Historic Preservation Commission - March 2, 2016 - Minutes
SAN FRANCISCO
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION
Meeting Minutes
Commission Chambers Room 400,
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
12:30 p.m.
Regular Hearing
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Wolfram, Hyland, Johnck, Matsuda, Pearlman, Johns
COMMISSIONER ABSENT: Hasz
THE MEETING WAS CALLED TO ORDER BY PRESIDENT WOLFRAM AT 12:36 PM
STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: John Rahaim - Director of Planning, Shannon Ferguson, Tim Frye - Preservation Coordinator, Jonas P. Ionin – Commission Secretary
SPEAKER KEY:
+ indicates a speaker in support of an item;
- indicates a speaker in opposition to an item; and
= indicates a neutral speaker or a speaker who did not indicate support or opposition.
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Hearing Materials are available at: Commission Hearing Broadcasts: |
A. GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
At this time, members of the public may address the Commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Commission except agenda items. With respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the Commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. Each member of the public may address the Commission for up to three minutes.
None
B. DEPARTMENT MATTERS
John Rahaim, Planning Director:
Good afternoon, commissioners. I just wanted to give you a brief report on the Planning Commission's actions last week with respect to the Affordable Housing Bonus Program. As you know this program has been in the kind of development stage for a long time and it has been quite controversial; the Planning Commission did take an action last week. What they did, a little out of their normal routine, is to actually take separate votes on several topics within the proposed ordinance. Then they took an overall action to send it to the Board of Supervisors without a recommendation, either pro or con; but maybe what I can do without taking too much time is briefly summarize their position on the various topics that they discussed last week. One is that they asked us to go farther in terms of the sites that we would not consider for the program and asked that we remove all parcels that have any residential units on them from consideration from the program whether they are rent controlled units or not. So, if a site has any residential units as of today under their proposal it will not be eligible for using this program. They asked that we secondly adopt a phased approach, implementing it, starting with the sites that are entirely vacant, or have gas stations on them. The third would be to evaluate the remaining sites with an emphasis on retaining small businesses and historic properties. The fourth was to evaluate further evaluate the financial analysis of these project of this program to look at the area median income limits. There was a lot of discussion about the middle income portion of this program and whether it was too high; so they have asked us to take a new look at that and fifth they asked us to conduct further community outreach and community planning with respect to the program. They also asked us to look at how projects would conform to the design guidelines that we have put forward. You may have recalled that we have proposed specific design guidelines for this program and they have asked us to make sure that when we do our case report, we would actually do an analysis of how the project meets those guidelines or not. They asked that until those guidelines are finally adopted we would prohibit the merger of lots to accommodate this program, so that we could not merge lots to accommodate a project site until new guidelines are finally adopted and they asked us to look at refining the guidelines with respect to light and air to adjacent properties. With respect to the review process, they asked us to change the review process to require a conditional use for all projects that use this program. With respect to the small business, there is a concern about the impacts on the small business in our neighborhood districts. They asked us to give the Planning Commission the authority to reduce the size of commercial storefronts within new projects so that you could maintain a small storefront character in new buildings. They asked that we would, with respect to affordability; they ask us to look at establishing rates that are particular to a neighborhood because some neighborhoods clearly are more affordable than others and they ask us to look at rates that would be lower than the prevailing median incomes in those neighborhoods. With all of that and the discussion which I think went on for about six hours, they did take a vote to pass it on to the Board of Supervisors with no recommendation. Happy to answer any questions, thank you.Commissioner Pearlman:
So just in your opinion at this moment and time, it sounds like so many properties have been eliminated from consideration. Are there enough properties to actually even make it worth going through all of this effort?John Rahaim, Planning Director:
Our analysis, we, you know, it applies to, and I am not going to get the numbers exactly right, but I think that it will theoretically apply to about 30,000 parcels across the city. What we did is look at parcels, where it is most likely to occur and that is a list of about 240; those 240 currently don't have housing on them anyway. So those 240 parcels we think would still work based on the recommendations that they have made. They don't have housing, they don't have the historic resources on them, so that was our first cut any way about where it will most likely apply and so, they did recommend going ahead with that portion, with that first 240 sites, but then asked us to look more carefully at the remaining parcels.President Wolfram:
