Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Recording in progress. through the chair. We are ready to begin. Thank you. Welcome to this regular meeting of the planning commission this Tuesday evening, April 14th. I now call this meeting to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

HVA, could you please call the role? Chair Patel, here. Vice Chair Cler here. Commissioner Bush here. Commissioner Shamco here. And Commissioner Williams.

Commissioner Williams is absent this evening. Good evening and welcome. We are excited to be here in person with options for virtual participation. Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us maintain an efficient and accessible meeting environment. There are several ways to participate. For those attending in person, complete a yellow request to speak slip and hand it to the clerk. If participating remotely, use the raise your hand feature in Zoom and you will be called on at the appropriate time. If calling in via phone, press star 9 to raise your hand and when called upon, press star six to unmute. These options for public comment will remain available until I close the public comment period for each specific item. For members of the public watching on YouTube who wish to provide live public comment, please note that you must join the meeting through the Zoom webinar using the access information listed on the agenda. And finally, we welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised this is a limited public forum. As such, speakers must stay on topic if speaking to a particular agenda item. If speakers fail to follow these rules, they will be warned and if they continue to disregard our rules, their opportunity to speak will be ended. All right. Next on our agenda is public comment. Members of the public wishing to comment on any item not appearing on the agenda may address the planning commission at this time. State law prevents the planning commission from taking action on any matter not on the agenda. Your comments may be referred to staff for follow-up. This public comment section is generally limited to a total of 15 minutes. However, that is subject to the commission's discretion and can be extended if the commission wishes to do so. If needed, an opportunity for additional public comment may be provided later in the agenda. If you are in chambers and wish to speak on any item not on the agenda tonight, please submit your yellow speaker slip to the clerk. Now, if you are online and wish to speak, please raise your hand. Now,

HVA um how many requests to speak do we have on general public comment through the chair? We have one in person public commenter and two in the virtual environment. Okay, thank you. With that many speakers, each will be given three minutes to speak. We will begin with our inerson speaker, Nancy Weller. if you could come up please. I think I don't know.

Thank you, Nancy. I'll add you to item one's general public comment. I mean, excuse me, public comment online. We have Allison Jolly. Allison, you may unmute yourself. I will set the timer for three minutes and you could speak that. Um, there's an echo. I can't understand anything that you're saying because there's an echo echo. I'm participating via Zoom, by the way. I'm finished with my comment.

Thank you, Allison.

Through the chair. That is all our public commenters.

Thank you so much. I will go ahead and close the public comment at this time. The next item on our agenda is a public hearing. Item one, the historic policy effort, ordinance update, and historic context statement. We will start with a staff presentation followed by public comments. Members of the public will be given two to three minutes to speak depending on the number of speakers. Once the public hearing is closed, I may ask the staff to respond to any public comments. The commission will ask clarifying questions, deliberate, and render a decision. Can we go ahead and have the staff presentation? Thank you. Good evening, chair, members of the commission. Um, Zach D, community development director with the city and we're just pulling up the presentation now. Give us one second. We're still working through the technology here. All right. Excellent. So, um, joining me here this evening for our presentation is Julianne Murphy, architectural historian with Ringcon Consultants. Um, the consultant, um, supporting the city on this historic policy update. Perfect. So I want to start off by introducing the project team that has been supporting this effort um including um staff from the community development department, city attorney's office, as well as the leads with RCON consultants. Um and I do want to acknowledge the the significant amount of work that has gone in to this effort. Um there has been a lot of public interest over the past three plus years on this topic and so the staff team has worked diligently to listen to receive along with council direction at multiple points along the

way and synthesize and and that's all fed into the work products that are before you here this evening. And so we are going to go ahead. We've got a a long presentation. We will work through it quickly. Um, but we did want to highlight all of the different pieces that have gone into this policy effort and then um paint a complete picture of what um where we started um where we've landed and then kind of what's before you for tonight's discussion. Oh, are we getting a

a delay as a seems like we've frozen. It's showing here, but it's like frozen up there.

Oh, it looks like it's caught up with us here there. Sorry, the technology is keeping us on our toes here. Um, so as I noted here, I wanted to provide the overview of what we'll be covering with tonight's agenda. Um, our updated historic preservation ordinance, um, the brand new citywide historic context statement, which I do want to highlight, is the first comprehensive narrative of Sanonteo's history. This is over 250 pages. And so, a ton of work and great information is in this document. And so, I I just want to really highlight um, this document and what it'll mean to the overall understanding and awareness of Sonteo history. Um we'll also speak to the Mills Act program updates and then next steps for our policy effort. So starting with some project background. Um this discussion originated during general plan 20 240. Um and um as part of that discussion there was a lot of input and um how preservation was going to be folded in and ultimately was addressed as part of um one of the 10 big ideas in the general plan which talked about a path to addressing historic preservation holistically. Um within the the community design and historic preservation or historic resources element um we did include specific goals, policies and actions. Um, and this ever before you is implementing these two actions, CD 5.8 and 5.9, which talks about updating our preservation ordinance and and establishing a new citywide historic context statement. The other thing um I do want to note is the overlap between a general plan goal, a policy, and an action. and and we'll speak to it more, but it's important to note where policies provide kind of the umbrella for guidance and then actions are focused implementations. And so um say the work here tonight, it doesn't necessarily need to address every policy under historic preservation, but as long as it's consistent with the general

plan, that's the the important part here. So actions are kind of facets of and specific actions to implement, but not doesn't mean it every aspect of a policy will be addressed. Stepping back and looking at the overall timeline, um this is kind of a snapshot of historic preservation in the city starting back in 1974, moving through 1989 and 1990 where we had um the the citywide um um historic resource survey and then ultimately the the establishment of the downtown historic district and then most recently um with the general plan 20 240 update in 2024. More recently, as the discussion of historic preservation has has garnered more interest and and more community dialogue, wanted to highlight some key milestones over the last few years. That included a community meeting around historic districts and requirements beginning of 24. That um correlated to when we adopted general plan 20 240 and then some subsequent study sessions which ultimately led to the prioritization of um the actions to update the ordinance and establish a citywide context statement. I also want to highlight at the various touch points that we've talked to city council um we receive different direction and the work products that you see here this evening are aligned with the direction that council provided us um at the various study sessions along the way and I I think particularly of note is for historic districts the 20% the two-step process with 20% to start the process and then a 60% before public hearings um that was specific direction from city council um along with a focus on affirmative owner consent. Um and then um the focus on doing an ordinance and and contact statement but not undertaking any property or neighborhood surveys at this time. So at this point I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Julian Murphy.

Thanks Zach. Um before we get into kind of the the meat of what we've accomplished to date, I wanted to provide a little bit of background on our methodology for how we developed this um ordinance update and the historic context statement. And so starting with like what makes a good historic preservation ordinance and why a city might want one. Um it is a centerpiece to an effective historic preservation program. It provides a level of certainty and consistency. Fosters compatible economic development while celebrating the community's historic and cultural values. Enhances local preservation values. Provides guidance for future impacts to historic resources and informs the planning and design of future developments. Um some to get a sense of um kind of what we were looking at when starting with the current ordinance. Uh we were looking at what are some common pitfalls with historic preservation ordinances and those include things like become are they're too detailed that they become ineffective. They're so ambitious that they cannot be supported by staff or they're so rigid that any change is difficult. When we began reviewing the city's existing preservation ordinance, there were several aspects that fell into each of these categories. And so to get a sense of what a good preservation ordinance might look like, one of the things we undertook was um a comparison analysis of 36 case studies, cities throughout California. Um we looked at cities that had similar composition and development history to SAT as much as possible. And we had a particular focus on ordinance composition and criteria, what the reviewing bodies looked like, how they addressed owner consent, and how they um discussed the effects of designation. While we were developing the earliest drafts of the ordinance, we incorporated information from that comparison study,

best practices guidance that's provided by National Park Service and the California Office of Historic Preservation, the city council study sessions that Zach was discussing earlier, and the efforts from our public outreach and engagement. In addition to informing our approach to the ordinance update, um outreach and engagement played an important role in letting people know about this effort and um to collect their thoughts on what important stories should be included in the historic context statement. Um and we developed an inclusive multimemethod approach that was adaptive. It was all based on our outreach and engagement plan which we published at the outset of this project. It included online engagement which had things like eblast, social media post, a dedicated web page and project email address for this um policy effort update. Focus groups where we met with um focused groups where we uh had focused conversations with small groups. Uh workshops that were open to the public which included a larger audience. Um during that process, we pivoted the design of our workshops to include some popup events so that we can meet people where they were um to be able to better respond to the community where they were. Um and then we provided public document drafts along the way. We first published drafts in November 2025 of both the ordinance and the draft historic context statement and then more recently provided drafts um which include um an interactive um online platform on Convio where people can provide live comments in the drafts on the pages where they have um comments or edits or responses to things that are in the um development documents. And so these are some examples of some of the things that we've provided. We had a um digital time capsule where people could submit stories,

photographs, things about their life and work in San Monteo. Um the web page which I already discussed that was dedicated to this effort providing updates to the public as things were produced. Um that's an example of the the top middle is an example of a workshop workshop activity that we had during one of our um digital virtual workshops. Um, we provided flyers throughout the city, both during our pop-up events and in some static locations throughout the city, which provided information about the effort and included um, Spanish and Chinese translated materials. And then the last is um, one of the interactive activities that we had, one of our pop-up events. And so this is just a brief overview of kind of the outreach um and engagement efforts that we've undertaken and the amount of participation that we had. Uh we ex we had about 250 unique participants during this. And so our key takeaways from all that engagement work is that we did exceed the targets that we outset that we had the outset in our outreach and engagement plan. Um I I won't read these all to you, but um you know there was a variety of feedback depending on what focus groups people came from, but the consensus through all groups is a desire for more clarity in both the process and the expectations for designating historic resources. And so in the workshops similar there was like a broad recognition of the value of cultural and architectural diversity in the city but a desire for a more transparent and consistent process. uh throughout this process that um dedicated email address has been very active. We've received hundreds of emails of interested parties pro providing their feedback on both um events that we've done, drafts that we've provided, and we've taken all that into consideration as we developed updates. And so now I'm going to kind of get into

what we've developed to date. Um, we, um, I'm gonna run. Oh, well, we'll get to the next slide. Um, this is a snapshot view of the current ordinance sections versus what we have in the updated version. And so, as you can see, we have a much more robust section than the current version. And what we've aimed to do here is provide um more descriptive process, provide more more clear criteria for identifying historic resources, a clear process for designating resources, and outlining the effects of designation. A lot of things that are not currently in the ordinance. And so one of the main things that this ordinance does that was missing from the existing ordinance is establishing a way to designate resources at the local level. Establishing the Samonteo historic resources inventory which is a local register of historic resources. It does not include state or federal listed resources automatically. Um, this feature is called adoption by reference and many local ordinances have adoption by reference where properties that are listed in the national or California register are automatically listed at the local level. While this used to be a more common feature of local preservation ordinances, emerging guidance from the Office of Historic Preservation and National Park Service has um been modified recently to not include it because of the effects of local designation that may trigger additional owner responsibilities at the local level like the requirement to have a certificate of appropriateness to ensure that property owners have sufficient knowledge of the effects of designation. Guidance for crafting local ordinances is to require a process for designation at the local level even when things are listed at the California

National Register level. What has been drafted for the ordinance is aligned with that new emerging guidance and is also aligned with the guidance that we got from city council that designation should require affirmative consent. Um so another thing that the current ordinance provides is the outlines the eligibility requirements and the procedures for adding resources to that inventory. So as drafted the historic resources inventory will include those properties that have pre previously been identified as historic through resolution. um that includes three individual properties listed above. The downtown historic district which includes 38 contributor buildings and uh I know there's been a lot of public interest and engagement on the Glazenwood Historic District. It had been identified in the 1989 survey as um eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. However, it had never been designated. Um because of the high public interest in that, um city council directed city staff to prepare information so that they may add that by resolution and that is expected to go to city council on April 20th. So that will pending the results of the meeting of city council on 20th will also be included in the historic resources inventory. So the historic res like I just said establishes the historic resources inventory. The intent here is to pro provide a framework and a process for how to designate resources at the local level. Um the intent is that this is a starting point for things to be continued to be added to the inventory. um it does not include the properties that were identified in the 1989 survey and I have seen that there have been

quite a few public comments on this aspect of the draft um update. Um the questions about the survey. Um and you know this is this was done in consideration of the guidance that we received from city council. Because of the limitations of the current ordinance um this survey has not been maintained. Um at this point it's 37 years old and it's likely unreliable in many instances without an update to affirm those 1989 surveys. It is best practice for historic preservation for designation findings based on surveys to be at no more than 5 years old. So, it's quite a bit more than that. Um, I would also say that the landscape of the current conditions both in San Mo and of historic preservation have changed quite a bit since 1989. At the time of the survey, the California Register didn't even exist yet. That wasn't adopted until 1992. So, there are quite a few things that could not be considered during that survey that you would consider in an update. Um, however, the guidance from city council this time was not to include any survey effort as part of this historic policy update. Um, the other aspect of this that is co coinciding with um other advice that we got from city council was that owner consent requirement. And so if we're going to have that be an aspect of this ordinance, the thought was that there should be an opportunity for these property owners to also have that. So the designation criteria that's laid out in the updated ordinance is closely aligned with the California National Register. Um it recognizes properties for their association with historic events, historic people, historic design

or um information potential. So all this is very um consistent with both what is done at the national and California register level. And so again one of the things we really wanted to do is pro provide a clear process um in addition to providing the criteria. It outlines the eligibility requirements for local listings. So the property must be at least 50 50 years old and at meet at least one of the criteria for designation. It provides a procedure for designating resources that includes two types landmarks which are individual properties and historic districts which can be um comprised of both contributing and non-contributing resources. And one thing that emerged early in this process is that desire for owner consent. Um direction from city council again was that owner consent should be affirmative. The way that we have designed that in the update is that landmark properties, the application must come from the property owner. And for historic districts, we've developed a two-part application process also based on feedback that we received from um city council. It would include a preliminary application that gives opportunity for uh ample notice to property owners that may be affected by the historic district nomination. Those people would have to show an interest at a level of about 20% for the application to proceed and preliminary documentation would be required at that time that shows the early um justification for the significance and for the boundaries. After that there would be a community meeting where there would again be another opportunity for both public notification on the process and then for information on how the application may continue if there is continued interest. Once that was complete, there would be a formal application process that would require owner consent of 60%.

And so everything I've spoken to up to this point has been about the identification of historic resources. And now we get to the effects of designation and how those historic resources would be regulated. It would include the requirement for a certificate of appropriateness, which is an administrative approval for exterior alterations to historic properties. This requirement would be for both individual properties, landmarks, and contributors to historic districts. It would not be required for properties that are not listed locally. It would not be required for properties that are listed at the federal or state level, but not locally. And it would not be required for non-contributors in historic districts. And so there are two types of work that would require certificates of appropriateness, major alterations and minor alterations. Major alterations would have to go to the historic resource commission at a public meeting. And um major alterations would include things like demolition, um additions, work that might affect significant features to a historic resource. And minor alterations would be things that would have a limited potential to affect historic character of the building like replacing windows or minor additions to secondary or rear elevations and those would be able to be approved at the staff level. And then the other piece of this after um identification regulation we have incentives and enforcement. um incentives that are included in this draft are the state historical building code which has some alleviation for um code requirements because of the historic status of a property, the Mills Act which is a tax benefit to homeowners who participate in a agreement with the city to maintain their property to a certain level. And then we've also included language for potential for additional incentives. Um they may come at a later date. They can include things

like local gr programs, regulatory flexibility, height and setback relief and development incentives. And then the other end of that we have enforcement and penalties. And so enforcement um we have work stoppage notices and violation penalties for people who do work without the benefit of a certificate of appropriateness where needed. All right, I I'll jump back in here to speak about another major component of of the ordinance here, and this was also based on council direction, which is the establishment of a historic resources commission. Um, as as Julianne noted, um, the two primary roles, or actually, I'm getting a little bit ahead here. Um, this would be a body established by the city council. Um and it would provide recommendations to city council um on designation requests and then also provide um a public um forum for consideration of certificates of appropriateness for major alterations. Um so wanted to share some language. Um as noted the draft ordinance isn't a part of your packet because establishment of a new commission is city council prerogative. Um but wanted to highlight what would go into this. Um this would be an amendment to title two of the city's municipal code. Um this would be um align um established consistent with other city commissions and committees. Um this includes five up to five members. Um and I think the key language here would be um who would be prioritized in um by council when appointing applicants. And so we would be looking at at professionals in the fields of history, architectural history planning or related fields, architects, engineers, um, and those um, with special training and building rehab or those who demonstrate special interest and experience in the city's history. Um, and so obviously the goal is to establish a commission that of of

individuals and residents who are wellversed in this area. Um and this commission would have two key powers and duties which is um recommendations on landmark and district designations and then also taking action on certificates of appropriateness and then other responsibilities as assigned by the council. Um, so also as part of this, there's been a lot of discussion about the role of this ordinance and owner consent, but then also the role of how the city needs to meet its obligations to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act or SQUA. And so you have local review under the city's ordinance and that's focused on just locally designated resources and and that really aligns with the owner consent provisions in the ordinance. However, for the California Environmental Quality Act, any eligible resource does need to be reviewed for compliance with SQUA. And um the basis for that is that it's it's specific in that if there's a significant impact to an eligible resource, um additional measures need to be taken, studies, mitigations, or ultimately if there's an impact that's unavoidable, um you may be looking at an environmental impact report. And so it's important to note that for the SQL review, that isn't tied to owner consent. That's tied to the characteristics of a property, both its age and then potential eligibility. So even if a property isn't explicitly um subject to the local ordinance, it may still be subject to environmental review and and a historic um resource evaluation um under SQA in order for the city to make findings and meet its review requirements um for compliance with SQA. And so I think that's a really important definition. It's been a key facet of the discussion during this whole policy effort. And so we want to highlight that um overlay between where the local ordinance what it's subject to, but then also what our obligations are under SQA.

The other piece here that I want to highlight is the language that's in our current ordinance. Um and so that did address eligible buildings. So in that case, it did speak to um where review was required. And this this aligned with SQA. Um so as part of our initial draft, we did include language related to procedure for development proposals. Um this is aligned with our obligations under SQUA and was designed to carry forward the language that was in our current ordinance. However, there were concerns raised about the discretion that that um gave staff. Um and so we have ultimately taken that language out of the local ordinance, but functionally speaking, staff's role will be the same in terms of its need and and and ability to assess projects for compliance with SQA and projects that may be subject to the requirement of a historic resource evaluation. And so in this current ordinance that 090 section has been taken out, but practically speaking, that role of staff will continue because it's it's a requirement for the city to comply with SQA.

So I'm going to go ahead and and turn it back over to Julian to talk about our context statement.

Thank you. So another component of this historic policy update was developing a citywide historic context statement. While the ordinance is kind of the scaffolding of the program, the historic context statement really provides more of the the meat. Um, a historic context statement provides uh a lot of great information. The intent of this document is that it can serve as a road map and continue to be added to and adapted in the future. It is a planning document that highlights trends and patterns of development, provides a framework and consistency for evaluating properties. um they do not in and of themselves evaluate individual properties, result in changes to the status of existing historic properties, or in this case include an in-depth survey effort. Uh the document which I know you've had a chance to look at is organized by significant periods um which were informed by development trends that we were able to identify through research and archival work and then themes related to each of those periods which included residential development, commercial development, civic and institutional development, transportation infrastructure, industrial development and cultural and ethnic groups. Um it then goes on to provide examples of property types related to each of those themes within each of those periods. You've seen it's a very long document. Um and so through this work we've we've um highlight a lot of great history that has occurred here in Sato. Um one being kind of its its relationship to the floral industry. um that used to be called the floral city which was like a really early booster effort to get people to move to San Mo for its wonderful weather which was very favorable for growing flowers. Um the flower show um that eventually became the Sanonteo County Fair first began in 1903 as a flower show. The 1950s

postcard kind of shows what it emerged to and it still exists today. And then that um history also has a strong association with the city's Japanese and Japanese American population as they served um many flower growing um uh businesses. Um another another really interesting cool feature that we that we were dis that was discussed in the historic context statement was Noah's Ark. It was a local restaurant that was owned by an African-American man, Noah Williams, who used to be a chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. He opened first a small cafe, um, and that was very, very popular for its fried chicken and Virginia ham. And he went on to open a larger uh, establishment on Third Avenue. And one of the um kind of cool features of that property was that it included all this art around the room which was supposed to demonstrate all the animals that were included on Noah's Ark. And those though the building doesn't survive, those paintings are in the Sanonteo County Historical Association Museum. So there's there's a lot of great information. I really encourage everyone who has um hasn't looked at it yet to to to like take a look at what we've been able to develop. And so other things that are included in the document in addition to kind of an overview of that history and development is an overview of the architectural styles that are commonly seen in Sonteo, biographies of architects, developers, and builders and though not exhaustive again is a starting point for what can be added to in the future. And then guidance for assessing significance. So the intent on this document is that it tells the how, when, and why of Sonteo's development. It focuses on those trends and property types. Provides a basis of information that can aid in the identification, evaluation, and treatment of historic resources.

Facilitates a better understanding of the importance of resources. And probably most importantly, provides a framework um for future evaluation efforts. And so this is an example of what that guidance for assessing signific significance section of the document looks like. Um each period is broken down by property type, associated architectural styles, significance requirements, integrity requirements, and then integrity considerations. And so um this will be a a useful tool for interested residents who are interested in designating properties. It will be a tool for city staff when considering um what kind of properties may be required historic resource evaluations for those SQA projects. Um, and so it's intended to be something that again grows with the city as it continues to develop. And then the final kind of program aspect as part of this update is the Mills Act program. I think I'm going to pass it back to Zach.

