In the last post, things looked pretty dire for Burlingame Park and Burlingame in general. As Ms. Shimko said in the Planning Commission meeting, you can never entirely put the issue to bed -- new information can always be filed. However, there are ways to manage and control the filing process.
Best Practices
In the Planning Commission meeting, Anna Shimko and Bill Meeker called out five cities as good examples of best practices for historic preservation processes: San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Redondo Beach, and West Hollywood. All of these cities have policies and ordinances to provide structure to the process. All of these cities have nomination forms. All of these cities specify who may initiate the process for designation. All of these cities provide for owner notification. All of these cities provide for public hearings prior to designation. All of these cities have an appeals process.
Burlingame does none of these things. And it's paying the price.
In San Francisco, a designation may be initiated by the Board of Supervisors, the Planning Commission or other appropriate boards, or the property owner. A non-owner needs to seek the assistance of one of the commissions or boards to proceed. Designation of an historic district must be supported by at least 66 and 2/3 percent of the property owners. Think you could get that support for Burlingame Park? Not judging by the impassioned speeches at the November 9 Planning Commission meeting.
In Oakland, historic resources are nominated by owners, the City, or the public, and are designated only after public hearings by the Landmarks Board, Planning Commission, and City Council. Again, historic district designation needs support of the neighborhood itself.
In San Diego, a petition signed by a substantial number or a majority of the property owners within the district in support of the nomination is required to process an historic district nomination.
In Redondo Beach, nominations of an historic resource or district can be made only by the property owners. For a district, even if other owners nominate the district, the district boundary will not include any property without the written consent of the property owner.
In West Hollywood, the Historic Preservation Commission reviews all applications, and all recommendations for designation of potential resources are forwarded to the City Council for final decision.
These are all examples of low-cost measures that can be instituted today. They don't require expensive consultants. They don't require $50,000. They do protect the city from lawsuits. They do protect both our historic resources and property rights. And they'll even lift the cloud of uncertainty from Burlingame Park.
What about surveys?
Wait, don't all of those cities also perform historic surveys? Of course they do, as many cities in San Mateo County do, and as Burlingame did as part of its Downtown Plan. But they don't let the tail wag the dog. Burlingame is in danger of just that if the City performs an ad hoc survey of Burlingame Park because one person filed. The relationship between a city's survey process (note: a process, not just an ad hoc survey) and its historic preservation plan is a dynamic one. A survey provides historic context; an ordinance provides structure. We already have historic context from the historic survey done for the Downtown Plan. Why are we talking about surveying Burlingame Park for $50,000? Because one person filed papers. That's not part of a structured plan; that's simply avoiding litigation. We need to back up our historic preservation approach with some structure and community input. Community development and historic preservation must be planned together. If we set ourselves up for an on-going adversarial relationship between development and preservation, then we'll be making lots of lawyers very happy -- and the citizens of Burlingame very unhappy. And if we set the precedent that one person can force the City to spend $50,000, then we've allowed greenmail to run the City budget.
History, not Uncertainty
Burlingame Planning Commissioner Richard Terrones said in the November 9 meeting, "I'm a fan of history, but I'm not a fan of uncertainty." An historic survey of Burlingame Park may temporarily lift a cloud of uncertainty from some homeowners (and darken the cloud for others in Burlingame Park). But until Burlingame adopts the most basic best practices pointed out by Anna Shimko and Bill Meeker, there will be no certainty for Burlingame Park, or Burlingame residents.
Stay Tuned for the Future Post:
No comments:
Post a Comment