On Wednesday at the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission meeting there were some interesting discussions. First there was a staff report about a new permit tracking system. This system is still several years away from becoming a reality so it was sort of a tease to be talking about it now!
This was followed by another staff report about 1268 Lombard Street; a cottage built in the 1860's. The owners applied for and received an emergency demolition permit a few months ago under suspicious auspices. Highly publicized, the demolition has initiated several potential new ordinances including one for blight and one for vacant buildings. During the meeting it was suggested that one of the problems with the emergency demolition process is that the owner provides and pays for the structural engineer. This obviously compromises the engineer and prevents an objectively written report. The HPC plans on writing a letter about this item to be discussed at the next meeting (June 3).
In his President's Report, Charles Chase announced that the July 1 meeting would be canceled and that he wanted to calendar a discussion about the scope of staff review.
Items 5 and 6 were removed from the Consent Calendar and item 4 a Certificate of Appropriateness for a building in the South End Historic District received an unanimous vote. Item 5 was a Certificate of Appropriateness for a building in the Northeast Waterfront Historic District and the discussion centered around windows (one of my favorite topics!). The Commission agreed with the staff analysis that the true divided lite windows be a condition of approval.
Item 6 was particularly interesting to me as I briefly worked on the Muni Substation (Landmark No. 105) several years ago. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency has been unsuccessful in restoring this empty, deteriorating building. They will no longer have jurisdiction over the building in the coming months and it will soon be transferred to the San Francisco Real Estate Division. A major concern is that the building will be even more neglected than it already is. I have felt for a long time that the Muni Substation on Fillmore Street is the most endangered of the Landmark buildings in San Francisco. The proposed project heard at the Commission meeting was to remove a non-historic shed addition and unfortunately did not include any additional restoration work. The vote was unanimous. By the end of this item (3:00pm-ish) I had to leave the hearing and do not, at this time, know the outcome of the final items.