Thank you, Julian. So, um, as part of this, um, we recognize the need, um, to update the city's Mills Act program. And so, first wanted to hide highlight just a little bit of background. The Mills Act um was established in 1972 and it provides property tax relief as an incentive um to qualified historic properties. It does require a contract with the local uh local jurisdiction and then that it comes with an obligation to maintain and reinvest in that historic resource. Um the city's local program was established by city council in 1993. Um and our proposed um updates to the program are are intended to align with updated requirements, the general plan and the intent of our updated ordinance. Um so the recommendations that staff is bringing forward um are looking at updated eligibility requirements, setting a limit of up to two agreements per year, and this is based on the notion that there there is a financial implication to the city in reduced general fund revenue. And so while this is definitely incentive that is used to preserve, we also want to be mindful of the budgetary impacts. And so um there this is a local discretionary call, but this would be staff's recommendation to um for consideration is is that we would um take up to two applications per year. Um we would also specify um the expectation the city would would inspect every five years. Um, we have also removed the requirement for public access which is consistent with the current version of the Mills Act. Um, but we also didn't get too specific because the goal is this is the framework and then staff will develop the more specific templates um contract a standard template for a preservation agreement um the specific requirements that will go into it and then those will be what then come forward. But this gives the ability to maintain the program over time without bringing it back for um update each time. So that's why that we included the highle

parameters and framework but didn't get very specific in all of the the details because that'll be developed and then available for public that um or property owners that are interested in in a Mills Act contract. We also want to highlight more recent public comments and this is really the period since we published the most recent version of the the draft um historic preservation ordinance and um the updated context statement. This was based on the first round in November, December and January. And and so we wanted to highlight these most recent comments which are responding to the the most current versions that are that are before you here this evening. Um so we have received 31 written comments. Um 43 comments on the historic preservation ordinance even though I will note that 41 are by two individuals. Um we have 20 um on the context statement. Um and then um we also wanted to highlight reoccurring themes or um comments that that um kind of were um heard through multiple comments. Um one was related to um including more properties from the 1989 survey on the hri um providing more clarification between SQUA and the local review process. Better defining the historic resource commission's role. Um, there was concern about the process being too ownorous. There was also support for a a 60% plus owner consent threshold for districts. We also received multiple comments on Glazenwood and its historic merits. And then also some discussion about the need for economic penalties for properties that are that are not in compliance. So that brings us to next steps. After tonight's meeting, um we are looking to bring this item to city council um at a public hearing on May 4th. um and pending council action. If um this is adopted, staff and the team would move forward with implementation, updating

our resources and documents, and then moving forward with a community meeting this summer um to present the the city's updated historic preservation policy, its plans, its resources, um introduce folks to the full range of um resources available, and then answer questions and support that that continued understanding and awareness of what the city is doing um in the area of historic preservation. So with that, um that's concludes SAS presentation. Um the recommendation as outlined in our agenda report is up here on the screen and we can pull it back up for you at the end. Um and so with that, um we are available for any questions, um if you may have them. Thank you so much. It was very comprehensive. Um now we're going to move forward with public comment. If you are in chambers and you wish to speak on this item, please submit your yellow speaker slip to the clerk at this time. If you are online and wish to speak on this item, please raise your hand now. And I do believe we have an organized presentation, so they will be going first.

through the chair. We do have one organized group um public comment and in person we do have I believe it's six and four in the virtual environment. So because it is over 11 speakers, it'll be two minutes each for the individual speakers and our group comments will be five minutes. Beginning with the Samill Heritage Alliance, if you could come up to the podium, please. Before you begin, I'll start the timer.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm here representing as she said the Sanato Heritage Alliance and the present presentation today focuses on preservation as foundation and it is a policy diagnostic of the draft ordinance of chapter 27.66. We believe that for Samonteo to have a successful future it must protect the physical history that makes a city a desirable place to live and invest. We are often presented with a false choice that we must choose between housing and history. We reject this premise. True urban vitality or what we can call integrated urbanism comes from layering the new upon the old. When we treat the city with a blank slate for development, we are freezing out our past and building a city without a soul. So we are already in a state of crisis. Samonteo's own historic context statement admits that for the grand estates that once define this city, none are in existence. What remains in our central and north central neighborhoods are the very last tangible links to our founding era. We cannot lo afford to lose the rest just by default because our policies are too weak. There is a massive disconnect between historical data and current policy. In the 1989 state office of historic preservation verified that Sonteo possessed a large number, quote, a large number and great diversity of historic resources and that the proposed draft ordinance ignores these 36 plus years of existing data. It leaves hundreds of potentially significant sites in limbo, focusing

only on the downtown and a few two mills listed properties. So, let's look at what's actually at risk. Our downtown commercial area, which was identified in the National Register eligible decades ago, yet it lacks mandatory protection. Artifacts of the 1920s building boom like 2011 2nd Avenue are still in limbo as well. Most concerning though are the 500 plus residences uh re residential resources identified by the state that have never been documented or shielded by the city of Sanonteo. So as written the chapter 27.66 is not a preservation ordinance. It is a road mapap towards erasing our history. It contains a quote demolition loophole if you ask me where unlisted resources are never even evaluated before imperment is issued. Furthermore, it creates an oversight gap by granting broad unilateral authority to a zoning administrator to approve alterations and bypassing expert review. So closing the loop, we need to move to a current draft process where buildings are are erased without second thought and move to a sequ fix. Under our proposal, any building 45 to 50 years old would trigger a mandatory evaluation. This ensures that the historic resource commission can review the data and the site for significance before it's lost forever. So, who really is deciding our future? The current draft places the city's history in the hands of a single zoning administrator. No specified qualifications in historical architecture or preservation.

We advocate for a transparent public procedure led by a historic resources commission whose members meet the secretary of the interior's personal qualifications because our history deserves an objective expert evaluation. So to summarize, our recommendations are to move forward from a static inventory to a more robust one that uses states data and we must mandate evaluations for buildings over 45 years old before permitting demolition. We must ensure qualified oversight and we must establish a fair achievable 51% threshold for property owners who wish to form historic districts. And we need to think outside of that to all the buildings for public use and how we can protect those. History isn't an obstacle to housing. It is the reason we live here. And we aren't asking you to stop growth. We are asking for the integrated urbanism which means building a city that is modern without losing its history, the homes and the buildings that make our community special. So, we ask you to just close the demolition loop, mandate expert evaluations, and protect our future. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

To follow for our in-person public commenters, we'll start with Frank Elliot. Our last public commenter will be David Long in person. Good evening commissioners and good evening staff. Renan, uh I'm going to find myself surprised to say this, but uh actually our group has had a private attorney re reg review this legal ordinance and the feedback is that uh we should be very pleased with it. So, thank you staff for getting something and ring for getting something very close we think is workable. Um, but we did review it. There's a few uh suggestions, technical drafting suggestions that we made on the online system. I think I'm probably about half of those 43 comments. Um, but I hope you'll look at them and uh you might find them helpful. And I I do have a question for you, Zach, in this regard because, as you know, I've been at at you for a year trying to provide input and been pushed off wait till the public input part. So, here I am. I've got my 40 or 22 comments in there. I see that you're saying you're moving for this to be resolved and accepted. I don't see where these comments are going to be reviewed, considered, and reflected between now and when this goes to council. So, I'd like when you make an answer is, and I think probably commissioners may have comments too, where does that work in? I think there's some things that you actually said uh about what's in the ordinance that is not reflected in the drafting. So, I would urge you to look at my comments and to really get another review of it by a professional attorney to make sure it says what you intend it to say. I think there's some things that are unclear in it. And for the commission, I just have two requests for section 030. Um, it's not clear what the the council

resolution process is, if it's intended that uh that council can just resolve to take a nationally listed district and put it right into the inventory or whether that requires consent and that actual language says property. Property under the federal definitions includes districts. Do you intend to include districts or do you not? Property is not defined in the ordinance. So, it's just things like that that I think could be cleared up and it may be that you want to give council the right to put things in by resolution. So be it, but let's just be clear about what we're doing. Thank you.

Through the chair, if we could have Diane Whitaker come to speak and to follow will be David Light and Lorie Watanuki. Good evening, planning commissioners. Diane Whitaker, and I'm a 30-year plus resident of the North Central Neighborhood. Um, I had prepared some remarks, specific remarks tonight, but our first speaker from Sonteo Heritage Alliance covered all of them. So, I just want to um second whatever Ashley has told you. Okay. And thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the planning commission. My name is David Light and I live in the central neighborhood. uh we are told that we need to choose between our housing and our history and I believe that's a false choice. I believe we can build a vibrant modern city without losing our historic homes and buildings that make Sonteo so special. The Yoshiko Yamanucci House in the central neighborhood is a part of our important Japanese immigrant history in San Monteo and has been uh and this prop this historic property has been recognized both as a national and as a state historic landmark. Please include this resource in the 2026 inventory and adopt the Heritage Alliance amendments so that our past has a place in the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment,

Chair Patel and Planning Commission members. My name is Lori Watanuki from the central neighborhood. Equity for the neighborhoods is the biggest casualty of this draft. The current process for protecting neighborhoods is too expensive and ownorous that only the wealthiest areas can go through this process. We need a fair and achievable 51% threshold for property owners who want to form a historic district. Preservation should be a tool available to every neighborhood in Sam Hale, not just a luxury for the few. We need a fair ordinance for everyone. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you for your comment.

And for our remaining in-person speakers, we'll have Lisa come to the podium, please. And to follow will be Connie Lori and lastly David Long for our in person. Good evening planning commission. My name is Lisa Vanderord and I'm a resident of the Barisford Hillsdale neighborhood. I hope I could follow my notes. I'm so excited about having two minutes. I only had a minute prepared. Anyway, you know me as the one who conducts the popular tours of the downtown historic district, our one tangible link to the past that is protected in this draft ordinance. We have an opportunity to protect more, but this ordinance fails miserably by failing to protect all individually eligible historic pro properties that are protected. Now, it's interesting and sad that the draft historic inventory for this current ordinance only includes three properties. And you mentioned not including the 1989 historic survey because it's old and out ofd, but surveys don't age or become less valid. The properties just get older. So, that makes no sense to me. Even the draft historic context statement admits that the grand estates of Sonteo are already gone. This means that our central and north central neighborhoods are now now the last tangible links we have to our founding era. As well as homes like Seven Oaks, which is the AP Giannini residence built in 1901. He was the founder of the Bank of America and properties like the Old Masonic Lodge built in 1910. So, those are all founding era homes. We are down

to our final layer of history. We cannot afford to lose another property by default because our policies were too weak to catch them. Protection of historic resources are the responsibility of federal, state, and local entities on behalf of the public good. It's not up to individual property owners. That's how we got stuck with the sudden demolition of the east wing of the White House. Now is your time to act. Please vote to strengthen these protections or there will be nothing left. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

Good evening. I'm Connie Weiss. Uh live in Sano for 30 years. Uh I also uh am very supportive of the group presentation that was given by Ashley and all the specifics that she gave. And the only thought I want to leave with you is that history isn't an obstacle to growth. It's an economic driver. People move to San Mo because of the way it looks and feels. The historic homes, the unique storefronts, the character. If we erase that to build generic blocks, we destroy the very thing that makes our property values high and our downtown thrive. Integrated urbanism protects our brand as a city. We need to protect the buildings that make us a destination. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Good evening and thank you for two minutes. That's such a luxury. Um and thank you for the effort on this historic policy update. I know it was monumental. It's been monumental keeping up with it and making comments. So, thank you to the city for doing that and staff. Um, I wanted to point out that I'm really, you know, as everyone really concerned about reducing the number of historic resources in the inventory. You know, there was an update to the uh historic ordinance to add all of the properties individually eligible into um to be subject to the ordinance. And seems like we're going backwards. And if you're reducing the protection uh for historic resources, that's inconsistent with the general plan and should require a SQA review if you're dialing back your historic protection. So, I also wanted to say that we all recognize that Sanonteo faces a housing shortage and that more housing is needed, especially affordable options. Importantly, this housing can and should be built while protecting our historic resources. However, the Yimi movement, heavily backed by real estate and tech industry interests, pushes aggressively for unlimited development. Many properties don't even need a SQA analysis. YMB's claim historic preservation prevents new housing when in fact it does not. I had requested that Sema Patel be recused from this proceeding. She is a strong Yimi advocate who served on their advisory board. She has shown clear hostility toward residents who raise legitimate concerns. I do not believe that she has the ability to fairly weigh all voices without bias.

Miss Bush and Mr. Shaml are also self-proclaimed yies. Our commissioners are charged with representing the entire Sanonteo community, not just one ideological group or powerful industry interests. Please remember this as you consider the comments and this inadequate ordinance. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

Good evening uh city staff and planning commission. Thank you for your service. Thanks city staff for this impressive presentation and your impressive effort to address this issue of historic property inventory and inventory. I'm David Long. I live on West Popppler Avenue and I'm a member of the Sanonteo Park Neighborhood Association board and I'm a former planning commissioner in neighboring Belmont. Um, I want to express my strong support for this proposed ordinance because it finally addresses a serious problem we have in Sonteo. Sonteo has been too good at preserving its history. For years, we've been burdened with recognizing historic homes, valuing pre-war architecture, and occasionally requiring thoughtful review before demolition. This ordinance fixes that. It weakens protections. It adds ambiguity. It makes it harder to actually designate anything historic in the first place, which is efficient because if nothing qualifies, nothing gets protected. I especially buy the flexibility that's built in here. Why would you clearly define what a historic resource is when you can leave it vague? Why would you require qualified historians or architects when discretion will do? And why recognize buildings already listed at the state or national level when we can simply choose not to? We've seen how this plays out. When Pennsylvania Station was demolished, it became a symbol not of progress but of loss. You guys like catching the train underneath Madison Square Garden? I don't know anyone who does. It's a disaster. But even more locally and in California, buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, some of the most important architecture in the world, has been demolished. Uh that's not because it lacked value, but because policy allowed it. That's the pattern. Not a lack of value, but a lack of protection. And we don't have to look far to find it here.

We had a Carnegie library. We had a uh a a beautiful uh uh high school that was that had great cultural significance. It happens not in big swaths but one decision at a time and that's what this ordinance it enables is those decisions not taken serious running out. Thank you. Thank you for your comment

through the chair and our excuse me our virtual environment. will begin with Mara and to follow that will be MGM, excuse me, Doug Henderson and our final speaker will be Jordan Grimes. Mara, you may unmute yourself. The timer is set for 2 minutes.

Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Perfect.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. We all want Samato to grow, but in a thoughtful way. Growth without memory is just strong. We are asking you to choose a legacy of integrated urbanism. Building a city that is vibrant and modern without losing the history, the homes, and the buildings that make our community special. Don't let chapter 27.66 become a roadmap for eraser. Close the loopholes, mandate the evaluations, and let's build a future that grows from our history. one that honors Samonteo's character, not replaces it. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. Our attendee by the name MGM, you may speak. We will continue to Doug Henderson. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is 10 years old.

Hi, Doug. Can you hear us? I can. Yes. Can Can you hear me? Yes. We'll go ahead and start the timer at two minutes for you.

Great. Uh I can't see the timer right now, but uh I live in North Central. I am a retired urban planner. I worked as staff for a historic commission, city of Santa Clara, which retained its Victorian downtown while expanding along the transitways with significant numbers of new housing units. I am thankful for the staff and the city uh consultant were including on page 77 of the document incorporating a um current picture of the our unitary universalist of Sanonteo Church at North Ellsworth and East Sanes. Unfortunately, the current view which is perfect. We just renovated and really restored the historic character. It identifies it still as the Methodist Church, which is what it was many years ago. So, it should be updated as far as currently the Unitary Universalist Church. And while I'm on that, the first elected city council member that was a woman was on our board of trustees. um she passed away before I joined the church, but we are not including her home in the potential structures that should be inventoried and it's uh I think on East Sanz and it's intact historic structure looks great. So, Chairman Patel, I would like to get to know you better and see how you think about stuff. If your home on down the road is purchased by someone that might want to recognize your history with the city. What are you doing here to protect that happening? And when we leave everything up to SQA,

that's a state decision process that could be eliminated entirely. We are giving up our personal local history and the control of that history. So that's my question for all the commissioners. What about the history that you're creating? Thank you for your comment.

Jordan, you may speak.

Good evening, commissioners. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Great. Thank you. Uh hello everyone. Appreciate the time to speak. I've had real concerns about where this process would end up. Um but I'm genuinely pleased with the outcome. I think like many people, I have grown deeply skeptical of historic preservation as a tool, having watched it be weaponized by preservationists both here in San Mato and across California to block new multif family housing in single family neighborhoods. So, it means something when I say that I think this ordinance does strike the right balance between creating meaningful, credible processes for identifying and protecting genuinely historic resources while also ensuring we don't put a thumb on our scale against new housing growth. Um, I want to be direct here. There is no historic preservation crisis in this city. This is a niche concern that a small number of very wealthy, very engaged residents with a lot of time on their hands have elevated far beyond its actual community standing. Our annual statistically valid survey bears this out year after year. Historic preservation never cracks the list. What does is housing affordability for the 50% of residents here who rent. People move to Sano for a lot of reasons. Um, but top among them are the are our climate and our extraordinary job market. That will remain true regardless of what the housing stock looks like. I also want to say that I've heard the phrase integrated urbanism repeated uh multiple times tonight. That phrase doesn't fool anyone. That's nimism. It's all it is. And then finally, we've heard a great deal tonight about protecting our neighborhoods. And I'd really ask advocates to reflect carefully on that word. Protecting them from what? and from whom? From new neighbors, from working families who want to live here. Those are telling word choices and they deserve a candid answer. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your comment through the chair. That is all of our public commenters.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much um to everyone who provided a public comment this evening. I'm going to go ahead and close public comment at this time. Um staff I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond to any of the public comments that you heard that you would like to respond to. There was one I jotted down that I would like to ask you about. Um I believe it was in the group presentation. There was a comment about um there's no mandatory evaluation procedure for development on unlisted resources. Can you clarify what the evaluation procedure is when a development application comes in to determine if the property may be um eligible?

Definitely. I I think it is important to note that while there isn't a specific reference to it in the ordinance, as as was noted in the presentation, under SQA, any property that's more than 45 years old automatically triggers an evaluation. Um as part of this um policy effort, we will be developing screening criteria and the goal is is to focus because obviously 45 years alone is doesn't make a historic property but that is what triggers a deeper review to understand is there potential eligibility and if so that might then trigger further evaluation and a HRE or a historic building evaluation. So there is definitely steps that will be taken and as part of this process with the resources and and documentation that we develop following adoption of the updated ordinance, we will be developing a screening criteria utilizing information in the historic contact statement to give staff tools and the public a better understanding of when you have a building over 45 years old, what are the steps there? So there would never be a demolition in the city. Um we require a special use permit for structural demolitions and it obvious it is definitely a project under sequest. So there would never be a building demolition of a building over 45 years old without screening and potentially an HRE if if it was warranted and if that was identified as an eligible historic resource that would be a significant impact under SQA. And so um there potentially is an environmental impact report if that demolition proceeds.

Okay. Thank you. That was very helpful. Um, I don't know if my fellow commissioners caught anything else that they wanted to redirect to staff. Um, I just have a follow-up question about that. Um, do some of these new state laws that are streamlining SQUA for particular types of developments, do those does that mean that some properties in Sanonteo won't go through a SQA process even if they're 45 years old regardless of the ordinance because of some of these streamlining efforts?

I would maybe look to the city attorney. I mean in general at this point I mean we can't foretell where certain sequest streamlining will go. Um but generally the demolition of a historic resource would be one of those examples that would require further evaluation and generally um would would avoid the use of of an exemption or a process. But um I I I would just look to the city attorney to make sure I'm correct in that statement.

I I don't have anything else to add. I think that's correct. And then through the chair just um wanting to kind of acknowledge in general all of the comments that were provided and all of the comments that have been provided throughout this process. Um we have been receiving and read all of them that come in and hear them and I think particularly to comments about the more recent um comments on the draft ordinance and the historic context statement. Um they've been coming in. We are reading all of them. We tried to synthesize some and to the degree we could speak to them tonight. Our goal will be um following um council or planning commission's recommendation. We're looking there's there's kind of two buckets that we're considering. One is technical cleanups to ensure clarification, clarity, intended um outcomes and understanding with the ordinance. So things like replacing an or with an and, making sure comments are in the right spot if there's needed clarification on a definition. Those will all be things that we will incorporate between now and city council. and then we'll kind of provide an overview of what those changes were. And then there'll be other ones that we'll highlight that are more into the recommendations bucket for council to consider as part of it. But yes, we're definitely collecting all of that and and a and a reviewing it and and sometimes they're competing comments. So those are all factors that we're weighing in, but we're definitely looking at it all and making sure we catch all of the technical comments to make sure that the the ordinance is clear and there isn't any ambiguity where um where none is intended.

Great. Thank you. And just to um confirm and clarify, you're referring to both comments that are submitted to you by email, but also comments made using the online tools, right? That is correct. Okay. Thank you.

Anything else for my fellow commissioners about public comment redirecting questions to staff? Okay. I um would suggest since we're almost an hour and a half in that we take a quick five minute break and then we when we come back from that break, we can resume with clarifying questions from the commission. So, let's um it's 8:17. Why don't we say we'll meet back here a little bit more than 5 minutes? 8:25. Okay. Thank you. Hello. Hey. Hey.

Can you?

through the chair. We're ready to begin. Okay. Now for commission questions. Um I'm going to look to my left and to my right and see if anybody would like to start. Oh, actually, thank you. I'm going to redirect it to um Zach.

Yes. Through the chair, I did want to provide some clarification. Had a chance to huddle with the team and talk through and um with regard to SQA, there are two recent squ um squa amendments from state legislation um that do provide pathways. So, um, AB130 does allow for a streamlined SQA exemption that will only look at resources that are designated at the federal, state, or local level. And then SB79 um says that it will only consider resources designated as of January 1, 2026 as part of their SQA exemption. So, those are two tools. There's other um aspects that go in. So most projects aren't necessarily using them, but if you're using sequesting on those, those are two clarifications I did want to highlight.

Okay. Thank you very much. Can can you remind me this is things I'm learning if every meeting, but what types of projects that like I know AB130 is the infill, right? Is that like um could that apply to single family homes? It applies to commercial developments. This applies to everything within some distance from something.

AB130 does have a set of requirements. It's generally used by larger development projects. So, we are seeing some of the larger um multif family development proposals in the city utilize AB130. There are tribal consultation and other requirements that go into it. So, not it's not a fit for every project. I I don't believe it would be used for single family homes unless that was say a single family home on a larger lot in a a higher density zone district. Um and so SB130 is tied to transit. So that is um areas within that half mile of transit and and similarly it does carry other requirements with it um and is generally used for higher density um multifamily or mixeduse projects. I actually had a just I'm gonna chime in because it's directly related to what you just were talking about. Um, every time I've looked at SP79, I spent some time trying to figure out exactly the historic resources, how it related there and and I had it figured out and then it's been a little while now and I and I don't know if I quite understood what you just said about because I understand like there's a there's a cut off. Um the cutoff is that the cutoff anything that wasn't already officially designated um prior to that date doesn't get a review. Is that what it is?

