Transcripts For SFGTV Historic Preservation Commission 20240

Time. [roll call] clerk commissioners, first on your agenda is general Public Comment. I have no speaker cards. Would any member of the public wish to address the commission on items not on our agenda . Close Public Comment. Clerk very good. General matters. Item one, directors announcements. Thank you. Commissioners, simply want to wish you a happy holidays in advance. Part of our holiday experience will be preparing our budget which well be discussing soon. We have received mayor budget instructions from the mayor and her office which include that no new positions are expected to be added through this years process, so i wanted to let you know about that in advance. Clerk seeing no questions, item 2, review of past events at the Planning Commission and staff announcements. Commissioners, items that may be of interest to you from the Planning Commission, december 5, they adopted the retained topic and special guidelines, and heard a presentation on the special japantown guidelines which will be coming to you in the new year. And jonas. Clerk yeah. At the board, wanted to let you know that the board approved 2251 webster street, 2168 market street, and 2731 to 2735 folsom. Clerk seeing nothing further, commission matters, item 3, president s report and announcements. I just want to thank the commission for a wonderful year. This is our last hearing of the year, and we will be having a celebration today at 5 00. I think its in the notice, hayes street grill. Clerk very good. Item 4, adoption of draft minutes for the november 6 a. R. C. Minutes and the regular hearing for november 20, 2019. I have no speaker cards. Any member of the public wish to comment on our minutes from the a. R. C. And the last h. P. C. . Close Public Comment. Commissioners . [inaudible] clerk thank you, commissioners. On that motion to adopt the minutes for november 6 and november 20 [roll call] clerk so moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously, 70. Item 5, commission comments and questions. I think were good. Clerk seeing none, we can move onto item 6, your proposed 2020 hearing calendar. Commissioners, traditionally, we keep all of your scheduled hearings and calendars as needed, but if you see any reason to cancel any of those dates ahead of time. I did have a question. I was wondering why july 1 was being cancelled since its three days away from july 4, and i was just wondering why that yeah. So im just curious its up to us. Clerk im not sure im sorry. Im not sure why that would have been. So well reinstate july 1 to regular meeting. Clerk so well just basically have every first and third wednesday of the month and cancel as needed. It looks like it, yeah. No action . It is. We should adopt it. Okay. Can i have a motion, please . Clerk we should have Public Comment. Teacher ah. Getting ahead of ourselves. Anybody here for Public Comment . Can i have a motion . I would make a motion to adopt the schedule, cancelling as desired. Second. Clerk very good. On that motion, keeping the 2020 schedule [roll call] clerk so moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously, 70, placing us under items proposed for continuance, item 7, at 55 hagiwara tea garden drive for the music concourse in golden gate park. It is proposed for an indefinite continuance. Okay. Any member of the public wish to comment on this continuance . Close Public Comment. Commissioners . Move to approve. Clerk to continue . Continue, yes. Second. Clerk thank you, commissioners. On that motion to continue item 7 indefinitely [roll call] clerk so moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously, 70, placing us under your consent agenda. The matters listed here under constitutes your consent calendar. It is considered routine of the commission unless a member requests to remove the item, in which it will be heard in a separate vote. I have no speaker cards. Would any member of the public wish to remove this from the consent calendar . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioners, i need a motion. Motion to approve item 8 with conditions. Clerk thank you. On that item, item 8, to approve the item with consent conditions [roll call] clerk so moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously, 70, placing us under your regular calendar for item 9, establishing the American Indian cultural district ordinance. This is an administrative code amendment. Hello, commissioners. Shelley cal at thtagirone from Planning Department staff. I wanted to bring paul monet up to provide some comments. Good morning, commissioners. My name is paul monket. Im a relatively new aide with supervisor ronens office. Pleasure to be here. So as you know, this legislation was intended to establish the first ever American Indian cultural district in district 9. In San Francisco, were proud of the legacy that the district has shared and led with. Were home to one of the very first cultural district programs, calle 24, and were proud to see how much this has expanded across the city, cultural place keeping, and we believe this is shine light and resources on a community that has long been the fabric of this land, long before it was the city and county of San Francisco. This is a way for us to honor the American Indian community in San Francisco because of the cost of living in the bay area, these communities have