encourage setbacks, i think greater setbacks are beneficial in termser of the reading of the Historic Properties that when you have an adequate setbacks, it looks like its a building thats on another street or further back that it really reduces the impacts, so i would disagree. I think from the perspective, the Historic Preservation commission, i dont think we should say well 50 feet is way too much because the lot size is only 120 feet, we think setbacks are good, someone can take the other position and say we need more housing or thats not enough development area, i think our position should try to preserve resources and not worry about things that arent within our purview, so i would encourage setbacks. I would also the compatibility question i think is an interesting one. Ive been thinking theres a really beautiful jewel of a modern building on california and grant, its one storey glass build, i was thinking what if somebody proposed a vertical addition to that and decided to make it Mission Revival style, the Department Said you have to differentiate, what we would think about a Mission Revival on top of this all glass modern build, it would be shocking but why do we think a Mission Revival style building should have glass on top of it, if you switch the tables and people always say, its because the architecture of today, the architecture aof today is fairly elect i can, im not sure theres one world of contemporary architecture, its sometimes interesting to smrip the tables and think about, is it really appropriate. I would agree with i think commissioner johns is not so much in love of the townsend one as i am and im not sure thats a successful example from a an architectural side, it looks like the store ship galactica landed on top of it, no connection at all. The other thing is i agree with commissioner [inaudible] comment about the relationship to the context, particularly in the pine street project, because these historic design ares this tiny island in the gigantic development, it seems like theyre really lost. So, sometimes its irrelevant, when its just a Little Island thats less than the Historic Building, when theyre just kind of little reminance, so those are my comments about additions. I think i would disagree with commissioner johns about what happens inside doesnt matter at all, i dont completely agree with that, you do want a sense of what the historic character of the building is in the inside, to sometimes be reflected bh quo you walk into the west field seiner, it is jarring to go inside the dome is so far away, and then suddenly youre in this thing that has no relationship to it at all, that can be jarring. Those are my comments. Commissioner hyland. So, round two, it does come down to just good design and this whole this pendulum swing between contextual design and con tefp rare design and back and forth and back and forth, i came from a firm that we really were into the conceptual design by i personally appreciated the more contemporary design, what matters is how well theyre integrated and how do the two structures or two designs speak to each other. What were facing here in this city is the vertical additions. I think the adjacent additions that happened the fall under articles 10 and 11, we do a very good job at responding to [inaudible] when they come before us in the process, so in our opinion, my opinion, the results are pretty good, fairly good, and even say on 706 mission, i think that process helped the street level and were talking about theres preservation, restoration, rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, new design within Historic Contexts, adjacent additions and now and certainly along Market Street between church and castro, less so between the other direction from octavia to church, but were going to be dealing with all this development thats twice as high, but on some of those corners from an urban design perspective, i think the structures, mafkt street, a little down more to a pedestrian scale, so i think the horrible crime of the 20th century is designing our country around the car, so having this idea that the pedestrian experience didnt matter and doesnt matter, i think we need to recapture that because that was in my opinion just a crime. Back to something more tactical, im wondering if our commission could help and maybe under the urban Design Guidelines, revising the urban Design Guidelines and the residential Design Guidelines, i dont know if this conversation is too fine grained for the urban Design Guidelines, maybe thats one area. I see mr. Belle here, so im wondering, would you like the seek because we can reopen Public Comment. Maybe mr. King will come up as well. Thank you, president wol wolfram, i apologize for missing justice t ins presentation, so i was stuck downstairs, i did want the take the opportunity, ive spoken before to the Commission Regarding heritages concern over this and our efforts to clarify our own [inaudible] just last week, we had an intern from france who had been exclusively researching facade ism for a policy paper that we will be issuing this year. She had some very interest k findings, in terms of the contents of the paine, aisle give you a brief overview and im sure justin addressed many of these points in his presentation, but first of all, were trying to arrive at a definition of fau saud ism and there are many, providing, we also will attempt to provide a brief history of fau said ism, both in this country and in europe, give my guidelines how fau sauds can be incorporated into project if that is ever appropriate and that is a question i have asked at many preservation colleagues, if there is a good facade projects, no one can answer that question for me, also an interesting aspect of our research has been to document San Francisco heritages evolving view on facades over time which are fascinate ifing you go back and look at some of our news letters including an article on 456 montgomery which really lofted the program, if you are a sensitive developer, you might hire a architect melding old and new, it was only made possible of an unusually generous client and on and on, and just a few later later in 1983, then executive director stated, i believe there is no grater threat to the architectural preservation move nment this country of the disneyland philosophy in the anymore of Historic Preservation, either save or reuse the entire building or let contemporary architecture take its place. Another section we want to include will explain alternatives to facades to perhaps a narrow class of projects involving Historic Buildings that are not actually designated, have not been evaluated as individually significant but are perhaps context or background buildings. Er well extend your time. Er thank you, ill be done so, but under any swishes ld wouit be appropriate to prescribe a payment into a Mitigation Fund for a real preservation project in the neighborhood in lieu of approving a project with fragments of an older struck khu, our overriding concern is the message that this sends to the Development Community and to the general public about what Historic Preservation is all about and of course youve had great discussions here including the review of the 1500 mission project, the proposed headquarters for the Planning Department and dbi about the message that will be sent to the Development Community if that type of project is condoned officially by the city, so we have researched and identified examples of other Mitigation Funds in this country and internationally as to under what circumstances that might be appropriate and i realize its a very sensitive topic and believe me, we are taking that very seriously and have not come to our own conclusion as to if that would ever be an appropriate solution, but as ive mentioned, the pine street project, i drive by nearly every day and it reminds me of why were walking on this topic and i strongly believe that it is not the message we want to be sending to the public or Development Community, so