It would get a review. So if it was a local, state, or federally listed resource as of January 1, 2026, and the de demolition was proposed, that would need to be something. It may not it may disqualify it from um from using SP79. Okay. So, but then if if we have a something which is potent like somebody in the community says, "Oh, that's really important, but it was not surveyed, was not um found to be eligible, was not designated." That could potentially um that would not necessarily trigger a SQA review.

That is correct. Yes, you could move forward with the SQA exemption and it wouldn't trigger additional review. Okay. So we could have something um there might be a picture of something that was you know or there might be a reference to it in our context statement and it is you know might have been on that 89 survey uh and but it was not it's not been designated it's not been listed um and someone proposes something there so in that scenario there is a possibility that it would not undergo any sort of review. That is correct. Yes. All right. Thanks.

Would anyone like to start with clarifying questions? Commissioner Bush, I got to stop smiling at you. Okay, sure. Um, do you we uh I don't know if this is how it works, but should I try to aim for like 10 minutes or something like and then we shuffle or Why don't I ask um a question of my fellow commissioners, which is how many questions do you have? Because if we have a ton, I would actually suggest that we break them down and all ask our questions about the historic context statement first, then I'll ask our questions about the draft preservation ordinance, and then I'll ask our questions about the Mills Act, but only if we have a ton. I think if each person only has like three or four questions, we can just go one at a time.

I have approximately 15 questions. All right, let's break it down. So, let's do But my questions are only on the ordinance. So, okay, I also have a lot of questions, but it's on all three. Um, so why don't we start with the historic context statement, and if any any of my fellow commissioners have questions on that, let's start there. I do have one unless someone else wanted to go first. Um,

please go ahead. Uh just uh was thinking about the um towards the end of the uh the context statement there is the section which is dealing with um assessment criteria for uh different types of resources residential, commercial, industrial etc from different periods of time. also different resources that connect to different uh significant groups. Uh and and then also associated criteria for assessing uh integrity. Uh and I just wanted to um get some just to kind of also just kind of get the clarification, get it out there exactly how that was all put together. Was that all was that all drawn from um the state and federal or uh guidelines or was any of that sort of developed in particular you focus on on Samonteo?

Uh yeah, it's a mixture of both. Obviously the like overarching guidance comes from the established um publications that both National Park Service and OP have put out since you know the 70s really. And so that's the foundational documentation that we use to start putting together those types of guidelines for local um historic context statements. But then the especially things like the integrity considerations and the additional integrity requirements. Those things are really drawn from the things that we learned from the research from the context and background and archival research and things that we were able to see through the very limited um uh windshield survey that we were able to do. So those two things in kind of conjunction are what informed that um guidance for assessing significance.

Thank you.

I have no questions regarding Okay, I have one question on the historic context statement. So, um, first I just want to say, uh, thank you to staff for the amazing job that you all have done on this. It feels like an incredible body of work in a very short amount of time. And so, just thank you. Um, and piggybacking on that, the historic context statement is a huge body of work. It's, you know, almost 250 pages. And it occurred to me as I was reading it, what if after it's adopted, additional information comes to light or somebody finds some inaccuracy and um and we need to update it or correct that. What is the process for doing that? Does any revision have to come back to planning commission and council to be incorporated or is there stuff that can be done at the administrative level? I'll start and then em if Julian wants to add anything in um basically obviously there's probably a lot more information out there that can fill in any number of pieces and so bringing it back every time at a public meeting would be really ownorous. So we kind of see two categories of amendments. Clarifications, additions, things that that are factual um in nature, clarifications, corrections, those are all things that can be handled administratively by staff. We would log them. So over time you can see how the documents evolved. Um but we would just be able to administratively update. We'd probably collect it periodically do an administrative update, publish an updated version. If we were looking at more substantive changes, that's when we would likely bring it to planning commission and or council. Maybe there was a new clarification to a period of significance, additional architects or other things that were more substantives that could change how we consider projects. That would be something that would come before the commission and or council um for adoption. But smaller corrections and updates, those would be handled administratively.

Okay. Thank you. That was my only question about the context statement. So, I think we can move on to questions about the draft historic preservation ordinance. Did you want to I'll look to my right this time. Are we are we going to break it down by section or we just going to more like just I think since we're just asking questions and we're not discussing, I would just say ask all your questions at once. Yeah. Um I had I had asked a question about if it's okay if I go first. Oh yes, please.

Uh I had asked a question um prior to the meeting and the runup um about which were going to be the initial properties on our resource inventory. And I was initially told that they were going to be the the downtown district um uh Glazenwood conditionally um depending on on council uh votes upcoming and then there were going to be two properties which are going to be the Dabble Tea House and the Cox Head House. I did notice that in the presentation that we now have the Voler's house added to that list. Was that was that overlooked before? Was that a recent addition since we spoke or how'd that come about? So that was um and I believe and I'll I'll look to staff for more more details that was a house that was designated by resolution and had a mills act and then at a point they actually applied for um removal from the mills act agreement and so we had initially taken them off the list but in looking at it further the resolution still stands. So even though they are moving out of the Mills Act contract, they are still designated locally by resolution. And so that's why they're now on the list. And so unless that resolution until the time that resolution's repealed, we would see see that as a local designation.

Great. Um see questions. Um, sorry. I was doing so much preparation for this and I'm all over the place. I got so many things in front of me here. Um, just bear with me for one moment here. Um, see if maybe you could come back to me. I'm going to need different need a second. Sorry about that.

Commissioner Shunkle, do you have any questions? Yeah. Am I on? Yeah, I think so. Um, just regarding I'll just ask all my questions at once. I don't have too many. Um the designation proc process by um resolution. Is there a way for let's say a property that is designated for potentially a new owner to um reig or reverse that and no longer be held to the um to that for the the incentive program.

So I um there. Well, if you're asking about incentives there, I mean, if you enter into a Mills Act agreement and then you have an interest in removing yourself, there is a process. It's it's a 10-year agreement. So, it would it takes 10 years to then unwind and reamortize the property. If you're talking about a delisting um once a property is locally listed, that designation runs with the property. So, it would carry on to future owners. If a future owner wanted to delist, you would have to go through the same process. I I think there would need to be extenduating circumstances to justify I don't know if there was a natural disaster or something had happened that that it no longer rose to that level but um yeah you would have to follow the same process for designation but generally there would need to be a basis for why you were removing it.

Okay. Thank you. Um during a staff presentation Oh yeah thank you for the presentation. It was very detailed and um broke a lot of it down for for myself. Um there was so the 1989 survey and then by guidance from city council um I guess there's there was not much um desire to have another survey done is was that for budgetary constraints to the city.

Generally speaking the first step in updating our historic policies would be an updated ordinance in a citywide historic context statement. surveys would come next once you've got that updated framework. There is significant cost associated with those and and so at this time the the objective was to update to provide that clarity and and speak to the lack our current ordinance doesn't define the process for designation. So updating to establish that process to some key objectives and prioritizing these two actions.

Got it. And my last question in regards to the commission um the historic resource commission. So there will be professionals and residents. Um will there be a designation for a ratio between um that mixed group of of the commission? And on top of that, is there overlap between um the squa um that the staff will be looking at and what the res and what the commission will be looking at? Like will there be overlap between those two groups of the commission and staff looking at secret determinations? So speaking to your first question about the criteria for appointments, that's the draft language staff has prepared. It's ultimately up to council as to if they want to make specific requirements. The objective is to balance getting qualified individuals, but then also making sure it's not so restrictive that you end up with vacancies on a commission. And that's always a challenge. If you're too specific about individual appointments, you might end up so you might only have a handful of individuals who because you also have to be a resident of the city in order to sit on a city commission. And so that's kind of what we're balancing. But ultimately this language will be up to council as to if they want to go with that or maybe augment or maybe set specific requirements for appointment. And I think obviously individuals with high qualifications would be prioritized during any recruitment. Um but yeah, those would be the considerations that go to council. With regard to your second question, as drafted right now, the the resources commission has kind of two areas that they would focus on. One would be a recommendation for a designation for either a landmark or a district. And then the other would be for a certificate of appropriateness for a major alteration. For secret reviews and minor alterations, that would be handled at the staff level. So that wouldn't be elevated to um the historic resources commission. However, I mean,

it is important to note the zoning administrator staff were were qualified professionals and we um exercise discretion in any number of places and administering city codes and the process and and generally we're always looking through the lens of is there a threshold and if it it appears like it could be, we would generally defer to elevating it to the commission over taking the action at the administrative level or making sure there's ample publication. So, we're always looking closely at that. But yeah, recognizing there is discretion exercised when you're going from one tier to the next. But um staff is doing that on a regular basis with as we administer all of our city zoning codes and moving through planning applications. Thank you. And then sorry, I have one more question. In the 36 case studies that were that were done, were there any other um localities that had a lower threshold than what we're proposing? like you know how the 51 is being looked at by certain groups. In those 36 case studies, were there any lower thresholds than what's being proposed

for owner consent in historic districts? Uh yeah, there are many municipalities that are silent on the issue and so they handle that in a variety of different ways. There are some places that have a higher threshold. Um the highest we saw was 75%. um 50 + one is the most typical where there is owner consent required. Um so there is a there was quite a variety between the case studies that we looked at. Thank you. That's my questions for now. Thank you, Commissioner Bush.

Okay. Excuse me. So, um I had sorry I had the opportunity to talk with Zach ahead of time and one thing I was hoping uh um that you could talk about again is the relationship between our general plan policies and the ordinance and I'm particularly interested in our general plan policy 5.3 um has a specific articulated definition of historic resources. Um that includes uh resources eligible or listed in the National Register and the California Register. Um designated resources in the 1989 survey that we've heard about in public comment and resources found to be eligible through documentation in a historic resources report, but the ordinance doesn't include most of those things um absent listing on on the inventory. And I was just curious if you could speak to our perspective, the city's perspective on the relationship between those two things.

Definitely. And so the definition in the general plan is intended to be larger and and cover more area. And so we would could use that. And so when developing the ordinance, the key is that what we're covering in there is consistent with the general plan. It doesn't need it that it needs to cover everything in that definition, but as long as it's not inconsistent, i.e. covering things that aren't within that definition. It's okay that an implementation of an individual action can be more focused. So in this case, it's it's focusing on a subset of that larger definition. And I think as articulated here, as we go about the larger evaluations of projects and considerations on properties, we're using that as guidance. So in that case, we're looking at a a larger blanket of eligible resources um that would still be evaluated under SQA but not necessarily under the ordinance. So that's kind of an implementation of an action can be more focused and doesn't necessarily need to cover the full spectrum of of a definition in a policy.

Okay. So it may be that we use that definition of historic resources that's more capacious from the general plan for other relevant purposes for protecting historic resources but for the ordinance specifically for the intent of creating an inventory subject to more intense review um or using a more specific definition. Right? That is correct. Yes.

Okay. Um, I think that kind of um I I have another question about the definition of historic resources as written in the draft ordinance because the way that the definition of historic resource is written, it says uh historic resources may also include but are not limited to resources listed in the National Register, the California Register, and the Samato Historic Resources Inventory. Um but I I believe you said in your presentation uh and I think the ordinance reflects this mostly is that the intent here is for the inventory um only to include things designated through the process articulating the ordinance not to automatically include listed national register or California register. Right. That is correct. And as was noted in the presentation, both to align with current guidance on a local inventory and to align with city council direction on this issue, which was the the interest was that there be a local designating action to align with affirmative owner consent before it's added and not automatically add if there was an action at the state or federal level.

Okay. So the so the definition of historic resource in the ordinance is is intended to be broader than historic resources that are actually sort of subject to the ordinance. That's correct because you can have a historic resource that's not designated. And so I think that's the distinction that the the definition provided in the ordinance list of definitions is the broader definition of historic resources. There theoretically could be a circumstance where a property is evaluated and found eligible to be a Sanonteo historic resource, but for whatever reason it doesn't go through the process of designation. So in that case, it's a historic resource, but it's not a designated historic resource.

Okay. So, I wonder if there was consideration of including these other properties that are articulated in the general plan policy like the 1989 survey properties and the um eligible properties for the National Register and the California Register in the definition of historic resources in the ordinance that are not necessarily automatically subject to the inventory if that makes sense. I think that um I think there's a policy consideration there. So I mean I I think if that's a recommendation that the commission would like to move forward for council consideration, I think that's probably the best avenue because I I think as drafted we are working to make sure we're consistent with the general plan but also with council direction. So if there there's commission interest in broader alignment between the definition and the ordinance and the general plan, I think that's that's definitely a recommendation that um could be carried forward for council consideration.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Um I saw on the presentation that there's an intention to designate Glazenwood uh district before the ordinance takes effect. I assume from having watched the council meeting and some of the other meetings that that's um because there are many members of the Glazingwood district uh property owners in the Glazingwood district who have been very vocal about about having that um added to the inventory. Um, you could correct me if I'm wrong as to that being the reason or maybe there was no articulated reason from council, but um, I guess my question is maybe this isn't a fair question, so I could just say I don't know. But what is there a meaningful distinction between the Glazenwood district and the 1989 the properties are found to otherwise be eligible in the 1989 survey in that neither set have had a recent survey? Um, it's just that the Glazenwood property owners, it seems to be that there's probably 60% in support or is there some meaningful difference between the two? I think the issue unique to the Glazenwood neighborhood was that there was some community feeling that it actually had been designated and then there was research conducted as part of the general plan and then based on subsequent questions that was unable to find an actual designating resolution and then there was associated concern and feeling that it should be and then that was I think what ultimately and I I don't want to speak for council but that led to council's direction to move forward with that designation and we did work to articulate some of that timeline and the agenda report that'll go to council for next Monday's meeting. Um but yes, because an updated ordinance isn't on the books right now, the ordinance is does not have a process other than to say that the council has

the ability to designate via resolution. And so that's the path they're doing, but it is based I think Glazenwood is unique in that I don't think there's other properties out there that there is confusion on if it was or wasn't designated locally. Okay. super helpful. Thank you so much. Um, could could I also just add briefly also there was additional work done by Ringcon for the the Glazenwood um item. So So it's not just relying on the 1989 survey. There has been additional work. Okay. Yeah, I saw I mean I saw information about Glazenwood. Um but it was but it's not a survey that you all did in your historic context statement, right?

No. So this was work outside of the policy work for that was specific to Glazenwood. And so really we had to we it given that how old that information was, it needed to be updated in order to make sure there was full legal basis and current information um to support the designation.

Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Um, in the eligibility requirements for listing in section 050, it talks about um how um landmarks must be at least 50 years old and meet at least one of the criteria in the designated criteria. But for historic districts, it says they must be at least 50 years old or otherwise meet designation criteria. And I just wanted to see whether that was intended to be substantively different or that's just a technical correction. It's a technical correction. Okay. All right. Just checking. Okay. Thank you. That's the type of update we'll we'll be updating between now and when the order

under I just wanted to sometimes not clear whether it's just the proofing thing or Thank you. I already know the answer to this, but I would love for you to just confirm for everyone listening. There there is no option for the city or any of its subsidiary bodies to designate or dellist any resource or potential resource from the city's uh historical resources inventory. Right. That is correct. Right now the the a property owner would be um the entity that needs to initiate.

Okay. Just tips for everyone's awareness. I have about six more. Um when in the procedures um for designated a historic district, which I did watch the council meeting, I'm aware of the input on um creating uh a tiered process and um that all makes sense. But I had a few questions about um some of the like administrative processes that were added. So, one of the things that it requires when you have the preliminary application is a written certification that 20% of property owners 20% of owners of owners of 20% of the properties um agree. And I'm just curious what do we h do we already have in mind what what that certification looks like? Is it one is the applicant certifying that 20% of people have said yes to them? Is it like signatures from 20%? Is it just whatever staff thinks makes the most sense?

Yeah, we would we would as part of the the written guidance to support the ordinance and articulate the process. We envision that to be a petition. We'd probably present a template for how to collect those signatures. But yeah, it would be up to the um the applicant or interested parties that were seeking that designation and we they so we would be looking for name, address, signature, and we do do some verification. But kind of the goal is is that first piece is uh more to show that there is an initial um baseline of support to start the discussion and the evaluation and then ultimately get to that higher threshold.

Okay. Did there's also a requirement that all um I'm realizing I have more than six questions. I shouldn't have even said. I'm sorry. There's also a requirement that property owners in the preliminary application stage provide notice of their application to all property owners and occupants in the proposed district. I'm wondering if council specifically directed that there be that first notice because it seems quite ownorous, but

we will confirm with them. I mean, that was our understanding of their direction for the two-step process. And similarly, we would align that with kind of the standard way that we do notifications for say neighborhood meetings or other other planning application processes. But yeah, I mean they'll have a chance to confirm, but based on the the January study session, that was our our takeaway from their direction on the two-step process they wanted to see.

Okay. So, is my understanding correct that the applicant has to notify all the property owners when they first submit the application with their 20% certification? uh when that's deemed complete, notify all the property owners and occupants about the community meeting and then the city notifies all of the property owners and occupants to deter to get a final vote.

Yes. So the following so there would be kind of walking through preliminary the process. So yeah, I think your initial those initial steps are correct. the um collection of 20% signatures application submitted an initial notification that an application's in. Then there once materials are submitted a neighborhood meeting that would um notification would be provided for then the city would send out a postcard. We would do kind of a not a like a vote level verification but basically a postcard or vote collection um that goes out to each property owner within the district. If there's over 60% in support, then it would move forward and there would be two public hearings, one before the historic resources um commission and then one before council and both of those would be noticed as well. So yes, there would there would be a number of notification points as part of the process as proposed

and several of them the applicant would be required to fund essentially. Well, yeah, and we'll need to have that discussion in theory. Does is this a full cost recovery process? Does the city subsidize some of it? But yeah, I mean obviously depending on the number of notices there is definite cost that goes with that. Right. Right. Um is it typical to require notice to all occupants when the property owners are the ones who have the right or to consent or reject?

That's the standard practice that the city does for all planning applications. Right now, there could be a decision made that for this process, you would just focus on property owners, but that's more we included that because that's the standard for how notices go out for a project, a planning application or notification because we want to make sure business owners, tenants, as well as property owners have awareness of a proposed project.

Yeah. Um, I think that makes sense. I know that council kind of suggested a process similar to like speed bumps, for example. Um, so I can do this during the comments, but occupants make sense in that context, but maybe less sense in in this context. Um, okay. For the role the zoning administrator plays in evaluating certificates of appropriateness. It says your presentation suggested the zoning administrator is responsible for reviewing minor alterations of and inventory listed projects uh resources. Um and the historic resources commission is responsible for reviewing major alterations which I think is a fair like quick blush way to categorize it. But in that section, it als it says, "Not only does a zoning administrator review minor alterations, but it also reviews projects that do not adversely affect a landmark or contributor within a historic district listed in the inventory or are consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's standards for rehabilitation and for which no public purpose would be served by requiring commission review. And it's not clear to me how that review by the zoning administrator of non-minor alterations that the zoning administrator thinks are consistent with the secretary of the interior standards is any different than the review the commission would be doing. Is there some

I will add that I had the same question and and we could talk about it now but it was so complex to me that I figured we'd end up discussing it a bit too. Yeah.

Yeah. So I I I think what's important to note there is it's not the zoning administrator alone. There's going to be historic evaluations that were part of the original designation that would then be a resource that the zoning administrator and planning staff would use to understand, okay, what's what are the character defining features? What are the aspects of this property that give it its integrity that give it it its basis for being a designated landmark? Then you're going to be looking at the scope of the proposed work um that's coming forward. And depending on that scope, we may require depending on if there's any exterior often a a an evaluate an updated evaluation from a historic professional that's working with that owner um and the designer architect um and there so there'll be additional documentation that speaks to that. So staff is then evaluating that body of information against the code to determine okay has it been met? Are we staying within the threshold? So, we're relying on on professional exper uh um in positions and evaluations to inform that decision. It's not being made alone. And then that so that all of that information would go into the decision of is this a decision that can be handled at the staff level via the zoning administrator or does this rise to the level of a major alteration which then needs to go to the historic resources commission because the goal also is with um a listed resource. We want to balance appropriate control and making sure that it's preserved with reasonable ability of the property owner to do work and invest in their property. And so that's kind of the balance that we're looking to achieve with th those two pathways.

Okay. So is it correct? So I'm going to ask a couple questions. Is it correct to say that the intent is to kind of split any work that could be done into on a property between the definition of major alterations and the definition of minor alterations? Yes, basically.

Okay. So then I I'm I'm still a little confused cuz it sounded like you were saying that the zoning administrator would be responsible for reviewing minor alterations pursuant to the standards that you articulated. But the but the ordinance says both minor alterations and other things. This is the part I think we should discuss when she we get to the discussion because I I noticed the same thing and and I think we may want to end up making a recommendation on how to change this. Yeah, for sure. But I would like to understand what what the intention was so that I can understand whether I agree with the intention and I I know I wanted to refer to other staff on that

uh through the chair. U one of an example of a minor alteration could be like a roof repair or a re-roof. So, if it's on a designated list, if it's on a local list and they need to repair the roof or replace the roof with the inkind, that doesn't warrant going to um a public hearing, that's something that staff can do fairly easily. Um especially if it's the exact same material.

It has no has no like effect on the historic value of the home. Mhm. Mhm. Through the chair. Additionally, um through the implementation of this ordinance, staff will be will be preparing guidance, guidelines, application materials, FAQs, handouts for um applicants and homeowners to use as resources so they know the level of review that they're going to have up front and it'll help them help make help them make that distinction. Excellent. I I think if I may jump in for a minute, stop asking questions. No, no, no, you're good. Um, it sounds like the intent was a two twotrack pathway. Yeah.

And I think we can make some suggestions about how to make that more clear in the ordinance because I had the same I know it's the same exact thing as you is. It actually seems like it was minor alterations or major alterations that conform to the Secretary of Interior standards and I think maybe that was not the intent. Thank you. I I and I actually think um it's it may be a three-step pathway when you think about the exemptions for ordinary maintenance and repair. I had the same note, too.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thank you. That was helpful. Um is there like a standard um ordinary maintenance? I mean, I assume this this is where you're talking about there will be guidance on what we mean by ordinary maintenance or repair. That's not replacing your roof. That's, you know, whatever. What's something else? That's not a big deal that you don't heater permit for. Yeah. Right there. So that's that will be clarified later. Yeah. Like repainting your house like that. Yeah. Yeah. I wondered if it was I wondered if it was typically just commensurate with things you don't need a permit for.