suffered from displacement and gentrification both on the side of residents, but on the side of cultural institutions. Were proud to have some of the Community Partners with us today to bring this forward for your consideration, and well be around for question you if you have any. So with that, ill tackle some of the more technical aspects of the ordinance. The proposed ordinance amends the legislation, and we did provide the specific boundaries in your case report. The ordinance also would require the Mayors Office of housing and Community Development to submit written reports and recommendations to the board of supervisors and the mayor describing the cultural attributes of the district and proposing strategies to acknowledge and preserve the cultural legacy of the district. The deadline set for that report which we refer to as the chehs report is set for 2021, so we do have about a year. We did pass the cultural Designation Program back in may 2018, so its still a relatively new program. We have our first cohort of districts going through the chehs program currently, so the American Indian cultural district adopted would either be in the second or third cohort of properties going through that chehs process. I wanted to raise a couple of options for you to consider for your decision today. The Planning Department does have a relationship with certain native americans in the city that are identified as descendants of the ohlone group. That relationship is established through our ceqa consultation process and through our consultation process of tribal and Cultural Resources. We also have quite a bit of archaological groups located in San Francisco, and we have our San Francisco archaeologists today to answer any questions that you may have. We also wanted to note that we do believe that the mandated timeline of january 2021 is a reasonable timeline for the amount of work that we believe the Planning Department would be responsible for, which is generally to collect information in our records related to the Cultural Group and to assist with any Technical Expertise thats required in terms of working out strategies for landmarking in the district, developing cultural assets, inventory, doing general Cultural Resource survey work or any other aspects of our Historic Preservation work program. We also wanted to note that the ordinance does call for mohcd to establish a relationship with a communitybased organization which will lead the chehs effort and Outreach Program for that strategy, and we fully support that communityled approach to the cultural district program. So with that, i wanted to note that we are recommending approval of the proposed ordinance, and that is how your resolution is drafted today. We do not recommend any changes. If the commission has any recommendations to amend the ordinance, were happy to help you through that process. As we noted, paul is here to answer any questions about the legislative process or the development of the ordinance. We also have yulia sabry who is the cultural coordinator from the mohcd. She can provide you information how the program is currently managed and how the indian American Indian program would be foldland into that, and of course im here to answer any questions you may have about the cultural districts role and specifically your recommendations for the ordinance. Thanks. Commissioner . Well, youve already sat down. But you said there were five cultural districts total. Is that right . There are five that are going throughar strategy of development currently, what were calling the chehs process, but we currently have seven adopted sorry, eight. We have eight adopted cultural districts. And what are they . Oh, that is a good test. I should have brought my list. The last adopted was the castro lgbt Cultural Heritage district. Prior to that was the African American bayview cultural district. I do have a list. We have japantown cultural district, which was one of the first recognized by the city, calle 24, soma filipinas, the compton transgender district, and i believe ive listed them all now oh, lgbtq leather district in soma. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Commissioner matsuda. Thank you. I just had a question about the appropriate cultural partners that were noted in the staff report. Would that be the American Indian Cultural Center or thats a Nonprofit Organization, right . Would they serve the community as the nonprofit liaison or how would that work . Its actually to be decided. Mohcd would actually issue an r. F. P. , and folks will respond to the r. F. P. , and folks in the community will be chosen through that process. And julia can answer any questions about how that process unfolded for this last cohort. No, i was just curious. So that will go through process. And then, you do have a lot of good information listed in the actual resolution about individuals as well as venues that are hopefully going to be a part of this process in the cultural district. I would just strongly suggest as you continue to collect this data, that you also collect oral histories of these particular businesses and Community Leaders because we lose people every day, and you want to make sure you collect their stories and make it a part of the record so that future generations will know the challenges that it took to get this far. Commissioner so . Thanks. Completely second commissioner matsudas