thank you again for taking up this topic. Thank you, would anybody else want to speak on this matter . Well close Public Comment and bring it back to the commission. Well, i like the idea of somehow incorporating this in the urban Design Guidelines, if thats the way this topic will move, advance. Perhaps the next time we come back to you regarding this topic, well invite some of the members that are drafting the guidelines to also present, and then we can find some ways where there may be some natural overlap to prepare some guidelines to this effect. Commissioner hausz . Thank you. It will be tough because we had no consensus on any project, right. But we had some consensus on some policy. General policy, there was some consensus. But anything we were saying, even setbacks, 60s okay, i all the way up to 10, we need to be wrap our carps around something under consensus because we were all over the map here fm but i think for the setback, were probably not going to give a number, it might be about whats the purpose of the setback, was it advise frblt the school, is it the scale of the street, is it the corner lot, we may be able to come yeah, some part of the structure. We may be able to come to some general guideline and is then we can vote my recommendation would be that staff takes what they heard today, drafts some general procedures and we can have votes on different parts of it. We run preservation into the ban saw with we do Something Like that because i get developers calling me here and there talking about setbacks specifically, let alone other stuff and there is fo answer, and so, you know, theyre data driven and i would love to see if maybe mr. Belle while hes got somebody working on it talk about setbacks in a data setting where whats the width, wlas the depth of the total property right, is there a way to even give Something Like that because otherwise, you know, its very frustrating and then everyone says, preservations not letting me do something, preservations being unrealistic, and its a rough pill to swallow every time i get those calls because i dont have answers, we cant guide them, you know, and its tough on their part, right, and then all of a sudden they made a deal for a property where they were thinking 30 foot setback and no, were saying more than that, theyre upside down on a project all of a sudden, so its tough to not give specific or even a general sort of parameters, right, they start getting very narrowed down, maybe theres a way to do this. Commissioner mr. Frye . Commissioners, to commissioner hausz comment is we did look at the projects we prejtbacker presented to you today and looked at the overall lot depth, the setback that we ended up with, the overall height of the addition, and there was no magic bullet or formula that even we were applying, it assist such a contextual based commission, either by this commission or other Decision Makers or by staff that we could probably come up with some ranges and maybe thats a topic for even two hearings down the road once we have something on paper, but what i did hear from especially the sus sing way that commissioner johnck art tick elated, sort of some general things that need to be considered and i think we have enough from what we heard today that we can talk abjust in general about setback, streetscape, mass, volume, meeting interior volume as well, context, general compatibility and just come up with some factors that we know are part of the equation and we may not have what that all equates to, but i think it definitely helps us in moving the conversation forward. And i would add to mr. Hauszs comment about the setback, the other tricky thing, a lot of Residential Projects require rear projects, its so case by case, you cant really say, you can have a 15 foot setback, it depends of the zoning of that propertybacker property anyway and where the setbacks have to be, its difficult to be sorry, one thing that popped into my head that would be helpful to discuss at the next hearing, the bhoel notion of visibility, under the standards, visibility is something we take into account along with these other factors that were discussed today. There may be maybe willing instead of talking about a specific setback, really how visible is a visible addition. A high rise building. Right. But thats the direction that weve taken, you know, in the uptown tenderloin district where we know there isnt this pristine roof line throughout the district, it is a very tall high density Historic District and therefore it if a building is substantially setback and reads like a background building, its not likely going to have an impact whereas on gold street just recently, this Commission Approved a large addition on a small building but the alley is so fair owe, there will be no worry about seeing that in context with the historic structure, so maybe visibility is a way that we can approach it, im joust throwing that out there, its not something we really discussed today. Thank you, commissioner hyland . Ill keep this short. For me, its about Design Solutions that are well done and so if a developer is calling and asking, can i have a 15 foot setback, they obvious dont have a designer on the team thats going to help them solve the problem, at least the one that they need, so you know, our goal is our role is to provide guidelines, not restrictive solutions, we had a good designer would we had some issues on some of the details and its not our role to solve those details, its to provide the context in which they can do well in. Thank you, convoying ner johnck . Yes, just to kind of conclude and summarize where i was going and im glad you picked up on that, i do think some kind of list of factors of guidance and design, thats where its at. Remember, if somebody comes to us and say, gee, what do i do and they ask for a specific dimension and setback, we done have that because that get tos design, but remember who youre talking to, youre talking to Historic Preservation commission, and so when we think about design and the building were talking about and what youre adding to it and changing to it, these are the factors we want you to consider, remember all along, this is what our overall vision is and what we want to achieve, its not setbacks for setbacks sake, thats kind of an overarching theme commissioner pearlman . I wanted to concur about the idea of the factors because i think what could be very helpful to the developer and architect would be to heres the list of things and you have to make a cogent case for why does this work, you know, in terms of massing, in terms of materials, in terms of visibility, in termser of context, as an architect websinger would have to demonstrate both in words and in our presentation drawings why that made sense in this particular location, so i think that, you know, theres actually something to hang on to that you could write up, and then there should be a forum, whether its this forum and again theres many projects that may not come to this forum but a forum where the architect and developer and staff could be having that conversation to say, i dont know if this is too much or too little, i dont know what the project is at all, they could say, here im showing it at 50 feet, whats the difference between 50 and 60 feet, could the staff come up with a good reason to say i guess 50 feet makes sense, theres no real difference visibly, so i think that has a nice at least some structure to start having the conversation. And sorry just to that also gives them an understanding of how were going to approach it, right. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Any concluding remarks . Have we given enough direction here for the next time around . Have we covered justins i think weve finally got it. So, no more remarks, so i think were red did to move and go and look forward to the next time this comes back for the summary. Alright, thank you, the hearing is adjourned. meeting is adjourned . 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