And also just on this discussion, I wanted to um turn it over to Julian for a second to I think provide some background as to why the language was included as part of that consideration. Yeah, I understand kind of the discomfort around maybe some ambiguity there, but the circumstances for historic properties are going to be unique every time. And so we we wanted to build in some flexibility because if you're overly rigid, you might find yourself in a situation where um something so clearly meets the standards, but because it falls under the def definition of major alteration, you're going to historic review commission even though it's very clearly um aligned with the standards. So that's why we included that language so that if there is a project, especially if for other reasons it's maybe it's a Mills Act um property that's just doing something that was outlined in its 10-year agreement or it is a project that is being reviewed otherwise by the city for other purposes um to not have it be encumbered by having go to another public meeting. So the intent there is to like streamline and allow flexibility.

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thanks. Is it typical to do double appeals of a zoning administrator decision that? Yeah, I mean we and we do see that every once in a while where yeah, a zoning administrator appeal is appealed to the planning commission and a planning commission decision can be appealed to the city council. I think it's happened twice in my time on the planning commission in all circumstances or only with particular types of decisions of the planning commission. any decision made by the zoning administrator is appealable to the planning commission and then similarly any action taken by the planning commission is appealable to the council. Okay.

So it kind of the same process would fall with historic resources commission.

Okay. There was a lot of comments about the enforcement provisions. Um, and I to be honest had similar comments in that um, it it doesn't seem like there is a like even a fine provision baked in here. It says for violations of penalties, you can seek injunctive relief. Um, but is there some overarching fine or administrative fines provision that applies to this in some elsewhere in the code that applies to like all zoning code violations or something?

Yeah, I mean we have the ability to issue administrative citations depending on the nature of the works because oftentimes a violation here might also fall under other code enforcement provisions. Um but yeah we do have administrative citations stop work then there's associated so if you if you do work without a permit and then you have to get the permit some we depending on the nature we can assess double fine double permit fees. So there's other mechanisms in the code that can be used to enforce these provisions.

I just wonder like how applicable are those to something like this where we're actually talking in the first instance about whether to designate something or not. So, like in other um codes I've seen, not to name any codes specifically, but I've seen um um for example, fines for submitting false information in an application that I think could be, you know, is is there anything like that in our um ordinance code more generally that might apply um to this?

I I don't believe that is a specific code. I guess it would be within the context of say if you're a licensed professional and you're there. I mean there's other accountability mechanisms but I I guess I would highlight this as if this was a policy recommendation that the commission wanted if you wanted to see um more a more robust enforcement or other mechanisms to ensure compliance. Um I I think we weren't necessar I mean I think and Julian can probably speak to it more. I know there's a range of options for how the level of enforcement you want to include in your ordinance. Okay. Well, that's helpful. Thanks.

And and typically like the way code enforcement works, uh we're trying to move toward compliance, so if someone provided incorrect information, we would just ask them to correct the information and then um correct the violation. So, we're not really penalty focused, especially with information.

Okay. Okay. Those are all of my questions. Commissioner Cafter. Yes, I have I have my list ready now. Um uh and thank you everybody else for your questions. I don't need to ask those questions now because you did. Um I had a question uh one question I actually was that was there was this like hypothetical scenario um where and I think I we might have had a meeting about this and I brought this up a while ago but it was about the idea of of uh possibly designating certain elements alone on a property or a portion of a property a portion of a structure not necessarily designating a whole structure. Um, is that something that would be possible with this ordinance?

Maybe. It's not a popular route. It's not something that's um seen as preservation effort. We do see sometimes that being done um for mitigation in SQUA. So, you have something called partial preservation where um there's many cases now with kind of historic theaters where they'll save the front of the building and and have the rest of it be demolished and the city wants to designate the facade. Um it's not very popular, but it does happen. So, there is a there there is in theory a pathway here.

There is. Yeah. If the city would would want to consider that to if a nomination came forward that only included a part of a building um and there was documentation to support the argument that it was significant and that the character defining features were limited to what they were suggesting um would be nominated. Um that certainly could be something that would happen

and through the chair um another thing that could be done is to look at individual structures on a plot of land separately. So, what I've seen is um there there would be a main house that maybe is no longer historic because of all the additions that have happened, but there may be a barn in the back that has maintained um its historic value throughout time. So, I mean, you could look at each individual structure separately.

Yeah. Yeah. like that. That's the other half, I guess, the hypothetical where you not just a portion of structure, but if you had like a little standalone thing or like a barn or um you know, just some very distinctive little, you know, uh pole or some like a gate post for example, I'm just throw out an actual example. I'm thinking of a gate post, something like that. Would that be something that could be designated on its own and it wouldn't necessarily cover the entire property if that was the kind of the significant item? The guidance from the office of historic preservation on how to um document and evaluate properties is to look at the property as a whole and then you can identify features that are contributing or non-contributing similar to the way you approach a historic district. Okay? So, it may be that the nomination would reference the whole property and then describe that whatever the main house is not historic because it's been so altered to the point where it's it no longer retains integrity yet there is a historic barn and that is a contributing feature. And so that's the way that typically those types of um nominations and evaluations are are prepared

or or we would establish a period of significance and simply say that only that one element is maybe in the period of significance. You could Yeah. Um yeah, you you could that's a less popular route to go, but um yes, it would be akin to a district evaluation. It would be a very similar approach to how you do a district evaluation. Yeah.

Um totally different thing. Um I was curious about the incentives um in the ordinance and and um you know, I was looking again at our general plan and uh looking at you know, incentives are mentioned more than once there. Um this uh policy number uh uh 5.6 CD 5.6 physics um talks about a little bit about incentivizing um this work and then uh f action 5.11 uh referring specifically to incentives and um I know that there was some uh polling done uh during the outreach on additional incentives and uh the action item also talks about uh some additional incentives that did not end up included in the ordinance. And I was just wondering um if any of those were considered and being for being included in this um initial thing here or if um or and if not why not.

So I think the goal was we we did hear some input on there. I think we went with kind of the clear ones which was related to Mills Act um historic building code. Yeah, those other ones would require more work and I think in a way the goal was let's see what the framework is. Let's see where we land with our updated policies and that's kind of like a part two. So I think if there's interest that also could be a recommendation for council say hey as part of implementation explore X or Y or something. So we could look at it further, but I think that yeah, that would ultimately need to be direction because that would be additional work that's not necessarily scoped scoped as part of this first phase because it was just focused on implementation of those two actions that were 58 and 59.

Um, still on that subject then with incentives though, uh you also were talking about how um you had looked at other local uh preservation ordinances across the state. Um, did you see how many of those included additional incentives and what kinds of incentives they uh tended to include?

Yeah, we we did look at what other incentives are available or popularly used. Anywhere where we saw something that seemed unique, I did call the planning office to ask them, do you guys actually do this? And most often they said, no, we've never seen anyone use it. So there is um I think there are some places that have tried to maybe push the envelope a little bit on what incentives are available. Um one of the other things to consider is that the city's also looking at I believe updating the zoning code. Um and so some of the um relief that was described um and some of those potential incentives wouldn't be able to be kind of thought about without that zoning update being done yet. So there's there's a that's why we included that language for future incentives to be um maybe potentially added, but um because there's other kind of things at play that would inform what potential incentives there would be um that's all we were able to to move forward this time, the ones that are the most popular and really have already been put in place by the city.

Okay. Uh so so um I think Zach you mentioned uh you know part two um and uh and of course also there is the language incent on incentives there's there's the third item there on that on the list in the ordinance which kind of says that you know council may uh choose to add in additional incentives uh in the future and um you know there's discussion about you know perhaps a survey at a future time. Uh, I guess the question is what what's going to trigger that? What's going like is it going to be is it going to be a count someone on council is going to say, "Hey, we want to revisit this." Is it going to be uh is there going to be a review of how effective or how wellreceived the ordinance has been at some point in the future that is going to um cause part two to you know uh be you know initiated or how how do we how do we see that uh potentially happening? ultimately with I mean we've we've got I think over 200 actions within the general 240 there's there's a good number and and obviously then other council priorities city priorities that come up. So I think that's partly what goes into every year's blue sky where council members all bring priorities forward and then if there's a majority support they move forward they roll into the city strategic plan. So I think moving forward you there's always this menu of options available to council because ultimately especially with surveys there'll be a cost that goes with that work. I I think when it comes to incentives as we go through other policy work like I could see the downtown area plan update which will include the downtown historic district. Maybe there's a discussion of downtown um historic district focused incentives as part of the downtown area plan update. So I I could see different opportunities arising as we move forward with various aspects of policy work, but ultimately yeah, this would this would need to be rep prioritized by council to

continue that work or move forward with other implementation actions. All right. And I think there's a motion my question. I have a lot of comments, but that's the next that's the next uh thing. So I think that's it for questions right now.

Any final questions on the ordinance from my fellow commissioners? Okay. Um, I have a lot of questions, but I actually think I'm going to skip most of them and bring them up when we discuss because they I think like this will end up quite weedy and it seems more appropriate for a discussion. Yeah. Um, let me just look through my list and see if there's anything I want to bring up now. No, I think I'm gonna I'm gonna punt them all. Okay. So, lastly, any questions about the draft update to the Mills Act?

Commissioner Shle, do you have any questions about the draft update to the Mills Act? Nope. I asked mine. Okay. Commissioner Bush, it's you and me. No, great. I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Why don't you ask yours because I only have one I bet you'll cover.

Okay, so um and I asked these all ahead of time. Um but I thought given that I had these questions, members of the public might have these questions and so I figured I would ask them. Uh first question is, "State law requires that Millsac properties are inspected at least every five years. Did any of the 36 cities or jurisdictions reviewed require inspections more frequently than that? through the chair. Uh most of the uh municipalities we looked at were uh three years, I'm sorry, five years. However, um some did inspect three years and then the county of Alama inspects every year.

Okay, thank you. Um did any of them require annual maintenance reports from the property owners? Uh yes, they did. It was quite common to send out affidavit and then the property owners would respond um and provide documentation of the work that was completed that year. Thank you. And did any of those jurisdictions outline what qualified expenses would be um appropriate for that kind of maintenance work or did they were there any expectations about what type of maintenance work should be done as part of the Mills Act program?

Sure. So there's no um standard definition for qualified expense, but it is commonly um intended to be any expense that would be incurred to maintain and restore the historic uh character of a property. Um so most commonly there were examples in the Mills Act program application um guidelines and packets that provided examples of work that could be done such as uh uh facade uh restoration, even like seismic and structural improvements. um re-roofing things of that nature.

Perfect. Thank you. In the other jurisdictions, who was responsible for reviewing the annual maintenance reports and confirming that the maintenance uh listed aligned with the expectations around the work to be done

through the chair. So, um, with the Milzac program, they are required to submit a 10-year work plan, which outlines all of the work and improvements they plan to, um, do to the property. So, that would would align with, um, the historic characteristics and features of the property that are outlined in the HRE, which would, uh, be required to designate them um, in the first place. So, staff would review um, that work and progress reports annually, and uh, sometimes there's option to bring in a historic consultant if necessary. Thank you. Is there any requirement um in state law or have you seen any jurisdictions require that the amount of scope of work in that work plan be commensurate to the expected property tax savings?

There has been some movement in that direction in recent years. However, there's no um requirement by state law to do so. Okay. Thank you. And I think this was already covered. Is there a standard Mills Act contract term that's required by state law? And yes, the initial contract, I'm sorry, contract term is 10 years and then it uh renews annually u for an additional year on the anniversary of contract execution. Perfect. And the Mills Act contracts transfer to new property owners at the time of sale. That's a part that's a requirement under state law. Correct. Yes, that's correct.

Okay, great. And then this is one more that I think I asked in in person in our planning in our prep meeting. Um and I just want to cover it again. The agenda report notes that the public access requirement was removed to be consistent with state law and I was wondering if you could elaborate that on a little bit because I read the the California state code around the mills act program. There's no mention of a public access requirement in that program but there's also no mention of annual maintenance reports which is something that's very common in other jurisdictions. So, I was curious um how you were determining where to align with the state law versus where to require something different, which it seems like there's some discretion to be able to do,

right? So, through the chair, uh the Mills Act um legislation was amended in 1985 to actually remove the requirement for public access. However, um it's common practice that the property that's getting the tax benefit be uh able to be seen from the public right away, not have any fences or hedges obstructing the view from the street. Some jurisdictions have also requiredformational or educational plaques posted outside of the property as well. Perfect. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Commissioner Bush,

thanks. I just have the one which is um you talked in the presentation about staff landing on recommending two mills act contracts a year and I just wondered if you could provide a little bit more detail. Is there like a median cost of mills contracts a year? Like how do you think about that?

So I think that this is an entirely policy driven decision. So the council will have prerogative is if they want it. I mean some places don't have a cap, others 5 10 20. It's it's really up to the local jurisdiction. I think also the property tax savings really varies property to property because there's in with properties that have transacted more recently realizing bigger savings than maybe property t properties that have been owned for a while and have load lower overall valuation. So there's a lot of variables and I I think in one example we had a property that was had a relatively small number then it was sold and then their their savings under the mills act went up significantly. So two was seen one is obviously there's an administrative um work piece that goes with processing these and so I think the intent is we'd probably almost have kind of like a period where we'll accept applications at this period then they get processed in January go to HRC in March or we could set up a standard timeline so if someone's interested they could submit their application but then we would process them once a year and so that was kind of the thinking to standardize the process and when a propertyy's realizing those property tax savings ultimately that's revenue that that is not then being paid via property taxes. So the city realized I think it's around 11% of of of property tax dollar paid comes back to the city. So um there so the whole property tax saving isn't borne by the city but a portion of it around 11% is. So it's in most cases a small but still notable reduction in property general fund revenue as a result of the contract. So you know at the beginning of the contract what the cost to the city will be because you know their property taxes and you can say it's oh it's 11 whatever the exact amount is but it's 11% of every dollar they're saving and that that's the case overall 10 years

approximately. I think there's other factors that might adjust that percentage but approximately yes. I wonder if it is feasible to instead of having a limited number of milsack contracts whether instead you could set a limit a maximum limit on the amount of money the city loses in revenue. I think that's a great discussion question. Okay. I was going to say there's a it's a policy choice but keep in mind the the valuation at time of design at the mills act going into effect could change subsequently. So after the 10 years or over the course of the 10 years,

say maybe it has one valuation because a property owner's owned it for say 10 years, 15 years, they sell it for a much higher price, valuation resets. Now the delta between So all of a sudden maybe they were saving 10,000 a year, now they're saving 30,000 a year, right? So we couldn't look into the future. So you could do that upon initial, but keep in mind that isn't a fixed because the contract follows the property and it properties appreciate in value. So over time it will get bigger. Okay. Thanks.

I I did have one more question actually that I thought of while the uh other questions were um being asked. Uh coming back to the question of the study of other preservation ordinances, local ordinances across the state. Um if we could get some sense how many of them were structured similar to our proposed ordinance where it was um entirely initiated by property owners and only by property owner consent.

Um I don't remember the the number off the top of my head. they did present actual percentages um to city council, but um I will say that probably newer ordinances are more likely to have the owner consent provision. Overall, of the 36 that we looked at, a majority did not have any owner consent provision, but I don't remember the exact the exact number. So, while most did not, it's becoming more popular to include that. But but in in those in those situations, was there another pathway or was it the sole pathway in did you see anywhere was the sole path?

Yeah, so there there's there's a combination of of pathways. Some had only owner consent similar to what is drafted here. Some had owner consent, but it could be additional properties could be added by nomination from either city council or the historic review commission. Um, others had no provisions on consent and nominations could come from anyone. Um, so there was kind of the it ran the gamut. Okay. Okay. Thanks.

Great. Let's move on to comments and discussion. Um, I would suggest that we start with the draft historic context statement. And again, this is a 250 page document. So, um, I'm going to ask how many comments people roughly have on it because if it's a lot, then we might want to do it again by section. I'm looking at our expert here in history because I suspect you may have the most. I I could start I could start. Well, I mean, well, about how many do you think you have because I I want to figure out if we should break it up by section. Um, I wouldn't say one of them may be a little longer, but I wouldn't say it's too many to be honest. Okay. one. Yeah, I don't have many.

I don't have any. So, let's just do let's just go by Commissioner. So, uh why don't you go first, Commissioner Clifter?

Yes. All right. Well, um I'll echo what uh Chair Patel said earlier. Um I mean, this is a very impressive uh amount of work. Uh thank you to uh staff and consultants putting this together. It's great to have a document and it and it and it's also and it's also very challenging to put together a document which condenses the history of an entire community over you know more than a century and um tries to touch upon every single aspect of life and you know significant communities and uh significant places and and and tries to sort of uh create some objectivity uh with regards to that it's so it's it's a it's a really um going to be a great resource uh for researchers uh I hope uh and and for members of the community going forward. Um I have read through the whole document. Um I um uh was helped a little bit by the fact that I just happened to have been doing my own uh report on downtown last year and so I was already had you know I'd look been looking at San Mo Centennial history and some of the other same resources uh pretty recently. I have a copy of that book. Um and uh I as I was looking through I I did note a few you know spelling things um uh totally understandable mistakes that you know would not be caught by spellch check where you know instead of saying his it says this and has that you know minor stuff like that. uh a few things factual things I which I noted um uh just you know mostly minor stuff where you know like maybe uh one minor example were like the the Beayshore Highway which opened in 1929 was originally four lanes not six lanes very minor stuff um overall um I think it was really really good document I did um have one big

comment which is that I I would one thing I'd really love to see uh which is uh some good diagrams really showing all of the different areas uh of the city, the different subdivisions, the different estates and really explaining like visually where they are and how they relate to each other and you know kind of the years that they were developed because I think it's when if you're reading through this document and you're not obsessive like I am sometimes uh it's kind of difficult to keep track of this stuff. Uh, one one example um which I kind of latched on to for a while was the example of the uh Elserto estate which was the um the the Howard estate. It's fairly close to downtown here. Uh Howard builds a house there. uh and then um it passes uh to his uh descendants when he passes away and then it gets uh uh becomes known as the Bowie estate uh because it's a you know inherited by the you know the husband of his you know daughter or something like that and then it uh becomes you know it's sold later and becomes the Daba estate uh and of course this is where our the Daba tea house was on this estate uh and then uh eventually gets sold to Jean Dainc Seir and then eventually is developed by David Bohannan. And when I'm reading through this document, you know, it says the St. Seir estate was developed by David Bohannan. But at that point, it doesn't connect it back to those other names. It's the same property. Uh and then there were also three different homes I think that were called the because there Elserto that name stayed with that estate, but then there were two different homes there. Uh one was moved away and then another was built. And then uh if you go out into the hallway of uh this uh chamber and you look at this uh map on the wall out there, you'll actually see uh that there is a third house that at one point was called Elserto and it was in a different

location and owned by a different descendant of of Howard and and uh and her husband. And so it can get a little confusing. Uh, and um, again, I spend quite a bit of time, more time than I probably needed to, you know, uh, because I'm always curious about this stuff looking at it. And but I think for the average reader, um, they if they had a diagram, you know, and it says, you know, outlining this area and it says this is the roughly the Howard estate and this portion was, you know, broken off in this year and and then it was, you know, this area was subdivided, you know, by David Bohannan in this year. that would be really um make it a lot more accessible. Um and so that's and that and that you know that can show the whole progression of all these areas over time from the beginning of the document to the end uh or most most of the that history. So um I mean that's my one big comment um and uh I will give the other commissioners opportunity now.

Thank you. Commissioner Shankl, did you have any Yeah. comments on the historic um context statement?

Yeah, just um you know, I appreciate all the work that went into this. Um I think it's a great Oh, talk. I appreciate staff and all who were involved in um in that um in this great work, great document um explaining a lot about um why and and what and how and especially um putting a lot of the things and strengthening um some of the key things that we're missing. Um I think the buzzword for today uh the integrated uh urbanism um a lot of people are getting hung up on the soul of Samale but I think uh this strikes a good balance and shows that uh the historic character of Samontel um is you know going to be cared for and sought after and um yeah the key takeaway is that I think that um I think staff had a a hard task with trying to strike that balance between, you know, um trying to uh create this and also appease a lot of different parties at once. And so, um yeah, that's my comment for this.

My uh comment is that this was awesome. I really loved reading it. Uh I did not read every single word, but I did at least look at every single picture and mostly got all the gist. Um, yeah. I thought it was exceptionally cool and like I did not know your profession existed and I think it's awesome that it does. It's like so fun to learn about the city and I know there's a lot of focus there's been a lot of focus uh this meeting specifically by one very nitpicky lawyer but also throughout this process that on the ordinance and kind of how what will be in the inventory but like this thing is so cool and like so powerful and important. um for this whole underlying process. And so I just want to echo the thanks um to staff to Rinkcon for all the work that you did, for all the hard work you did. And um would encourage anyone who has not to who has not read it to find five hours and sit down with it and um at least look at the pictures, which are also very awesome.

I'll I'll just add to that that um I also did the first thing. I looked through all the pictures first. As soon as I realized there were pictures, I was like, I'm gonna flip through this whole thing. Um, again, I'll just echo what everybody else said. This is a fantastic document. It was so interesting, and I'm I'm really excited that our city now has this as a resource for people to learn about the history of the city. I'll say personally, I really enjoyed reading about the history of the architectural style of my home, which I did not know much about. So, like that was super cool. But yeah, um, echo what my fellow commissioners said. Uh, other than that, I don't have really have any comments. I mean it was it was a history book. So it's not like there was a lot to really add or say. Um so shall we move on to comments or discussion about the draft historic preservation ordinance? And here I would suggest that we go section by section. Actually, I did forget one little thing about the uh which is uh I also had made a a recommendation um and I'll just repeat it because I uh think it might be good to mention it um which is just uh that um there were a couple architects that I thought might be nice to um just to add to that to the list at the end. I thought that um the uh again it's nice to have the kind of the uh bios of some of the significant builders and significant architects who made a difference in San Mo and there were a couple um I actually had spoken with another historian and I said you know let's let's take a look and see are there any other names um uh and I'll just mention a couple of the ones that I had on that list here it's already been provided to the consultant and staff but um big one was Willis Pulk uh who is mentioned in the in the document um but I think it might be nice to give him a little extra attention. He designed the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew which is a obviously a very prominent local landmark. Um uh John Lion Reed and or

the firm of Reed and Terra. Um I am a Hillsdale High School graduate and uh even if you are not a Hillsdale graduate, if you were an Aragon graduate, um those are the folks you have to thank for those buildings. Um and uh they were actually uh I did a whole report on those back in the day uh back in high school. Uh they were very very fascinating uh experimental designs and obviously uh um have meant a lot to a lot of students who have uh grown up in the city. Um Hillsdale High School and Aragon High School. Uh Julia Morgan obviously a very big name and we are apparently lucky enough to have several homes by her um hiding around town. Um and uh John Carl Waricki again a lot of students uh will probably have been influenced by him uh as the original kind of master architect of uh primary architect of uh college of sat and uh obviously that's been altered a lot but there is uh I believe the theater performing arts theater is one of our is one of our uh listed properties uh at least on the California register so it might be worthwhile mentioning him. And then um I just love this name uh uh fantastic mid-century uh modern architect who uh did some work for David Bohannan named Mogan's Mogansson.