comment. Ive got quite a bit to say here. First of all, i think this is a really wellsuited time we live in now in the current climate, that i am so thrilled that supervisor ronen draft this legislation to acknowledge the Indigenous People of our peninsula, this land that we look to right now. It is close to my heart, being served on the Art Commission for four years, we have increased 70 our funding for the native American Community. And i really want to make sure that when we draft an ordinance now, we have the ability to be responsible. I want to ask the supervisors to acknowledge all the different evolutions of naming of the Cultural Center. My understanding that since the 80s, it has been named several different versions but in our ordinance right now as its draft in page 4, its only listed as the only original Indian Center is the American Indian Cultural Center. But my urge is to look since the 80s. I believe its called San Francisco American Indian center, and then later on, its called the native American Center. I think its important for different leaders who have lived in this community have correctly represented. Its a bit of a sad to me that we can only go by archaeological positions and not fact. Another thing that commissioner matsuda said, we need to be focused on the Community Representation process because Community Representation are the ones that have the resources to show up in the meetings, but that might not be the Community Representation of the entire native community. So organizations that im aware of, in addition to whats being listed in this ordinance are this one called the association of ramatush ohlone, which is an acronym. Im probably missing a lot of the groups that im not aware of at this moment. I really believe were doing the right thing, and i believe we need to be inclusive. This community has been displaced systematically, and i think we need to do the right thing and be the trailblazer in this. The other part of it is i also need to be placing on the record that i have received some Community Comments by dr. Jonathan cordero and dr. Lana wohljack. Its my understanding of my years having served on the arts commission, its great that we are here making part of the history. And i think that summarized what i have to say, yeah. Thats it. Great. Thank you. Commissioner black . I just want to mention that i strongly support this endeavor. I would like to see and im sure its already being planned as part of the chehs component, but id like to see a strong education component for members of the community. Part of the cultural places are no longer present, so there should be a mechanism of which people are informed of this incredibly important part of San Francisco. I found commissioner matsudas comments to be really well formed, and i support them completely. Thank you. Commissioner pearlman . From a process standpoint, i dont know if they finished their presentation, so i just wanted to make sure thats the case. Well, were in questions. But i didnt know if they were done with their presentations. Staff doesnt have any more information to present, but i believe in the Public Comment section, there are Community Members here to speak. So i do have a question. Do you have a notion of what some of the frameworks might be at this point . I honestly dont. The department does not have a Historical Context statement for contemporary native american landmarks in the city. Obviously, the community can always recommend certain landmarks to be designated, as well, and we can work with someone on developing landmark designation. I was just wondering if something chad come forward tht might be obvious. Okay. Commissioner johns. I think that you made a very good point about the educational possibilities here. And the San Francisco Historical Society which now has a location in the original mint at 608 commercial street is very interested in exhibits of this kind theres about the American Indian cultural districts and other districts. I just had a brief conversation with mr. Jocelyn about the possibility of the museum dp San Francisco Historical Society, rather, getting together with us and allowing the Planning Department to exhibit some of the work that has been done which would provide information about some of these things that are going on. So i do have a question. Shelley, did you want to respond to that . I did want to note for the commission that it seems like some of the discussion is moving into commentary, rather than questions, and we havent taken Public Comment yet. Yes. I do have a question, but i think i missed the name. Julia is she is the programming director for content, and she works for mohcd. My question is or could you, for the benefit of the commission as well as the public i fully support this, but i just think its probably of value if you can explain the consultation process. I dont think in my years on the commission that weve had a case where weve need today do that. The archaeology . So can you give an overview . So i manage the archaeological programs. We review projects to determine whether or not we think there is a potentially significant historical arch owaeological s. In 2015, with ab 52, we added a resourcetype to the ceqa Cultural Resource review, which is Tribal Cultural resources, and that outlines a process that we go through. Basically, when were doing certain projects of ceqa level review