If the Board does not approve this proposal, since this is a state requirement, what will happen at that point?John Rahaim, Planning Director:
Well, the way… this is a very good question, you know, the state density bonus program has been on the books for a long time, but because of a recent, Napa city, and I think that it is a Napa city court case, it would apply to projects that are providing any level of affordability, such as San Francisco, even if it is just a base requirement of affordability. So the way it would work is that projects could evoke on their own, the state density bonus program on their own and ask for additional density and additional height by providing affordable housing units even if it is the 12 percent that is currently required in the code. That will be entitled under state law under the additional density.President Wolfram:
You haven’t been confronted with that yet?John Rahaim, Planning Director:
Actually we have there is probably five or six projects in the office that are now proposing such a program and evoking the state density bonus law.Commissioner Johnck:
Yes. Could you just clarify again, I think point number three, related to historic properties; did you say to exempt them?John Rahaim, Planning Director:
No. What they said was, what they said was, you know, they would support a phased approach where the 240 parcels that are largely vacant could move forward but asked us to take a second look at properties that do have resources on them to see how we might shape the program better.Commissioner Johnck:
They were not just exempted; to make sure that there is an evaluation.John Rahaim, Planning Director:
That is correct.2. Review of Past Events at the Planning Commission, Staff Report and Announcements
Tim Frye, Preservation Officer:
No formal report other than Director Rahaim's report on the bonus program; did want to follow up with a couple of items related to that. One is that in mid-June, on your advanced calendar, you’ll see the Neighborhood Commercial District Survey will be coming to you for adoption along with the Neighborhood Commercial Historic Context Survey. This is also intended to clarify which properties in these areas that generally accept greater densities; are historic and which ones are not. Under the local program, what’s being proposed at this time is buildings determined eligible as an individual resource would not be eligible for the program. Meaning you couldn’t redevelop one of those sites if you had an individual resource, however, if there was a district and you had a district contributor that property may be eligible, if removing that property from the district would not cause a significant adverse impact to the district. As you know, in a district, we look at the district as a whole as the resource rather than the individual buildings. So that is something that we hope to have more information on by the summer, where we have just begun our neighborhood outreach effort related to the survey work and will be back to you in mid-June with the findings.
C. COMMISSION MATTERS
3. President’s Report and Announcements
President Wolfram:
The only announcement I have is I wanted to announce that the California Preservation Foundation is having their annual conference April 17th to 20th in the Presidio of San Francisco so I encourage all members, commissioners and audience members to attend.4. Consideration of Adoption:
SPEAKERS: None ACTION: All minutes adopted AYES: Wolfram, Hyland, Johnck, Johns, Matsuda, Pearlman ABSENT: Hasz 5. Commission Comments & Questions
None
D. REGULAR CALENDAR
6. (S. BRADLEY: (415) 575-5609)
MOTHER’S BUILDING CONDITIONS ASSESSMENT – Informational presentation by the Recreation and Parks Department on the findings from a building conditions assessment and structural evaluation of the Mothers Building. Constructed in 1925 the Mothers Building is known for its distinctive interior and exterior architectural details and WPA-era murals. It was one of two buildings located in the San Francisco Zoo adjacent to the Fleishhacker Pool, an enormous outdoor salt water swimming pool (filled in the 1970s). The report was funded by a grant from the Historic Preservation Fund Committee. The Mothers Building was placed on the Historic Preservation Commission’s Landmark Designation Work Program at its June 15, 2011 hearing.
Preliminary Recommendation: None – Informational
SPEAKERS: = Stacy Bradley, Deputy Planning Director of Rec/Park Staff presentation = (F) Speaker (Rec/Park Staff) Response to question + Lauren Jones Support + Richard Rothman Mural context + Desiree Smith Heritage support ACTION: None – Informational AYES: WWolfram, Johnck, Johns, Matsuda, Pearlman RECUSED: Hyland ABSENT: Hasz 7. 2015-004228DES (S. FERGUSON: (415) 575-9074)
235 VALENCIA STREET – Consideration of a Community-Sponsored Article 10 Landmark Designation Application for the former Hap Jones Motorcycle Dealership, Assessor's Block 3532, Lot 019B. The subject property was formerly used as a motorcycle dealership by Loren “Hap” Jones, a prominent figure in San Francisco motorcycle history and the founder of the Motorcycle Blue Book. The subject property is located within a NCT-3 (Moderate Scale Neighborhood Commercial Transit) Zoning District and a 50-X Height and Bulk District.
Preliminary Recommendation: Not to initiate. If the Historic Preservation Commission disapproves the proposed designation, such action shall be final, except upon the filing of a valid appeal to the Board of Supervisors within 30 days (Section 1004.5).
SPEAKERS: = Shannon Ferguson Staff presentation + (F) Speaker Sponsor presentation + Brian Holm Support + Loren Jones Hap Jones photos + Kelly Hill Character of the building = Andrew Junius Owner representative, request for continuance ACTION: Continued to April 6, 2016 AYES: Wolfram, Johnck, HylandJohns, Matsuda, Pearlman ABSENT: Hasz
ADJOURNMENT – 1:34 PM
ADOPTED MARCH 16, 2016