I see. And I just love saying that. Mogan's Mogensson. Uh so um I'd love more people to learn about him. So just leave it there. Thank you for those suggestions. All right. Why don't we go forward to the um proposed ordinance and I would suggest that we start with section one which is purpose and intent. So if any of my fellow commissioners have comments or recommendations in the purpose and intent section now would be a great time. Anyone? No one comments.

Great. Let's move forward to section two definitions. This is where I have a ton, by the way. Um, so would anybody else like to go first with definitions?

I think I think my comments aren't necessarily broken down by section. I have some broader comments. Okay. Um, but I don't think we could keep going. Yeah, let's keep going and then we'll do the broad comments at the end. Yeah. Anybody else for definitions? If not, I'll dive in. I have some comments on the definitions. Oh, great. Please. I did send a few um technical things to staff that I won't go over here. Um a few of them were in line with um I believe it was Mr. Elliot's um comments on some ambiguities that um I think will be helpful to kind of clarify um that are non-substantive.

Yep. Um, I I it's still a little confusing to me why the definition of historic resources is broader than the what we're actually talking about for the historic resources inventory. um because it it's took me a while to figure out that um at least listed National Register and California Register um resources are not automatically included in the inventory because they are classified here as historic resources. And I don't recall seeing elsewhere where there's sort of a discussion of historic resources that would necessitate a standalone broader definition. Um but if I'm wrong about like if it is serving some function then um then I think it's worth considering having that match the general plan policy um to make it to make the ordinance more consistent with the general plan policy which has an express definition of historic resources um that I think you know arguably should be included in here. Um so um that's my comment on the historic resources definition and then there is a definition for historic resources evaluations but there is no there that that that definition is not used in the ordinance and my sense is that it's a hold over from the section that was deleted that was intended to articulate that the planning department would conduct an HRE for um

projects that otherwise require one under SQA. Um and I'll just flag here for when we get to it that my recommendation would be to add that that provision back in for reasons we can talk about later. But if it doesn't get added back in, then I then I don't know what work um K is doing. Um historic resources evaluation definition. So those are my main like non-technical comments. Probably some people think those were technical. Does anybody else have comments on the definitions? If not, then I'll go next. So, let's start at the top with A1, um, which says alteration major. Um, and I noted that it references quote removal of a significant feature. And one of my questions to staff was, is there an industry definition of significant feature? And the answer was, I think, perhaps not exactly. And my suggestion here is that we align this with the phrase character defining feature, which appears later in the section. So there's some consistency. And I feel like character defining feature is a little bit less ambiguous. When we're making recommendations like this question for staff, should we do like a quick straw poll to see if there's consensus or is it okay if just individually as commissioners we're throwing out recommendations? I would suggest for this that is there a consensus to move this because I think maybe thinking about all right how does all this get documented if if there is a recommendation if there's a consensus maybe tally a list then at the end so you will kind of do your recommendation motion then your supplemental recommendations and then you could kind of laundry list them so maybe that's one way to kind of track them over time

was this exact question asked earlier might it be worth hearing from the consultant again just kind of like did we did we get clarification on the difference between these two things. I did not ask it. I asked it in email and I I didn't feel like it was um significant enough to bring up, but if you would like to understand why there were two different terms used, we could talk about it. Yeah. I I because I think your suggestion is is is pretty reasonable, but I just want to see like maybe because talk to the authors one of the authors here about the

Yeah. So the just for background the the um response we provided is that significant feature doesn't have I mean there's a broad understanding I think within the field what that would mean but generally it aligns with the definition we provided for character defining feature in the ordinance. So um I think the the suggestion is a reasonable one. Okay great. Do do I have consensus from my fellow planning commissioners to make that change? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

And I and I think something like that is minor enough that we can just note that down and that makes sense as a clarification to make the ordinance stronger. So yeah, I think that that's less policy, more just clarifying to where we have clear understanding.

Yeah. And then here's another minor one. So, in A4, um, it there is a reference to new construction on a property containing a landmark or a contributor within a historic district listed in the Sanonteo Historic Resources Inventory that could affect its visual appearance. I noticed that the previous bullet points in this subsection all clarify um, visual appearance from the street. And so, I was wondering if that was also applicable in this case. And if so, should we again make the language consistent to clarify that it's the visual appearance from the street? Sorry, I don't have the language in front of me. So,

I think we'll pull it so we can we can follow along. But yeah, I think for consistency that makes sense because if the threshold is appearance from the street, then that would make sense that it's carries through on all.

Yeah, cuz bullet points one through three or sorry, two and three all say from a street and then four doesn't. And I was like, is that intentional? And if it's not, then I think it should be consistent. Cool. Um, and then, okay, so the next thing is something that ended up causing me extreme confusion as I went through the rest of this ordinance. And I wonder if maybe I'm not the only one. And perhaps there's an opportunity here to clarify and streamline so that other people don't get confused. And that is in subsection B um sub subsection 3 it's the definition of minor alterations. And in sub subsection 3 it says in historic districts listed in the San Monteo historic resources inventory demolition and alteration of detached garages and other accessory structures built within the period of significance on contributor properties and new construction of such structures on any landmark. parentheses districts and individual properties. So, if you're following along in your text at home, friends, the parentheses after landmark, districts and individual properties led me to believe that a landmark can be a district or individual property because this bullet point is before the definitions of the rest of those things. And so for the whole rest of the ordinance, I was just really confused about the definition of a landmark versus an individual resource versus a district. And so my suggestion would be to reward this bullet point. Um, one to remove those little parenthesis because I actually think you don't need it. I think what this bullet point is trying to say is that um demolition and alteration of a detached garage or accessory structure built within the period of significance on a contributor property in a historic district is a minor alteration and new

construction of any such structure on a landmark is a minor alteration. But it's just I had really hard time parsing this bullet point. I went if we go back to B. Yeah. It says, "In no case shall minor minor alterations involve actions including new construction or full or partial demolition of a landmark. Examples of that include Yeah. And then goes and then so then I'm maybe I'm taking it to mean that that that is an example of something that would not be a minor alteration. Well, it's a minor alteration because it's not the landmark. It is an it's a new accessory structure on a landmark property.

Should we I mean we should seek additional clarification. I mean, yeah, that's the intent is that someone could build a a garage. Yeah. Um without it being a major alteration. Um but the new construction would be referencing like an alteration of a new addition, which would be a major alteration in most cases. That's another wise to find here. So my suggestion is just to reword this bullet point and I could maybe think about it and like follow up an email, but at a minimum removing the parenthesis after landmark, which I think caused at least me major confusion about the definition of landmark.

Yeah, I I think we want to clean that up to clear that landmark doesn't include districts. You have districts or landmark. So yeah, we can we can include that as a technical cleanup because I had like 10 questions I sent to staff about landmarks and individual resources that all become moot if you just delete that. Um, yeah. So, that's my next one. Okay. And that's my next one. All right. I think that's everything that I had for definitions. Anybody else have anything for definitions? Nope.

All right. So the next section is the San Monteo Historic Resources Inventory. Anybody got anything here? Yes. For um locally designated historic districts in B, must those be designated by resolution as well? Yeah.

Okay. So, I'm not sure what work C is doing here. This is what confused me is that C says all properties listed in the a the national and the California registers that are designated by resolution. But that's going to be the same exact thing as all properties designated by resolution as a landmark and locally designate designated historic districts by resolution because as you explained in your presentation listed properties listed in the registers don't automatically get added to the inventory unless they are locally designated.

So if I may add to that I think the first thing is A B and C are all designated by resolution I think ultimately at the end of the day. So they should probably all say designate designated by resolution or none of them. They should say designated by resolution. Yeah. So I think what this is trying to get at is that

if it's a landmark, an individual property owner applies, they go through the process, they get approval from the historic resources commission, and then I can't remember if it then goes to city council. Um, but ultimately it is approved and city council passes a resolution to to add it to the historic resources inventory. The same process happens for historic districts ultimately, but it's just more complicated because there's this noticing and and consent threshold and blah blah blah. M

then you get to see and this is where we were talking about that before it used to be if something was listed in the national reg register of historic places or California register it would automatically get listed in the local but I think what this is now saying is that it's not automatic but someone has to bring a resolution and my question was going to be who is bringing the resolution is it the property owner is it the historic resources commission is it the council is it staff I think we're saying the same And I think the answer is the owner which makes it the same as A and B.

I I think here what what the intent was of this section of the code was to be able to capture all those properties which had been previously designated by virtue of resolution. And so what I'm hearing through this conversation is that perhaps this could get collapsed down to that one sentiment. And then the future designation of properties is covered later in the ordinance when it goes through the procedures for designation. Yeah. Well, I I'm I'm not sure. I would I think this makes sense to have because then if people are like, I wonder what's in the inventory, they just come here and they look and they say, oh, it's all properties designated as a landmark or as a historic district pursuant to this ordinance,

which is also included in the definition. We have a definition for the Sanato Historic Resources Inventory. Yeah, but this is like the thing that I I I think exact I think what you suggested might might work, but I also worry that you would lose some clarity. I think for me if you just took out C, it would be saying the same exact thing and you would be fine and it wouldn't be it wouldn't be misleading suggesting that.

May May I add something to that? So I think there's an interesting edge case here that we may want to discuss which is that the definition of property for the National Register of Historic Places includes districts. And so there is a potential scenario where a district gets listed in the National Register which has a different consent threshold than we're talking about here. So for the National Register it's a opt out. seen some shaking hits. No.

Okay. So, that would never occur under the way that we have the designation criteria set up for adding properties. So, right now there there can be no designation by resolution under the current um procedures outlined for adding properties to the Sanonteo Historic Resources Inventory. So there would be no scenario where there was a district added to the national register that could be added to the local register without the owner consent provisions that we've outlined later in the ordinance.

Okay. Okay. Even though this section says all properties designated by resolution, but the definition the national definition of property includes district. You're saying that just wouldn't happen. Right. This was intended to capture those two properties that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places and by virtue of that listing, the California Register that were adopted via resolution because they had they have Mills Act contracts. That was the intent by for including C in this portion of So, it's really about specific properties today and not necessarily future properties that are designated,

right? It was about capturing those properties that were being carried over into Yeah. the inventory that is being created by virtue of this ordinance. Got it. Can which is why which is why I was confused. Yeah. Yeah. Could we be more specific about that and like say that in that bullet point like could we list out those properties so it's really clear that it's about those specific properties? I think the goal was to avoid like our current ordinance lists the downtown. The goal was that an ordinance shouldn't necessarily be designating individual properties within it

or maybe say as of this date like properties listed as of the date of the adoption of this ordinance. I'm just worried like if we lose the historic context here like 20 years from now people are like what were they thinking when they wrote this and then someone argues that it's about capturing future properties right so um so my understanding is that the three properties that are being grandfathered in for lack of a better term were designated by resolution so A and B capture that in in my opinion like past and future like they were designated by resolution or um or as a landmark. I guess maybe that's the distinction.

Yeah. So, that language would have to be revised. Um, this sounds like a good policy recommendation for council to consider would be my recommendation on how if if you feel that there's that much ambiguity. I mean, I might suggest there might be more thought going into it than necessary or if you think there's a easier way to fix it. But I would say if if you have concerns, I would say include it as a policy recommendation and then council could consider it.

Um um perhaps we could what we I don't know if this would work, but we could say the Sanonteo Historic Resources Inventory is the official list of locally designated historic resources and at its inception includes that list if that might work. I my my suggestion would be I I actually think this is very meaningful because it confused me for the rest of the time to be honest. So I whatever you think makes it clearer, but I also do think this is an important section both past and future. So trying to capture both sentiments in this section I think would be helpful. Yeah. And and my feedback is if C is not intended to cover future properties listed in the his National Register of Historic Places or California Register, then then that bullet point needs to be clearer.

Yes. Yeah. I would just say like naming properties in an ordinance um could potentially become clunky later if those properties are to be removed then you have to do an ordinance update. So for those reasons we try to keep things um clear but not specific. Yes, of course. That's what I'm trying to avoid is like 10 years from now, someone makes an argument that their property that they just listed in the National Register of Historic Places should be able to be added by resolution to So I mean maybe a simple fix is for C are designated by resolution as of the date of this or as of the date of this ordinance. Yeah. Yes. Go lawyers. Okay.

You're the only one who's ever said that. past 10 p.m. is when we start getting loopy on the planning commission. Um, I do still have comments, but like I said, they're kind of Okay, so I don't think we have any more for this section. The next section is designation criteria. No, I just want to clarify these are the these are the Secretary of Interior standards just rearticulated. Uh, no. These are designation criteria that closely align with what are used for both the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources. Okay. What am I talking about?

Okay. So, there that's right because council said that this time they didn't want to add any additional criteria. We did um consider that and we there was broad support for that but through the work that we did through our outreach and engagement nothing kind of arose from those discussions that weren't already covered by these four things.

Right. Makes sense. So, just for like just as a comment on it, and I there's nothing to I'm suggesting in the ordinance itself, but what this is what this is doing is saying properties basically meet the same exact criteria as being listed on the historical register or the California register, but they won't be listed here because they have to go through the owner consent process um under our ordinance. Otherwise, they're, you know, us with the caveat that things may have changed since they were listed originally on the historical registers. Well, there's that and that there's the opportunity for someone to designate their property only locally if they're not interested in being a national or California registered property.

Right. Right. But for the listed for the ones listed on registers, the owner consent provision is what's is what's keeping it being considered a local historic resource. That's it. That's the only thing because that's good. The criteria are the same. Yes. And we don't have automatic designation. Yeah. Right. Right. I I guess I would interject. I believe that that you could have something that's more specific locally that may not raise to the California state level, but we could consider enough for designation here, but

things can be listed in the California register that are significant locally. So, there's a lot of there's a lot of flexibility for things that can be added. Okay. All right. Is that all we had for um designation criteria? Anybody have anything for eligibility requirements? I already um asked my question about it and they clarified, but just like so everyone's aware that I had the same andor question actually.

Yeah. So the district historic districts have to be at least 50 years old and otherwise meet the criter designation criteria which I think is important. So I have a policy recommendation here. I think we should add a third eligibility requirement that the resource be visible from the street. So if you go back to the very beginning of this ordinance, it says the intent of the historic preservation ordinance is to promote the protection, enhancement, preservation, and use of historic resources within San Mateo, recognizing they of economic, cultural, and aesthetic benefit to the community. It is further recognized that the economic, cultural, and aesthetic character of the city will be enhanced by honoring its heritage and ensuring that future generations can experience and appreciate it. And so my opinion is if you have a historic resource that's behind a 10-ft tall hedge or a 10-ft tall wall or fence, how can future generations experience and appreciate it? I kind of had this like if a tree falls in the woods, does did the tree exist? Kind of like thought about this and given that the definition of major alteration references the street facing elevation in three places, it just felt weird to me that we're so particular about changing the street facing elevation when you may not even be able to see the street facing elevation as someone walking by. So, I think that city council should consider adding a third requirement that the resource be visible for the appreciation and experience of the community. I I'm not certain if it's necessary um simply because

um most of the time, you know, we have we do have we do have other code relating to, you know, fencing and front, you know, kind of things. if you're talking about plants. Um, you know, I'm not sure about that. You know, also also if we take into consideration the fact that, you know, um, if we're talking if we're talking about future historic districts in Sonteo, um, we're talking about, um, a high threshold right now in this ordinance for ownership to be I'm not particularly concerned about districts. I also think it's unlikely an entire district would have

be hidden from view. Hedges. Yeah. I I'm talking about like tall hedges historic district. A a landmark, right? Like it feels weird to me to designate a landmark as historic that people can't see. But um the certificate of appropriateness contemplates design standards that will apply. And so I'm wondering if it kind of flips the order of operations to say it's not a historic resource in the first instance because you can't see it as opposed to saying it's a historic resources so make it visible. Meaning could the design standards include that you can't have 12oot hedges. So that would

but what but if you already have 12 foot hedges like what would you do require the certificate of of appropriateness is for future work though. It's not for designating the property as historic. It's for contemplating future work to that property. Yeah. So if I I'd be in support if you wanted to if you wanted to propose particular standards that might be retroactive or something. I don't really know how that works, but

and I think there's some discretion here to the council to discuss it because it could be like, well, maybe there's an existing historic 10-ft wall, right? And so, we don't want to demolish the historic 10-ft wall to make it visible from the street, but maybe there's an alternative where photos and a and a tour video are put on a public website that people can experience. Right. Actually, if we're going to talk about landscape features, it might be worth mentioning the Dabble tea house as an example where um you know, we have a a Japanese garden uh which was uh laid out by the same designer who uh uh laid out the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park uh which is a part of it at least part of its significance. Uh and it has a fencing right now. It's not uh visible in a significant way from the street. It's there. You can see portions of it from the road, but it is not, you know, immediately wide open to the street. And um but I I mean personally I do believe that that is a um I think that is an example of of a resource in the city which is going to be uh you know one of the first you know few individual resources on our inventory which um I personally feel you know meets certain you know thresholds for significance and um would kind of run up against this um this condition. Um that's a very specific example. Um but I'm you know worried would worry about sort of uh if this addition would impact that particular uh resource. One suggestion I might have if you want to consider it, maybe you make that a criteria for being a Millsac property that you have to be visible from the

street or maybe there could be some options I think to consider a resource like Laaba. Um but that could be an option. So maybe I was going to suggest it there too. So yeah, maybe that's the more appropriate place for it. Yeah. Okay. It is also one of our two Millsac properties. Yeah. Well, and again, I don't know where the right place is to stick this because it it it is a policy, but I feel like if we're going through all of this work to designate resources historic, there should be a way for the public, the community to be able to experience all of them.

I I I do agree. We don't want this to be um especially for especially for specific like for big incentives like going forward

uh tax abatement, that sort of thing. Um, ideally the the public should be able to derive a benefit from that uh resource being able to see it from the street. Sure. For example. And I won't belabor the point, but the reason I had it here first and not in the mills act is because like even the process of designating a district historic, it comes at significant expense to the city in staff time, you know, and um I think Glazenwood actually does like the community does a tour through Glazenwood every year, which is awesome. And I I would love it if that was like a formal requirement that if you're going to be designated historic, if we're going to go through this effort, that there is some way for the community to experience the properties. Okay. Um I think that's it for trying to move us along because we got 45 minutes.

Could I add something really quick? Um

um the 45 year uh automatic trigger um for evaluating um resources. Would that be something that uh the council might be able to um look at as maybe a preliminary portion to the eligibility requirements as having it gone under review by the automatic evaluation first and then having A and B follow it. So I have a sim similar comment about including um a section about or subtraction um that codifies in our local ordinance the SQL requirements. Um I think the I think what you're suggesting that the SQL requirements come into play at the permit review process and this is before that at just the eligibility um determination process. So, are you thinking um as like part of the application for a landmark or Okay,

I just brought back I mean are were you looking to get that 27660690 section back in because that's kind of what was getting at the point where I think I believe you were highlighting which was the eligible properties. I think I think if I could, Commissioner Shle, I think he's saying um for any property that's being proposed for listing, that property should undergo the SQA review before going through the listing process. Is that right? Yeah. Would that be appropriate? It wouldn't be subject to SQA. Okay. But you could do a squat type like review but not subject to SQA

because the the SQA review is triggered say when you're doing a rebuild of a property or an addition where you're altering it. The designation isn't the same as like an actual alteration to the property. So that's that's kind of the difference where one would trigger it but the other wouldn't I follow. Okay. Through the through the chair just point of clarification. Are you referring to a historic resource evaluation?

Yeah. just during um the staff presentation. Yeah, I did that. I jotted that down as there was an automatic trigger for um resources that were 45 years that would automatically start an evaluation process. I was just wondering if it would be useful to have that in the eligibility requirements having already undergone that before they before the rest of the requirement. So through the chair uh the actual SQL review would only happen if there was a designate or if there was an eligible historic resource and they were proposing changes or modifications to it. However, one of the ways that SQA is implemented is through um a historic resource evaluation which tells us if a property is eligible or not. And so while that's technically not part of SQUA HRE or some similar documentation would be required for listing.

Okay, that gets to basically the this right here the nomination. Yeah. Yeah. So in order to be considered you have to be at least that age. Then the next step would be the application review and th those materials include that HRE. Okay. So it seems like the guardrail is already in place for this. what I'm trying to get at. And so, yeah, thank you.

Okay, that was the procedure for designating landmarks, right? So, next section is procedure for designating historic districts. Does anyone have any Oh, did I skip one? I think we procedure for designating landmarks. All right. Yep. Should we be making big picture comments that are applicable to multiple sections in the first section in which they arrive? I made Commissioner Cler wait till the end, but maybe maybe we should go ahead. No, I I don't I don't think it's necessary to comment on it right now, but I I I do have comments. I won't make my big picture comment yet. Big picture comments incoming. Yeah.

I just wanted I did ask um and I my apologies to staff. I sent them tons of questions like just yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to get answers on a few of them and I just wanted to make sure my understanding was correct. Um on the owner consent in the procedure for designating landmarks, it says um it can only be made by application of the property owner or property owners representing a majority or controlling interest on which the resource is located. Is that a a controlling interest in the land on which the resources is Okay. All right. Just checking. Um and then um okay my other my other two comments were are answer in the question section. So okay great.

Any other folks for this section or should we move forward to procedure for designating landmarks? Sure. Or districts districts.

Districts. Oh my gosh. See it's getting late. Um, I'll just chime in first and say uh that um obviously in this case, you know, there there's been there was a lot of a lot of public comment. Um, we we got we got some direction from council that I think was pretty clear on this one as well uh as to the thresholds and things. Um, and um, I think that that is important to take that into account when we're looking at this uh, the thresholds and and I know there's I know we had some public comment about about the thresholds, but um, I feel like council was pretty clear. Yes, I it it's worth saying that for the public record that um I also want to acknowledge that we had a lot of comments about the consent threshold. We also had a lot of comments about the inclusion of the eligible properties on the 1989 survey, but I felt like the direction from council is really clear and so I don't feel the need to re-recommend anything to council that they've already provided input on. I I do think the in practical terms the result of these thresholds is is that very like they're like it's very likely that there will be few to no uh district proposals um they will be very challenging or it you know if there are district proposals they would be significantly more compact is the way is the word I like to use. Uh and um the one advantage of of compactness of course is that uh you know you really have to you can make I think in some case it can result in a stronger district.

Um and uh no particular areas in mind but that's that's just you know that's just my thoughts on that. I I'm I'm mindful of the late hour, but I also would say I I would love to hear your perspective on the ordinance, even if it's contrary to council direction, because I feel like we have spent, you know, as a a bunch of time thinking about this and thinking about externalities and things like that that um you know, from different perspectives than what they have than whatever they're hearing. And you know, it's worth whether we vote on it or not. But I I I I think it's valuable to at least say it if you're comfortable. Um even if we don't take a vote that's contrary to direction from them

or if you're addressing me. No, both both of I mean the both of you said it. I intend to say things contrary. So um go ahead. Huh? Is there anything you want to add? No, I mean I I I um uh I have my big picture things, but I think we're waiting on that. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have I do have a few specific things here. So yeah, um I asked in the questions period about what it means. My my big picture comment that's not about the whole thing but is about this is that

I recognize council directed a tiered approach but this is really ownorous um even in even in the context of a tiered approach. So um one thing being the the written certification makes sense. How else will you know that they've met the 20% support threshold? and not specifically articulating in the ordinance what that written certification looks like is also smart to give staff flexibility. But I guess my input would just be I think um I think you can meet what I understand council's directive to be about the 20% threshold without making the certification process like hugely burdensome. So just thinking about ways to make that process robust enough to make sure they meet it without making it um unmeable before we before they've even begun. And then um the requirement to provide notice of the application itself, the preliminary application requires in A1 that um um no wait not A1, A1 B um documentation that notification of the pursuit of the application was provided to all potentially affected property owners via mailed notice. Um, that's the first notice in the series. Then there's a second by certified mail, then there's a third. I mean, if you're talking about the central neighborhood, like that could be hundreds of houses. I don't I mean, I I've no not good at estimating. So, 500 houses. That's that's a financial burden that like a lot of people or even groups of people may not be able to meet in the first instance. And I'm not seeing what extra work necessarily that notice is doing. if you already have to get 20% of signatures or whatever it is. And so my recommendation would be that we

recommend to remove that extra notice step of the application itself because certified notice is required for the community meeting and you're going to have to knock on at least 50% doors to get 20% support.

I would I would be supportive of that recommendation. However, I will say I was at the meeting where this was discussed and I think the direction from council was really clear and was a response I think to how things had already gone in a certain situation where property owners felt like they didn't know an application was being prepared and wanted to have known that an application was being prepared and that's where the initial notice came from. And then of course you have to notice for the community meeting and then of course you have to do certified mail for the official vote, right? So that's how you end up with three notices. And so I think this is a desire to make sure that property owners don't feel blindsided again and and are aware when a group of people is preparing an application for submission so that they're not finding out about it when it's actually submitted.

I um I actually would like to chime in. Uh sometimes I think I don't have anything to say and then I hear the excellent insights from my fellow commissioners and I like oh yeah there was something else. Um just just kind of observations um not specifically about your suggestion which is I you know I think has merit but um I I think there's been a lot of confusion through this whole process um about what a local ordinance can do and what it does not do. um because we have this we we're establishing this local process but there is still the state process the federal process and we don't really have the control over those and I think that I again I think that this is very this is the because of the conditions here we are not likely to see too many district nominations but that's not going to stop people from taking a path of lesser resistance uh lesser resistance and doing a different like a state or federal route potentially and Um I just think it's important to mention that uh very clearly because I think there's been some again there's been some confusion about this whole process like what we were actually able to control here. Um and then um uh I forgot the first thing I was going to say. Well, I guess in in the interest of moving us along, do we have at least three people who are willing to make the recommendation to remove the preliminary application noticing? Because I agree with you, just to get the 20% signatures, you're going to end up notifying at least half the neighborhood. So, it does feel redundant to me, but I also understand that there was an a lot of community input that went into having that noticing requirement be there in the first place.

I appreciate that. I I didn't remember hearing specifically about the notice of the application itself. I mean, I I would also be open to a a recommended adjustment where the where the city provides the notice. Just I just think the financial burden is pretty um substantial um in light of the need for certified mail, which is even more expensive at the community meeting. I I see no problem with sending that specific recommendation back to the same council that originally was slipping this and give them an another opportunity. I think that's fair too to ask them, do you really want to do three noticing? Yeah. Okay.

Although I will say that the expense of putting together a historic district application, like in terms of hiring a consultant who can prepare the rigorous standards and bases and analyses you would need, I would expect would dwarf the mailing costs of noticing. That's true. That's help. But we do have this great statement now, too. So, right. That's true. But um okay, can I just clarify? So the the recommendation is on the three noticing not the certified mail or any other components of it. Yeah. To reconsider the the noticing under A1B the documentation of notification of the pursuit of the application.

Thank you.

I do remember the other my other comment which was about Glazenwood actually. Um I again with reference to this and and kind of the requirements here I do think it's kind of you know there there's something uh telling about the fact that we are you know working to get that done before this ordinance comes into effect. Um, I think I had asked a question about whether we had heard from anybody like exactly the number of people in Blazenwood who are in support of that district um being made official. And I think the answer I had received was that we hadn't necessarily heard any objections, but we didn't have an exact count of support.

That is correct. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I'm I'm assuming that that'll maybe become clear at the meeting next Monday. All right. I mean, that's why I asked the question because it does seem like, well, you don't you don't want this district to go through your own ordinance, your own cumbersome ordinance, but I or could it? Yeah, I but I I I do recall um and thank you, Zach, for clarifying that um really Glazwood, what it seems like perhaps actually maybe was designated at some point. And you know, I think our I think the city's position is that it it wasn't not that we lost the resolution, but who knows? And so, um, that kind of satisfied that question, that lingering like sort of equity question I had.

Why don't we move along? Yeah. Go to I'm just nervous because we have we're we're have to take a vote to go past 11. We got a few more things to go through. So,

okay. I have another comment in this section. Sure. Um, so this goes back to my question about um, notifying occupants. And I, for me, um, I, it makes sense in certain circumstances to notify occupants because they live there and the thing that you're trying to do there will impact them and they have some sort of like choice over. But in this case, the property owner is the one who has the veto rights or the opt-in rights, I guess, and they're the ones in the circumstances I can think of who are responsible for upkeep upkeep of the property. So I actually don't think occupants um and that could cause additional notice to additional

I agree with you actually like just like with the storm water thing when we all voted on the storm water it went to the property owners right because it's the property owners who are going to pay the fee so I think similarly here to your point it's the property owners who are going to be responsible for maintaining the property I don't know that it needs to go to occupants do we have three for noticing just to property owners and not occupants. Yes. Yes. Great. Amazing.

So, the next one is if we're done with designating historic districts, the next section is criteria and procedure for removing a landmark or historic district. Do we have any comments here? I do not either. So I think we could skip ahead to certificate of appropriateness. Yeah. So, I think in addition to the comments that Commissioner Bush already gave about this, one thing that confused me about this is um so under Historic Resources Commission review, it says no person shall demolish, construct, move, or alter any landmark or contributor within a historic district without obtaining a certificate of appropriateness. Um, and then it mentions that work proposed immediately after that work proposed for a landmark or contributor within a historic district shall be in compliance with the Secretary of the Interior standards. But I think what confused me is the section immediately above talks about demolishing, constructing, moving or altering. Is it possible to demolish a property and be in alignment with the Secretary of Interior standards.

No, no, no. But a a request for demolition would still have to go to the Historic Resources Commission for review. So the the requirement to adhere to the Secretary of the Interior standards isn't for anything under A. It's specifically for the construction or alteration and potentially moving. Correct. Yeah, that's accurate. And that that's just because they just wouldn't be applicable to demolition or Right. Like it's like, well, demolition could never meet the standards,

right? But I I think it's in there because you want to make sure that you just want to cover that base, right? If someone does that, you say you can point to this and say you didn't get your certificate. Not that you would have been able to get one, but you didn't. You didn't ask us about this before you did it. Yeah. Yeah. And then we discussed this before, but I was confused by B because it's it allows the zoning administrator to issue the certificate of appropriateness for projects that meet the secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation and a says that any work has to meet the secretary of the sta interior standards for rehabilitation. So then I wondered why would anything ever go to the historic resources commission unless it was a demolition. It seems like everything else has to meet the secretary of the interior standards and then the zoning administrator is able to issue a certificate of appropriateness in that case.

Yeah. And then then the the answer was

cases where it's very very clear, right? But we want to offer some flexibility for cases where it's very very clear and to acknowledge that the the standards themselves are elastic in some way and by nature they were designed that way. And so there will be certain properties with certain um proposed changes where you would want that to go to Historic Resources Commission to have that discussion to hash out whether they do believe it meets the standards or not. and those other projects where it's so clear that they do meet the standards because the work is you know in kind replacement it is um has documentation from some kind of study that's supporting that um and then the I mean the zoning administrator always has the ability in the case where if there is any uncertainty on whether it meets the standards or not to have it go to historic review commission or historic resources commission Sorry, tired. I think the explanation really helped me understand the intent. So, I don't know that I have a um suggestion anymore except, you know, is there anything we can do to make that clearer without requiring the explanation?

I think that would be part of what of our support resource documents. we would provide clarity to kind of for folks looking at this, what does that actually mean? And so we we could at that point we wouldn't necessarily need to put that much language in the ordinance, but then we would elaborate it on the resource documents.

Yeah. I'm not sure because the definition of minor alteration includes incind replacements for things. So or at least my interpretation of it does. I think that's right. Like for example, it includes um go back up to it. Um well, it includes any alteration that has been determined to have limited potential to affect the defining character. Um which includes any alteration determined minor by the community development director. And it includes any project um sorry any demolition or removal of insignificant exterior features including additions, windows, doors, and exterior sighting material that's not original. or otherwise lacking in historic integrity. It covers anything that doesn't substantially change the exterior character defining features of a landmark, including re-roofing, replicating existing original roofing, replacement windows and doors, matching the design. So, just not clear to me. I mean, I I recognize the need for maximum flexibility um and and generally appreciate that um notion, but I'm concerned about sort of the vagueness of the discretion here. It does seem like a lot of discretion on top of the already the discretion of the um CDD director CD director to determine what's a minor alteration in the first instance. Am I like are there other basically the way I read this is the the zoning administrator can approve major alterations as long as they meet as long as they clearly meet

right the standards. And I'm just wondering like what's a major alteration that clearly meets the standard.

I think one of the the problems is that you know we've p we've really tried to provide definitions that are um holistic and imagine the most common scenarios but we can't imagine every scenario that might come forward because we don't know what the condition or significance of certain properties is going to be. So because we can't anticipate that um we were just looking for like some kind of valve to be able to release that pressure where it doesn't have to go to historic resources commission when it is so clearly not um not being success or is successfully meeting the standards. So um it it's a little bit of a fail safe. You know it's a it's a belts and suspenders approach to it. Maybe it's not necessary, but um I think that was the intent is for us to be able to um have that fail safe. Mhm. May

may maybe an example based on your just what you just said could be like if if someone had a property and they you know find that a significant portion of a wall or a whole wall has rotted out and they are intending to replace it as inkind or as close to inkind as they can and match exactly the appearance and everything and it but it but they have to remove a substantial portion of the cladding on that wall. would that that would probably be a major alteration, but it wouldn't necessarily it would it could be done according to the standards and it would not would result in the effectively the same appearance and everything. Right. Would that be an example?

Right. like you're getting into major alteration territory because you have to remove potentially significant features to be able to address the underlying issue which you know do you want to spend time having it go to have a certificate of appropriateness discussion at a historic resources commission when it's something that could be handled at the staff level. Yeah. I think what might be helpful is something like, and I defer to whatever language you want, but something like I just came up with this, like no reasonable person could find doesn't meet the standards or something like some some defining, you know, like I don't know like that's a typical way some No, that's a very like typical term you might use in something. I'm not saying that's like I'm not saying that's the right term to use here, but

I think

and I'm not the I'm just I'm just that's like one way to kind of articulate what you're saying which is how do you define that this clearly meets the standards? Well, it clearly meets the standards to any like experienced planning development person or what like just so I don't think I have a more specific recommendation. I'm not I'm not recommending saying reasonable person, but the way that it's written is very capacious to me and I would recommend that we recommend something a little more specific because I think what we're ultimately doing is we're deciding where on the spectrum things should go to historical resource commission and where on the spectrum things should be decided by the zoning administrator. And as written, I'm not comfortable with all the things the zoning administrator might be able to do, but as intended, I am. And so yeah, and so I think just being clear about that would be helpful.

So what's our recommendation though? Good luck. I think the record is it's um the way I articulate it is

um edit 090 B2 uh Romanet 2 to um to be more specific about uh to be a little more specific about the circumstances that might qualify as not requiring historic resources commission review which for which no public p purpose would be served by requiring historic resource commission review of you which I understand to mean because any reasonable historic resource commission would say you you can do it. So um whatever it takes to that would be my recommendation be more specific and what we mean by that. Yeah,

this is one of those areas where the subjective sort of flexibility of preservation law is sort of running up into the desire for objectivity and um I just see I can see why the problem is coming up, you know. Yeah, totally. But it is a that's not uncommon and there's a lot of subjective things that Yeah. All right. I think maybe we should move on. Was it I don't know that we have voted on that. Oh, do we do we have three that would like to make that subsection more specific? Yes. Yes. Okay, great.

Could I just add one more last thing real quick before for um 3E uh the appeals process? Is it intentional to leave it a little ambiguous for not having a timeline or time constraint for the appeal um after a disapproval? Or would it be appropriate to suggest to council to maybe include a after a disapproval? You have so many days before um you could uh appeal this. I believe we have is there a supporting document already? It's it's uh 10 calendar days. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Is it just 10 days?

Just 10 days.

Um sorry, I do have another comment on this section. Um, going back to the general plan, there are two general plan policies that seem like they might apply to this section. One is 5.7 which says um demolition alternatives require an applicant to submit alternatives to preserve a historic resource as part of any planning application that proposes full demolition implement preservation methods unless health and safety requirements cannot be um met or the city council makes a finding explaining the specific reasons for duh um and I'm just wondering if a designated resto historic resource cannot be preserved requires city approval before the demolition of a historic resource. I'm just wondering whether that that policy seems like it could be baked in pretty easily here. Um because this is the exact place where people looking to demolish their um historic resource would be going for that approval. And the policy suggests that they must do a couple of different things. and um wanted to suggest that there might be a way to add um a se a subsection specifically for demolition requests that matches the um the general plan policy on the issue. Um

and and this would apply only to properties on our local resource inventory, right? So I think that that's a very reasonable point. Yeah, I agree. Great. Okay. Good catch. Well, and I I'll just note so it's clear for everyone that as um as Zach said, am I supposed to be calling you community development director Zags said? Sorry, I just call him Z. It's 11 o'clock.

DD said, director D. Um it does say in the general plan policy historic resources more broadly and and and yes, what I'm suggesting is more specific than what the policy is suggesting. And so it's not like we can say that policyy's totally done, but but yeah. And then and then there's another general plan policy action, excuse me, that talks about historic resources design standards, and it says create objective design standards for alterations to historic resources and contributors to a designated historic district, which is what we're talking about. Yep. I think that would also be uncovered under design guidelines, would it not?

Yes. Sorry, I'm not done. Oh, sorry. Um, I think that's covered in the ordinance. And that says, "And new development adjacent to historic resources within historic districts." And so what I'm reading that to mean is also non-contributing resources in designated historic districts. And I'm wondering in order to meet the call of that action, um it's as use the Secretary of Interior standards as we've done. I'm whe I'm wondering whether there's an opportunity here to meet the call for that action as well by um by saying something here about the applicability to non-contributing resources in designated historic districts which is what I understand the general plan action to be suggesting. M

I think the tricky bit here is that the general plan is suggesting that you need some design guidelines so that you can't go crazy on a non-contributing property that is adjacent to a contributing property. But without having those guidelines already in place, I'm not sure what to specify because I think saying that they have to conform to the Secretary of Interior design standards is wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So what what do we say here without those guidelines not existing yet? Yeah. I don't know. And then it makes would make complete sense if this is something that's peeled off later. Yeah.

I I see this as kind of a standalone effort where it's actually I think it's a bar broader thing where you're actually developing objective design standards for historic properties as well as adjacent ones. So there's a whole effort that would go into developing those ODS before they could be applicable. And just like I mean there's a number of ef ODS efforts that the city has on its to-do list. So I don't know where this one falls in that mix, but I would see this as a standalone effort that I don't know that we would want to reference until we actually did the work. Yeah, I think maybe when you do those design guidelines, then you come back and you update 27.66.10 to incorporate them.

I guess that makes complete sense to me. Um, but if the if the purpose of the general plan action is to preserve certain features of adjacent properties, um, and there's an indication that that's going to wait five years to do. I'm wondering if there's a a perverse incentive here to make your upgrades in the next three years until we do it. And if there's any way if you could incorporate something like that into the ordinance now saying you know design standards when they're uh you know when they're approved or something then it might at least be clear to folks there might especially in light of um what we might talk about in the enforcement section that um you can't just go changing everything now knowing that you know our plan is to eventually um require you to do things. I think maybe it sounds like me articulating out loud sounds like too much to bite off right now, but um I think it's worth like thinking about she says to the ether.

There are the chair uh just noting that it's almost 10:50. You might want to We do need to take a vote to continue past 11. I I I have a hard stop at 11 for family reasons. Um I don't know if that's going to put us in a tableabling situation. I have a number of comments that I feel are very important for me to I also have a lot of comments about the middle take just a brief uh recess and I can make some accommodations real quick. Oh yeah, absolutely. Why don't we take a five minute break? Yep. Through the chair. Uh the commission will need a motion to vote before 11 p.m. to extend the time. And by how long?

By what? By how long? Can we break for five minutes so you can make a call and then we can come back and talk about it? Yeah. Yeah. No. How long you want to extend? An hour. Yeah.

Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Down. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat.

through the chair. We're ready to begin. Okay. Um, can we have a vote on continuing this meeting to midnight? I make a motion to continue meeting to midnight. Is that what we do? Yes. Second. Great. The other option is that we would continue, but um yes date I think we can wrap this up in an hour. I am optimistic. All right.

Okay. Oh, sorry. I thought we needed a roll call vote. Can we just affirmatively Okay. Yeah, we're all in agreement. Okay. All right. Let's keep going. All right, we were at um design guidelines. Does anyone have any more comments on the design guidelines? I had just been about to say um there there is that question uh I think which um Commissioner Bush mentioned about the sort of gap right now. Um but um I I have like uh I don't know if we can the SQA thing is that you're talking about on the design guidelines

and the and the policy uh um was it CD? Oh, for um for properties adjacent to contributor properties in historic districts.

Yeah. I mean, I um I don't know if we can I don't know if we can like direct people to someone else's uh documentation or something like that, but I know I've seen very good um sort of style guidelines, historic style guidelines like from the city of Santa Barbara for instance. um and uh which I think are would be really instructive to to at least look at to inform our own or to you know kind of I don't Yeah, I I think that could be a topic for when those design guidelines happen. Yeah. But in the interest of time, I would try to move us forward to the next section. Yes.

Which are incentives for preserving historic resources. Yes. Does anyone have any comments on that section? I do not. I certainly do. You do? I have quite a few. Okay, then why don't you go ahead? Quite a few. Yes. This is kind of the big thing for me because uh and and it I'm just going to use this as an opportunity to talk about some of the bigger things. Totally. And I would I would just again um we're going to try to get through the rest of this and the Mills Act in an hour. So, yes. Yes. But I I I I would try to just Very important for me. Yes.

Yeah. Absolutely. Um I I'll try and be as quick about it as possible, but basically I I think for me that the thing about the incentives is is you know looking at the structure of the ordinance overall. Um owner consent is um kind of what everything revolves around in terms of of taking actions here uh and getting things listed. And um the challenge right now is that I I I feel like the incentives that we currently have are not necessarily going to be strong enough. I mean one of the other things about and the Mills Act um because I had asked a question and you can reconfirm that but I think I had asked if the Mills Act contracts are technically available to people who are um just uh um applying for the technically available for people who are just on the California register. Is that correct? We would need a local designation as part of our local program. That's a a requirement or that's a recommended require. I believe it's an original requirement and we would keep that.

It needs to be a local reg. Okay. Okay. Even that being case um you know the thing about the Mills Act of course is that that's up to the discretion of of the city council. um in light of the fact that there's been a lot of discussion lately about you know milsac contracts and and the impact of that uh tax abatement on um you know local budgets and um there's you know I know there's been some controversy about that in Redwood City um San Diego other cities across the state you know I I'm just concerned about how realistic that is you know if a property owner is you know looking at this as something that they would want to do they're going to say okay well how likely am I to get a millac contract and we're also with the fact that we're keeping we're limiting that to two per year. Um and then our other specific incentive that we have is the state historic building code. Um and that one is one I think that is, you know, obviously we'll have some documentation about that. We'll be able to talk about that. We could have something which is like really explain like here's what you can do with this. But um I think that's you know the kind of thing that's very difficult for people to um like are they going to enter into uh are they going to be interested in joining our being on our resource inventory specifically access to that? I'm not sure because it's it's kind of difficult you know for people sometimes to really say okay how am I going to use the code? code is code is is often very complex and so as an incentive I'm just not really sure um how strong that one is either and then we have we have this you know line saying additional incentives um my concern there is of course you know I talked about you know when is when are we coming back to this topic I don't know that we're coming back to this topic anytime soon

so is your concern that there aren't strong enough incentives and if so do you have suggest specific incentives you would suggest just

well yeah I mean um I was doing a lot of research looking at uh of my own research I was like okay what kind of other incentives are available in other cities um you know one of the one of the ones which I noticed uh is available in a number of cities is um they will uh you know when you're when you go through this process and you have to like get a certificate of appropriateness and you're doing these things you know there are often fees associated with that so there are a number of cities including in the Bay Area that wave fees for certain administrative uh actions that result um from being on the register. Uh and um there are other things too where you can get even more creative, right? I I I just I'm just trying to find ways to get people to want to participate in this program because my concern right now is that the incentives are not there to do that. And with the incentives not being there, um I worry that it is I worry whether it's really meeting our our our policy goals.

Sure. I just think that right now we have to make a recommendation right for what to do. So if you have specific incentives you want to offer or if you want to uh recommend that staff look at additional incentives. Um I yeah I mean the problem is right now you know is like I I have you know some examples in other cities uh but um I think that now and and because but I think because we're not you know this is not likely to come up again for a while um I think the way to go would be um instead of saying you know um uh city council may authorize as appropriate you know they they are not going to to know what their options are um I would love to see some additional you know incentives uh at this point in time to make this program a little bit more attractive so that it may actually be utilized. Um and if that means you know that maybe um some options are presented to council um you know like maybe a couple different things again that some yes

maybe that's a task is assigned to the newly created historic resources commission. Um, that's a great idea. Then the question is, is that something that um uh is that something that we need to specify right now or is that something that would be Why don't we make a recommendation to suggest that that council consider having the Historic Resources Commission um look at additional incentives as soon as possible. Yeah, I you could kind of do it twofold say that um highlight that there that there should be additional incentives in explored and that that could be a task for the newly created historic resources commission. Perfect. Yeah, sounds great to me.

The the last thing I really do want to I'm sorry I want to get these things out. The last thing I wanted to say was it was uh one of the things which is specifically mentioned uh under action CD5.11 uh is the possibility of establishing a transfer of development rights program. Uh that would be a very complicated and a very I I mean I think I talked about this uh when I had asked some questions uh of staff prior to the meeting. Um I was doing some additional research that it's a very complicated topic uh that would require additional study. Um but from what I was reading uh something like that would have the potential to be a very powerful tool um to promote preservation at the same time that it could promote um more ordered development uh in areas um in his in areas with a lot of historic resources. uh in particular. Um I think that it could is something that could actually mesh very well with um incoming state laws like SB79. I I see potential there. Uh and it would advance um something which I feel is important which is finding ways to make preservation work more in harmony with our other development goals and other other you know citywide goals. And um so if the historic uh preservation commission had an opportunity to look at that possibility as well as other incentives, um I think that would be um a really good use of the new commission's time.

Okay, I'm on board with that. So I think I think the specific ask would maybe be to have council direct that upon the creation of the new commission that one of their first tasks would be to uh investigate additional uh incentives including uh a possible TDR program.

Yeah. And I just want to echo that um I also don't think this ordinance is is going to have any impact whatsoever until those new incentives are or additional incentives are added. So um you know if if there's support from the commission, I would suggest we include a sort of suggestion of urgency like like I I I suggest a recommendation made clear that we think probably the ordinance as written won't be effective without them. You mean it won't be effective in I in in attracting more property owners to the program?

That's that's Yes, I think that's I think that's where I am. Yeah. Okay. All right. Do you have any more comments on that section or should we move forward to I'll save the rest for later. Okay. Great. Next section is the duty to keep in good repair. Does anyone have any comments on that one?

Um, I had a question that I asked this tap that I I I had got an answer on yet, which is when it says that um when it has the term it Sorry, I'm just trying to find the section. Um, the owner of a resource listed in this in the inventory shall keep in good repair. I think that's intended to mean the owner of a landmark or a contributor in a district. Or is it intended to only apply to landmarks or is it intended to apply to landmarks contributors and non-contributors? The goal I think the goal would be at anything covered by this ordinance. Yeah, I think that's accurate.

Okay. So, landmarks and contributors. So, I I think that language is uh could be cleared up because I think that's a good suggestion. Again, I don't think that's like a council suggestion. That that was just I wanted to make sure I understood what the intent was.

Okay. Enforcements and penalties. Yeah. So, go ahead. It's instead of resource listed that we say my only question on that is um given the the uh should we say historic resource as in subsection J because it could be any part object structure site like

sorry we should should we say the owner of a of a historic resource as defined in subsection J or land right is that is that what you're I'm sorry no I'm just looking back at which specific thing um I my understanding was that the term historic resource as defined is intended to be broader than resources listed on the inventory and so my understanding we want it to be this is applicable to designated resources got Sorry. Okay. Sorry.

But even for the things listed in the historic resources inventory, I think the point is there are landmarks, there are districts, and those districts have contributors and non-contributors. And so who exactly like does a non-contributor have to keep their property in a good repair? No, it's just landmarks and contributors. So I think that's the part we want to clarify. Yeah. Oh, I have comments on the enforcement section, but go for it.

Okay. So, um there were a lot of comments about the lack of enforcement mechanisms. And I I tend to agree. Um it I think there's two pieces of the ordinance, right, which is the first is designating and the second is getting a certificate of appropriateness, which we can for all intents and purposes consider to be a permit um before work. And so, um, what I would typically expect to see here would be, um, penalties related to both processes. So, penalties related to, for example, submitting false information in support of an application to be designated. Um, penalties for obstructing applicants in some way, whatever, burning their mail or whatever it is, I don't know. Um, burning the mail notices. Um and then penalties related to performing work or or not or um not seeking permits in the circumstances in which you should and those would be the typical administrative fines that

or not keeping your property in good

or not exactly I mean you normally you would say like fines for violations of this chapter or something like that but that might not be exactly applicable um to some of it but I do think um even if there are administrative fines for um typical code enforcement violations uh like um I don't know installing a water heater without a permit or whatever. Um it's worth thinking about whether there should be um greater or more frequent fines for actions taken on historic resources that may not be uh fixable. And I think that's that would be an important thing to be thinking about when we're thinking about penalties to dissuade folks from um because they're public resources in some ways as opposed to, you know, private resources like just your home when you do something without a permit. Um that there should be maybe even stricter penalties for not following the processes. understanding that those stricter penalties are also dissuade would dissuade listing. But I do think um having a robust penalty system makes a lot of sense in light of the fact we're talking about things that we don't want to lose and like can't afford to lose. So, I don't the two things I said about application submissions, but I my I guess my my real suggestion is just trying to make this enforcement and penalty section consistent with other penalties that are used in the Sato City Code with the understanding I think maybe even more uh um uh greater fines might make sense in this context. But I I I'm not going to suggest specific penalties because I do think consistency across the code makes sense.

So I guess your recommendation would be to strengthen the enforcement. Yeah. And I guess I would say ensure that there are fines associated with this and maybe they're in a different chapter or whatever, but there should be fines for um violations and that and I would recommend that those we council consider those fines being greater than the typical fine if if that's allowed.

I don't that there's a bigger effort involved to change our administrative citations. I we do have a reference to chapter 7.14. um which does that's the that's the property maintenance code. So I think we would there's a bigger issue if we're going to change our penalty fee structure that would need to go on but we could apply our penalty fee structure in to in make sure it includes this ordinance. Okay. Yeah, it's a good start. Yes. Yes. And I would recommend council consider whether to go through the which I I know requires different notice and all that stuff. also say that you know one one of the things at the end there violation penalty um seeking injunctive relief to restrain or enjoin

or to cause the correction or removal of any violation um that can also be a having to undo something substantial uh can represent a significant penalty in itself. Oh yeah, absolutely. The and it's just a lot of city resources to file a lawsuit to enjoin someone to do something. True. Having the kind of interim penalties I think is helpful. Did you have any comments on this section? No. Okay. So, is there a can majority in support of that recommendation? Yes. Yes.

All right. So, I think the remaining sections we can do together which is environmental determination, severability, publication. That's standard ordinance language. Anybody? Anybody? No. Are we good? Yep. The boiler plate looks great. Great. Yep. Um, you said you had some general comments you wanted to talk about.

Um, yeah. I mean, like I said, I I just at the and it comes back to the incentives thing just a little bit, which I I don't need to repeat myself there. Um but I just feel like um you know uh in order to properly advance this this general plan goal, we want people to be actively choosing to participate. We want to make this something that is that is not creating new burdens for them or if it if it is creating a new uh you know like for instance if they have to now be getting a certificate of appropriateness that there is suff sufficient offset for that plus a little more otherwise I'm just not sure that I'm seeing a lot of people uh participating in our local program and um obviously this evening I just learned well you know we have uh we also have uh a lot of uh potential I mean I and this just my opinion I what I I think are would are would be considered uh eligible resources in areas which are going to be seeing uh substantial development um in potential in the future and um I would hate to um see those go um without some acknowledgement or some ability for like some opportunities afforded to those people to find a different way to um achieve the economic goals that they want from their property while also you know protecting that history. Um which is why I think some other incentives you know are so crucial there. On that same note, you know, the survey question I think, you know, is is uh is um interesting to me because, you know, we're saying, okay, no survey. One of the biggest complaints that I have often seen about how preservation often is handled is someone will go to do something um uh you know, they'll they'll say, "Well, I I think I'm going to do a project with this property. I'm going to make some

change. I'm going to tear it down. I'm going to build something bigger." uh and um a preservation advocate will come out late in the process and say that is the home of the first female council member on the Sanonteo City Council. And we've all known about that forever. And the common response to that is, well, you know, that should have been documented already. That should have been recorded somewhere. that should have been available for people to to know in advance. It's it's more orderly to have this information uh laid out beforehand so that everyone understands what the what's going on. So, um instead we're saying we're not going to do that. We're going to potentially do this peace meal which is kind of going to perpetuate that what I see as a problem. Um uh at the same time obviously again you know if we're going to say okay this is an eligible resource and it might be um you know now subject to additional burdens there needs to be an offset for that. Um so you know um and and and it is one of it is another action in our general plan here uh 5.1 re historic resources survey. So, I understand that there may not be an appetite for this now, but I I'm sort of suggesting that um that might be reconsidered or paired with some other things again to offset any um additional burdens that might pose or um just to you know find some other way to document things. Um so that we are not you know ending up in that situation where we are reviewing a project and people are

coming out you know late in the process and and um you know voicing objections. I'd rather you know kind of that's again that's the benefit of a context statement too is like is to say okay this is this is the history right this is now sort of objective and to a certain degree we understand what's you know um you know what what kinds of things might have significance so um I'm just sort of on the fence overall because I like I said I um it's not so much what's in the ordinance it's the things that I think it needs to add or needs need to be added to it. And that that's um uh that's just kind of left me sort of um you know on the fence because I feel like if these things can be if council is willing to consider these additions, if they're willing to consider you know these other things, I think um it can become something that will actually satisfy this this general plan goal and um can actually be effective. Um, but I worry that um, right now it's just going to uh, sit on a shelf.

Any other general comments about the ordinance? Commissioner Bush, I was trying to make space. Commissioner Sham, do you have anything? No.

Okay. Yes. I well I have a few more proposed recommendations that I think are bigger picture but I'm going to do them in the context of my comments. Um so on the squa um review process so as director tall described in his presentation um under squa properties that are over a certain age are required to be sort of at least given a first blush review as to their historic significance And um the planning department has the uh discretion to then determine what kind of rises to the level or will be creating criteria for determining what rises to the level of um needing further uh review as an eligible for l historic resource for lack of a better term. And so, SQA has baked into it this process of reviewing the eligibility, the historical significance of a lot of properties that do not qualify for our historical ordinance here. And I feel like there was there's a lot of misunderstanding, myself included, about that. um including in the presentation we saw that there would be no review of the historical significance of properties absent this ordinance which is not which is not correct in light of SQA but then we talked about the exceptions or the exemptions to SQA that have now been passed at the state level

and so my concern is that that failsafe of of either a a first blush or a deeper SQA analysis is is going to be lost for a lot of properties in and around our downtown district close to transportation and in our central district where we already know that there's um historic properties. And so my recommendation would be that we add back in uh something of the of the ilk that was in the original draft or one of the earlier drafts that gives the development director uh independent from from SQA um the ability to kind of think about the historical significance of certain um certain resources because then even if SQA doesn't apply there's still someone thinking about whether they're historically significant. it. Now that I'm seeing this, I'm seeing that it says the historic resource evaluation would inform the adoption of the appropriate environmental determination pursuant to SQA. My recommendation is that it doesn't have necessarily have to be in pursuit of SQA because otherwise we're not doing this for um you know potentially a broad swath of our of historic resources.

So I'm going to ask you because you're a lawyer. I'm not the lawyer though. Um there was I know that the less red tape organization had a lot of objections to that section and their lawyer sent several comments in about it.

There is in the packet that is the community um outreach and engagement summary has those letters. I would say we're running out of time here, but there's a letter dated February 11th that is three pages long that enumerates all of their concerns with that section. And they're particularly concerned that that section undermines the consent um criteria. I am not a lawyer. You're a lawyer. Well, I don't even think Have you Have you read this? Because I would I did not read all 278 pages of the

Okay. I would before we put this back in like I I wouldn't want to make that decision lightly. I would want to make sure that we understand the concerns that are presented in this letter and we're making an informed decision to recommend putting it back in.

Sorry if I could just chime in. I mean, my whole my whole feeling on this, my whole feeling about the incentives thing is has been informed. I've been thinking about not just the general plan, but also the very specific um direction from council about uh consent, about owner consent. My whole thing has been thinking about, okay, how do we incentivize people to participate? Right. I I I appreciate that. I I mean I'm I'm not entirely opposed either to the idea of of finding ways to um properly identify the the most significant um individual properties that might be in these older parts of town in particular. Um but I um do feel it's very important to to respect this like this owner consent thing. So, I've been trying to think about ways how do we how do we do this while maintaining that? And that's why I've been sort of thinking about the incentives, trying to find ways to to um and and getting that in place as soon as possible to try and incentivize some of the people in those development areas um to participate in something or or voluntarily join something or or uh without having to um necessarily uh put back in the provision which was removed because again I know that's going to be a really that's going to be something which is really um uh could be contentious. I could anticipate that council might not be supportive of that proposal. Um so if we were to put something back in that was something like that, I think it would have to be a lot more um prescribed. There is no um I guess so I haven't I haven't read that letter. Um, that makes sense. And I guess in the interest of time, it

doesn't I don't necessarily I guess need to respond with my opinion like about but I mean there's there's no doubt that um if the concern is that it interferes with owner consent, SQA is already doing that. So um the issue then is that it interferes with owner consent in the context where there's otherwise a SQA exemption. Um, and so yes, I think that's probably accurate. It

interferes with owner consent on a policy level, not a legal level. Like because it is saying certain properties that have not consented have to undergo uh have to be evaluated. So, okay, that makes sense. You're saying it's contrary to what the what the council has already sort of rejected, which is is is fine.

I think I think we could just restate again there was the discussion of those properties in the SB79 areas which would be potentially exempted from SQA review but I think I think it's a little more than that right because it's also that if they're not specifically on a local if if they were not our if they're not on our local resource inventory they do not would not have any specific protections is that also correct yeah for SB79 it sounds like as of January 1 of this year if you were not listed 2025. Oh 25. Okay. So that's

Yeah. Yeah. It's backdated, right? So then so then if we even if we were to say um initiate a even if there was a survey and there was a determination of eligibility, the determination of eligibility under SQA would not be um would not itself grant any protections is my understanding. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, it' have to be listed.

Yeah. Yeah. which is it which is again why I'm like okay well how do I incentivize if I want to do if I want if I want to protect these things how do I incentivize that and it has to be a really good incentive um to to try and and protect those properties it has to be something that that offsets the potential economic loss of uh development rights essentially right and just to say make express what is that having to go through SQA anyways incentivizes you to go through the ordinance process. That's I don't think it does.

Oh, yeah. No, it definitely does. If you have to go through a historical review evaluation anyways, then why not then then then why not why not get designated under the ordinance so you can at least take advantage of the incentives of the ordinance if the incentives are good enough. Yeah. No, exactly. Yes. No, I'm I'm saying I'm what I'm saying is in alignment with what you're saying. Yes. Yes. I agree. I agree. Um Okay. I have another comment. Okay.

Okay. Um, so my my recommendation was rejected a long time ago, it sounds like. Um, well, um, Commissioner Cler uh had concerns about not having a historic resources survey, uh, performed again. Now, um, there were a lot of concerns from public comment about not having the 1989 historic resources eligible resources listed automatically in the inventory. wondering if there's a like smaller scale historic resources survey that could be done just on the things we already know are were once found eligible. Um, you know, if the concern is the time and money, etc. to do a historic resources survey. Um, maybe there's a way to have a more confined version that kind of speaks to the concerns of the commenters who are like, "We already know these things are historic. What are we doing? Why aren't they in our inventory? Why would these property owners opt in right now with a lack of incentive?" um while also recognizing council doesn't want to do like a big old thing with a lot of money and stuff.

My brain is getting a little fuzzy. So, let me ask a clarifying question. If we were to do a new survey and we found some number of properties that were eligible for historic designation, those property owners would still have to choose to submit an application. Right. So, it's not as simple as do a survey, we find 200 eligible properties and they all immediately go on. Yeah. Resources inventory. I didn't mean to suggest that it was.

I I didn't mean Yeah. I I I guess I kind of felt that way from the public comments like it was like just put these 200 things back on but I'm saying it's not that simple like all those property owners have to engage in the process. It's not it's not that simple under the ordinance of as it's also it's also and again it's not it's not as simple under uh under incoming state legislation. Yeah. Where squa would no longer apply within a certain distance of uh what is the historical center of our of our city. So, um, the survey by itself would ident the the the benefit of a survey would be to identify people who could be then approached and they would say, "Well, do you want to be on our historic resource inventory?" And then they would say, "What's in it for me to do that?" Right?

It would be it would do some of this work for them, I think, is the is the point that comes back to the incentives. I don't really know exactly how historical resource surveys work. So I don't know if it is a typical to do it for like a subset of resources or if you do it for like a proposed neighborhood or something. Yeah, it depends. Survey efforts can be cityled, they can be communityled. It happens all kinds of different ways. Okay. Um there's nothing in this ordinance that disallows people from conducting a survey if they want to. So I it could be a way for the city to take on a cost that would otherwise be incumbent on the owner of these resources we already know at one point were eligible further incentivizing the owner to like come to the table with the with the caveat that the current incentives may not is also a potential incentive.

Yeah.

Though it I I recognize I'm I'm always trying to do my balancing act here. I recognize that there are homeowners who might involved and would find themselves uh you know having a determination of eligibility and I think I think that's where the concern came from. I I don't know that I agree with that but I I I having you know been to the council meetings and seen the deliberations and followed all of this for quite some time I'm that is the rationale about not doing a survey and not including that. But the determination of eligibility means means literally nothing because eligible eligible properties under the under our local ordinance under the inven aren't added to the inventory. It all all it means I guess is that you definitely do SQL but you're going to be doing SQL review for those anyways. So I'm not sure what what's the actual downside of being considered eligible when you still have to opt in to be listed. Is is there a recommendation here for council to do a survey? Like is I I guess I'm trying to figure out what are we asking?

Yeah, I mean I was I I don't I was wondering if it was a good idea middle ground solution to suggest that they do a survey on the properties that are have been like to reservey the properties that were already dee deemed correct eligible. Correct. because I think there's genuine concern that we know these are historical and and we have chosen not to include the 1989 properties for good reason. I understand because it's not a recent survey d

perhaps perhaps and this is just coming to me perhaps the way we structure this is again we we uh we are spinning up a historic resources commission perhaps we uh um could recommend that this be an additional that again the fleshing out of this be something that they uh um could be another task that they um kind of start to work on. I mean I believe director Doll said like step one is get this ordinance passed and then step two is do the surveys. So, it sounds like some amount of surveys are coming down the road map anyway, right? I didn't hear that. I don't know that. Oh, okay.

I think with all the priorities on the city's to-do list right now policy-wise, I I don't know that surveys are happening anytime soon, and they are relatively expensive to get done. They're resource intensive. So, I I think Commissioner Bush, you could say we recommend that you prioritize reserveying these 200 properties. I think that's about as much as we can do.

That's fine. I don't even know that I I don't know enough about historic resource surveys to even I have no idea what they cost. I guess I was just trying to say that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And if you're if you're trying to appease some of the folks who are really concerned about losing our historic resources, one way to do that might be to do a confined historic resource survey of the things that they're um most adamantly concerned about. So is my re my recommendation is like think about whether a historic resource survey that is limited to those 200 properties might make sense after we pass this ordinance. I I mean certainly for me I would second that recommendation.

Yeah. I I mean I wouldn't say for me it's not it's less about appeasement than it is about like I mean I I certainly have a genuine interest in um there's you know again there's a handful of things that I can think of off the top of my head that I would love to see properly documented

um and it's you know not um it's it's out of interest for the history genuine history which connects back to our context statement not things that I'm you know a personally a fan of um things which are which we Now have we already have some basis to say like this is something which may be of significance and it would be good to um it would be good to use the context statement partly as intended as it was intended as this document is intended to be used and and continue that second part of the work essentially in some capacity. Okay. Yeah. And I I'm kind of shortand of satisfying the the desires of

Okay. That's it. Yeah. All right. Any more comments on the ordinance?

I this is a clear council direction. I I don't think there should be a standalone historic resources commission. I think the planning commission should be handling it for a couple reasons. The only articulated rationale that I heard at the conso council meeting, although it's become clear that I haven't watched all the things that you have watched, was that our workload is too great. The staff's recommendation was it for it to be the planning commission. I I do not believe as a planning commissioner, as one of the two newest planning commissioners, that our workload is is too great. Um I know that there are a lot of development applications coming down the pike, but the required review of those is um significantly more streamlined in light of a lot of these new laws we're talking about. Um, two, um, it's a less I I think I'm correct in saying and one of the reasons it was suggested is less resources um, dedicated to standing up a new commission, training them, uh, dedicating staff to them, having different meeting times and yada yada yada. Um and third and perhaps more more importantly to me I am of a genuinely concerned that the people who would be interested in joining it will come to the commission with particular view views in mind and given the subjectivity as I hear it of the of the standards. I I worry that the folks who are most ardently on one side or the other are the ones who are going to apply and be on the commission. And I think mo most people aren't applying to the planning commission in hopes of making historical resource designation. I certainly did not apply for that. Maybe one of us did. Um but I just think there's a lot of reasons for it to be us. And um and I and my understanding is that originally council was suggesting that it it be a maybe not us but not a standalone a a new a new um commission. And so sorry to waste time to talk about things that are contrary to council

direction, but given that they've made a choice that I'll describe um very kindly as paternalistic for us to protect us from the workload, I think it might be uh fruitful for us to tell them that we don't think it's too much work for us if other people feel that way as well.

I agree with everything you just said and I will add some additional concerns that you didn't mention. Um, one concern I have is just finding enough qualified people to be both on the planning commission and the historic resources commission because as you can see, we have some people like like what's Adam going to do? Like are we going to boot him to the historic resources commission because like he's the most qualified person I can think of in this city to be on that commission, right? So when I think about trying to find 10 people in the city that have some level of professional expertise in this area, I worry that we won't be able to. And then the other thing I'm honestly worried about is that we will put the investment to stand up a new commission, which is not nothing, right? I think somebody went and looked at like how much we spend every year on all the commissions. It's like 50 grand per commission or something, right? But um we have three properties that are on our our inventory right now and I could certainly imagine we go four years before any of those property owners want to do any work and need a certificate of appropriateness and all of them might be granted by the zoning administrator. So you put in all the money in time to stand up a commission that may not actually see anything more often than once every five years. We we would also have um or we sorry

I'll just add one more thought to that. Like I could imagine literally an entire application for your application term going by, right? And and that group not even meeting and so you've done all this work to stand it up. Um yeah the the oversight body I shouldn't say we the oversight body would also be looking at uh major alterations uh and projects in uh the two potentially two districts. Uh and I think also might end up having to do some oversight over any um national register districts. Am I correct in that? They would they would it would those anything there might end up going to them.

Uh not national registered district just those that were adopted or designated locally. But you would also make recommendations on designation applications. Okay. So who would who who end if if if there were to be a national register district like who ends up overseeing those? There would be no local oversight. Oh. So it would have to go to like Sacramento. Well, there's no there's no being listed in the National Register is largely honorific. Okay. So, there really is no oversight to be had. I think that's also something that I think a lot of people haven't understood.

Um Okay. Well, but yes, I I echo I echo the comments about um questioning the necessity of having an entirely separate uh commission given the relatively small number of um properties involved, given the fact that we may not see too many applications right now, which is like my other concern. Uh perhaps that money also might be better put towards survey work or some other type of of uh you know preservation. uh goal and policy goal. Um it just and it could be anything else in that the city has in the general plan that we want to do. Uh and and I also think like I mean from my own experience um last year certainly we met very infrequently.

Huh? Do we need to Okay, we might need to take another vote soon.

Oh, okay. I'll wrap up very quickly. Um and uh yeah, last year we met very infrequently. um echo the comments about the streamlined, you know, kind of housing accountability act projects that we're seeing. Um I think that and I and I also I just want to say this uh about my fellow commissioners and anyone else that you know might serve on uh on this commission. and I um have full faith in the kinds of people who participate in this process to uphold their responsibilities of fairness and uh full review. Um, I think this meeting is a good demonstration of the care and attention that um, everyone here tonight has shown um, to this topic uh, and that I know will they, you know, um, will show to anything that would come in front of us.

All right. So, it sounds like we want to make a recommendation to the city council to reconsider standing up a new commission. Yes. Okay. With Yeah. With expressly telling them that we don't think it's too much work for us. Yes.

I I have one final comment and I I hope you'll indulge me at this very late hour, but I I just feel compelled to say I I personally think the decision to go with only owner consent is a mistake. And I know that that's the directive and I don't want to say too much about it, but this is a public resources issue and the city itself doesn't have any opportunity to list or even go through any sort of process to recommend the listing or dellisting of what is essentially a public resource. And if you look at public resources like across the spectrum, water, parks, like easements on land, like there's always some the the government body has some ability to make decisions or or at least propose something to somebody. Um, and I'm I'm genuinely concerned about our public resources when particularly like when the own I'm not talking about single family homes necessarily or districts which I know have gotten a lot of attention but like developers who are like you know we know although you know that like single family homes are being bought up by by corporations who don't care at all about our city that developments in downtown are being like burned and churned and it's like if the city can't step in and do anything there are certain property owners who you can't incentivize them enough or we're not going to create an ordinance that incentivizes them enough to preserve some of our historic resources. And so I just wanted to make sure to say that even though I know we're not going to like vote to recommend contrary, but um but yeah, I think it's a real um I think it makes complete sense not to let third parties who are not us recommend it, which is no is part of what happened in this uh what else is going on. But um for the city not to have any ability to participate I think is uh is very concerning for me.

I I echo that. I I appreciate when government has flexibility to act even if that flex even if that ability to act is strictly defined um as long as there are pathways. So I feel that I I I echo that. I think I think not having that tool in the future may may you know be something that is regretted be you know it's hard to say right now. Thank you for giving me a minute. So, of course, um I think maybe we should make another motion to extend this meeting to 12:30. I don't think it will take that long, but I think we should make the motion before we'd run out of time.

Motion to extend to 12:30. 12:30 tomorrow afternoon or Please, no. All right. 12:30 a.m. Okay. I'm in agreement with that. Yes. Yes. Okay. Any any other comments about the ordinance or should we move forward to the Mills draft Mills Act update? Oh my gosh, I forgot about the Mills Act. I know. That's why I was trying to rush us. Oh my gosh. Sorry. I thought we were done.

Nope. One more. Um, does anyone have comments on it? Let's start there. I think we've covered a lot of it already in other comments. I think it kind of ties into some of these other things. It's one of the incentives. So, I already talked about it extensively and I think that's all I have to say. Amazing.

Yeah. I my my comment is just I don't I don't have a I don't feel like I have enough information to um contextualize the two contracts per year. like I don't that seems low to me in light of the fact that um historic re these surveys only last five years. So if we were to do a survey of like let's say the 200 resources in the 1989 survey then we can only give a millac contract to however many 10 of them before it exp before the survey becomes outdated in some ways. So I just that's my only I don't I don't have a recommendation because I don't feel like I have enough context for that number. I I could see um council choosing a uh um general fund amount instead, but I I heard that there were some issues with that. But I guess my recommendation would be more to staff to have a little bit more data on the two

choosing two contracts for the council to to consider. Milac Millsac's been around since the 70s, I want to say. I have many recommendations if I should just start going through them. Okay, that was my only one. That was I just answered the question. Milsack's been around since the 70s and I think I guess I mean at least we only had three now two active contracts in Sonteo. So in terms of frequency here, yeah, but now we're going to have a historic resources inventory where and and then if we have the survey and people add but yeah, whether it results in Yeah. But anyways, yeah.

So um okay, there has been a fair amount of news coverage recently about jurisdictions suspending their Mills Act programs. Most recently Redwood City and Berkeley have done so. And so, um, effectively the reason that this was happening in these other jurisdictions is because people were starting to look into it and realize that these programs weren't being used as advertised. Um, so in Redwood City, they have 41 milac properties. There is a property that was a $5 million property that had saved $350,000 in property taxes over 10 years and then, you know, wasn't really doing any work for it. Um, like 80% of the properties submitted their annual maintenance reports, but they'd put things on the maintenance reports like either put blank or put like cleaning lint out of dryer trap or um checking and replacing smoke detectors, which are not things that are furthering the historic character and preservation of the property. So, that was what led Redwood City to um suspend their contracts. And I think if we are going to lose 11% of the property tax on these properties, we should make sure that we are ensuring that they are actually using the money to um preserve or enhance the historic character of the properties uh and not just be, you know, a property tax discount program for the people who realize that it can be used that way. So, um, I really want to make sure that Millsac's contracts are being used to enhance the history and equity by using public money to beautify and preserve San Mato's most vital historic properties. Um, and specifically, I feel like we should think about how to make sure these contracts are for the benefit of property owners that would otherwise struggle to afford preserving and

maintaining a historic nature of their property. Like I think if if somebody buys a $5 million property, they probably aren't the people that need a property tax discount to maintain it. You know what I mean? Okay. So anyway, specific recommendations. That's my that's my overall spiel. Um under state law, the minimum length of a millac contract is for 10 years and then it autorenews in one-year increments unless the local jurisdiction chooses to review and cancel the contract. So, one of my recommendations is that like other jurisdictions, we have property owners submit an annual report detailing the maintenance improvements that they made to the property. And I would also recommend that contracts um are reviewed by city council at the end of the 10-year term and that council review at that 10ear point and then every 5 years subsequently about whether to renew them because council can choose to cancel them. Um, so that way they can look at the maintenance reports, they can look at the 5-year inspections, and they can make that call like is this public money being used to enhance and preserve these historic properties? Um, you t we talked a little bit about like what is the right way to maximize the number of contracts issued? Is it two per year? Is it at most, you know, $500,000 of property tax savings to the city every year? Um, a third option, some other jurisdictions set a maximum value for eligible properties. So, they might say if this property value is above 3 million, you're not eligible for a Milsack contract. Uh, rather than having it be a specific number, I would say that um median sales price plus 25%, that way that number can float as property values increase. Makes sense.

So, if you're in like, you know, the bottom 75% of property value assessments, then you're eligible. But if you're the top 25 most expensive properties, you're not because you're probably not the target audience that needs the most help. Um, and then I would add a prohibition on executing new contracts or renewing existing contracts in years where there's a budget deficit. And I say this because I'm thinking about the fact that we are in a $7 million budget deficit this year and we're projected to have a 5 to7 million structural bene deficit over the next up to 10 years. And I don't know that this is the top priority of how we should be spending our money when we're in a budget deficit. I would also add some kind of provision for public access. So, um, you had a comment like I don't know given what we discussed if it's literally you should be able to view the property from the street to be eligible for a Millsac contract, but I think the public should be able to experience those properties in some way. So, if it can't be viewed from the street, maybe the property owner provides an annual tour, maybe they provide a video tour and some photos that go up on a website, but there should be some way to engage with the property. And then some other jurisdictions are now recommending annual audits to determine the true costs of having the program. So quantifying the property tax discount to the property owners and also the loss tax revenue to the city but also the county and the schools because the city gets 11% of the property tax but the remainder of that money is going to like school districts and the county and I think it would be a good idea as council is considering whether to grant new contracts or extending existing contracts that they know what the cost

of this program is when making that decision. That was really fast, but those are all my recommendations. Should we go one by one because I think I'm surprised. Yeah, I can repeat them again or I I could probably respond. Uh, sure.

broadly. Um, I do I do think um I mean I also mentioned that I had heard about you know there's a lot been a lot of coverage about issues with you know concerns around the Mills Act. um taking a tax hit in a deficit. Um coming back to my incentive going to hammer the incentives point again here a little bit. You know I think again like there is a certain point too where the conditions become um honorous to the point that people may say that's not something that's enticing to me to um participate in our local program. Um we also have very few current active contracts here. I see it as less of an issue here. I think what could potentially solve this issue without placing additional sort of restrictions there and because we are free to the the we we have a lot of lat I believe if I'm correct we have a lot of latitude in in how any individual contact contract is drawn up um beyond like obviously saying that there will be a model contract but we can we have the ability to add conditions on a case-by case basis already. Am I correct in that?

I think the goal would be we would have a standardized contract. We wouldn't want to vary them contract to contract. Well, but my thought is that what we could suggest is that is that we could have what we could do is we could add something about having uh um before uh a contract is presented to council, it has gone through some sort of additional review to ensure that there is like like to assess the need and to assess um you know the long-term impacts of the contract um without necessarily um imposing a lot of additional like yearly review requirements because that could potentially um I could see a point where the where the the cost of compliance could really begin to eat in.

I feel pretty strongly about the annual reports. I feel like if you're getting a property tax discount, you know, filing an annual report is really the minimum you can do. And and looking at the ones from Redwood City, it's literally a onepage form where you write down the address of the property and then all of the updates that you made that year. May May maybe it's maybe it's some of the other thing maybe some of the other things are probably which I have more concerns about just like in terms of uh um I I know San Francisco has um at least a general policy of um considering homes only below a certain

price threshold for Millsac contracts though I don't know if that's a formal policy in their ordinance or not. I actually don't know. Yeah. But I have spoken I have I have anecdotal evidence to that. And I mean I effectively I'm proposing we make recommendations which council can then choose to accept or reject or you know discuss and come up with alternatives. Yeah. Can we go through recommendations? Yeah. So I'll go through them one again. Um requiring that property owners submit an annual report detailing the maintenance improvements maintenance/improvements made to the property. So, can I ask question?

Is it intended to be that the property tax reduction that you get is really supposed to go all the way back into the house? Yes. Yes. That seems like Okay. Yeah. Well, how Yeah. Like, exactly. How do you prove you've actually done the work, right? Yeah. But that also would take like a significant amount of work given out property values here, right? Like, but I don't think there's anything in the state law saying it's like a onetoone correspondence. You're just deciding whether in light of the work they have done whether they actually need this incentive. That is the overall intent. I'm I I'm for the annual report. What you said sounds like a standard practice and and actually that doesn't need to be a recommendation because that's already a practice. So we can just articulate it in the resolution.

Um the next one was that they the contracts don't autorenew for a year. They don't autorenew every year after the 10-year term. They actually go to council for review after the 10-year term to look at them again and then every five years thereafter. I believe that's part of the mills act that they auto renew. So it's 10 because there's a reamortization. So you can't just get out of one. So that's why you have a rolling 10-year period. So you it's a 10-year contract but then adds a year each year. So it does it's not like at 10 years you can just be out of it or renew for another. It's it's a perpetual tenure kind of like a

perpetual tenure. The suggestion is that they meet after 10 years to decide whether to cancel. Exactly. Yeah. Like every at least every 10 year. Seems like it should be more frequent than 10 years. Feels like it should be every 5 years. They review and decide. Pass by. The Mills Act says it should um be a year shall be added automatically to initial term unless notice of non-renewal is given as provided in the section. So we would have to do it maybe like on the ninth n and a half year and then have time to give them notice and all that. So yeah, I think that sounds like good business. You should be checking in on your Yeah. contracts some regularity.

Is that right? So I I s I support the recommendation that council come back come back and review them and make an affirmative decision about Yeah. or like affirmative decision not to cancel. A decision an affirmative decision not to cancel. Exactly. I it might it might also be an opportunity I think I think I think to to put this in a positive perspective too like like it might also be an opportunity to in terms of public access to have some kind of uh to encourage presentation exactly on these properties. Look at all the work we did over the last decade.

Yeah. and and just sort and like you know I think all first and also I just say I think all this should be on the website everything should be available you know we need we want because like this stuff as part of our public access uh policy goal you know we want people to be able to and you know being able to see these things one of the ways to do that is to have um like a sort of a publicized check-in like potentially yeah

next recommendation was to set a maximum value for eligible properties I don't know that I want say what that value is, but I think they should consider setting a maximum value. This one I'm more torn on because I do definitely see the equity issues. Um, but I also wonder it's hard when the chief incentive in the ordinance is the Mills Act. So, right,

if if um Commissioner Clafter's recommendation that we all supported to add more incentives is um taken up and and more and more robust incentives are added to the ordinance, then this would be a pretty easy yes for me. Um but as as written, I'm concerned that, you know, I think the property tax reduction is a is a really huge incentive. Um, obviously the chief incentive. Um, I'm okay with that that recommendation not advancing. I don't feel as strongly about that one. I just

again, you know, this is something that could be because these every one of these contracts has to be approved by the city council. Um, this is something which can be discussed by council and it can be um a policy. It can be a, you know, it can be a decision that they make um, you know, on a case- by case basis. It doesn't necessarily have to be something where we go to council and tell them you have to abide by this this limit. You could say something if the if the limit's two per year, if you get three or four applications, you prioritize the properties that are lower value. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So maybe it's through the chair. There's also

through the chair there's also um some cities have uh rating criteria so that they can pri prioritize um when they have multiple um applications. That's a really good idea too. That's actually a quick question too. How many how many applications have been received for these things? Do we have any idea on that over the last couple years? Uh zero. I'm seeing zero. Yeah, this is a lot of theoretical discussion right now. I I I I support like a recommendation that there be some some consideration of criteria including including um prioritization. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then um the recommendation was to pause execution of new contracts or renewal of existing contracts in years where there's a budget deficit. This one I don't think I favor. I feel like maximum flexibility during budget deficits is is usually best. So having any kind of conrict like constraints on what you can and can't do is can be difficult. Again, if I'm a if I'm a city council member, I think I already have a built-in incentive to think twice before I vote to approve uh a tax abatement like this in that in that situation.

Yeah, I think that's fair. If you're getting a contract like this in a deficit year, like you're probably going to think about it anyway. It's a good I mean it's Yeah, that should be what people do. Yes. Yeah. The other one was to have some sort of public access. Doesn't have to be literal physical public access. Could be virtual public access.

Educational plaques. educational plaques, like information on a website or if you can see it from the street, like I think that's fine, too. But if you can't see it from a street, there should be a way that people can learn about it and see it and experience it. I completely forgot about one of the things I wanted to say, and I'm just remembering it now like an hour ago, which was, and I'll just throw this out there real quick. I would I would like to make a recommendation to council uh to include a sentence or two um in the ordinance that would authorize the city to either um on its own or in in cooperation with community groups to create a uh signage or plaque program that can be used to um help educate the public as they walk around our districts and and walk by our resources and can, you know, learn about them on this while walking around the on the street.

I would agree with that recommendation. Yeah. If they think it's appropriate for in the ordinance, fine. I think the recommendation generally is good. I'm not sure whether it like necessarily squares with the ordinance specifically, but yeah, the recommendation to do that. Yeah. Um I had one more. Yeah. What was it? The audit. No, no. What was the one you just said? Oh, the one I just said was um public access. Oh, yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. And then the last one was the annual audit to determine the cost of having the program. The annual audit to determine the revenue

lo quantifying, you know, this is the amount that we're losing in property tax. This is how much it costs to administer the new contracts and deal with all of the applications just so that the council knows the the cost of running this program. Yeah. I I mean I again I think I guess it doesn't have to be annual could be every five years but some sort of regular audit. Some sort of regular audit you enter into the contract you know how much the contract costs for the 10 years. Is that right? But as uh director Dah said if the property changes hands or if property values increase then you you could end up losing more.

We know definitively that year where the valuation is. So what we would work with the assessor's office so when it comes forward we could say it's the valuation's here. they will be saving approximately X and then the city's loss in revenue is Y. Um, but I then moving forward, yeah, there's various factors that might change how a property is valued.

I I not completely opposed, but I have my concerns in so much as it may disincentivize the approval of contracts, which will decrease the value of this as one of the incentives to participate in the program. I think if it's so much money that you consider not executing new contracts, then that's a useful data point for council to have. As I said, I'm not completely opposed, but I but I I you know, there there there are ways that that could play out. So, yeah, I'm fine with it. Just to circle back real quick for the annual reporting, Redwood City. So, basically, it's just a self attestation that

Yep. So what oversight and compliance is there on top of that to that is why I asked the question at the beginning and so it would be up to staff to actually look at those reports and compare to the work plan and the contracts and make sure that that the work they're doing is actually furthering the work plan and not cleaning out their drier lint traps. Got it. And through the chair staff could also require additional documentation. So, not just an affidavit, but we could um pictures um things like that, receipts. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do we have three on some sort of regular audit? Yes.

Great. That was it. Those are all my comments. Are we Are we at our Are we any other comments on any of these things? Okay. Uh I just want to thank everybody for staying late. Yep. I I probably was going to do I was probably gonna drag things out here and I think we have to vote now. Yeah. No, we have to do but I just wanted to just want to get that in there. Just want to get that in there. Thank you to my fellow commissioners. I'll be giving my wife all of your phone numbers and emails. Send send her my way. I'll take it. It's fine. Yeah. Can we just say the additional recommendations that we have discussed over the course of this meeting?

Yes. Okay. Great. read the slide. Okay, great. Say as shown on the slide. Yeah, I make make a motion to uh adopt this resolution with the additional uh recommendations that we've made. Second, may we have a roll call vote? Vice Chair Clap, yes. Commissioner Bush, yes. Chair Patel, yes. And Commissioner Shumpl, yes. Motion passes 40. Woohoo. And with that, we'll close this agenda item and go on to reports and announcements. Do we have any reports and announcements from our staff or city attorney?

What? Um, yeah. So, okay, couple things. Um, upcoming meeting, the next one is on April 28th. Thank you. Um, and that one, uh, there are two items. One of them is uh for a project um I believe it's 10 units uh on Pioneer Court just nearby. Um and then the other one I believe hold on just looking for it. Is it Talbitz? Oh yeah. Yeah. Bespoke. Just that project. So yes, the bespoke project. I saw the signs up on the building as I walked by. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was the first one? Um,

it's on Pioneer Court, which is just down the street here. What is it? 205. 2015 Pioneer Court. Yeah. At the end of middle. It's Oh, it's not the one at the end of the call. Yeah. No, it's kind of like mid block on the Pioneer Court side on the east side. Okay. It's a currently an office building. Oh, that one. Yeah. It's not the medical building at the end of this culde-sac. It's the one. It's the next Oh, this one is 1919 O Farrell. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm I'm mixing up my call to sex. Yeah. Okay.

Um and then the one other thing is just um a reminder. I had sent out an email about the um inclusionary housing training that 21 Elements is doing. Um they're a really great resource. They do great trainings for planning commission a few times a year. Um they support us a lot um with trainings and all sorts of other stuff. So we like we pay into the fund that that funds them um so that we can get a lot of value back from them. So if you are interested in going um and you haven't signed up yet, please go ahead and do it. Um if you need any more information, I can help. Just if there are more than one of you going, please make sure that you don't sit together. You you sent us an email on that, right? I did. Yeah. Okay. I'll I'll just check back for that. I I' I've been meaning to sign up for that.

And it Wait, hold on. I actually had the date up here. Oh, great. In case you wanted Yeah, if you have it. Um yeah, it's Wednesday, April 29th. Um they have dinner for everybody. Usually it's really good food. So dinner's at 5:30 and then at 6 o'clock the workshop starts. Okay. I will sadly be out of town. I actually think I the the last Wednesday of every month I have a have a conflict unfortunately. Darn it. Any reports or announcements from my fellow commissioners?

One other thing just a quick reminder. um both for this commission and any city commission deadline to get your applications in is April 24th. So spread the word if you know anyone that would be a good candidate. Um let them know. Um I know that there is chair and vice chair training coming up and I assume that one or both of you I don't know who's next in line. Is it Max? Okay. I did what? I think it's for us actually. It's usually the current chair, vice chair. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, I RSVP to that. So, I will be attending. Yes, we will be attending chair and vice chair training this month. Later this month.

Thanks, guys. Yeah. All right. With that, I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you everyone for staying so late. Yes. Big thank you. Thank you everyone. Oh my gosh. Dualingo has been yelling at me this entire time. Can I stop? Recording stopped.