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Planning staff asks Historic Preservation Commission to recommend steady FY18–20 budget; adds ADU position and fee adjustments
Summary
Planning Department staff asked the Historic Preservation Commission to recommend the department’s largely steady FY2018–20 budget to the Planning Commission, proposing a new accessory-dwelling-unit (ADU) position, a minor net reduction to base funding and two code/fee changes; the Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval.
On Feb. 7, 2018, Planning Department staff asked the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission to recommend the department’s FY2018–20 budget to the Planning Commission, describing the proposal as largely steady-state with only modest adjustments.
Deputy Director of Administration Deborah Landis told commissioners the change in the total budget since the department last presented was about $16,000 and that the overall proposed budget was down by a few hundred thousand dollars compared with the current year because of one-time expenses in the current year. "This year, the budget is a little boring ... it is not increasing or decreasing by any major amounts," Landis said during the presentation.
Landis outlined revenue sources — application and building-permit review fees, grants and development-impact fees — and said the department remains mostly self-supporting with a small amount of general-fund support. She said the mayor's office requested a reduction from the base general-fund number that amounted to about $95,000 per year, which the department absorbed.
On the expenditure side Landis said salaries and fringe benefits remain the largest cost and that the department anticipates roughly $775,000 in overhead allocations. She described minor position shifts across units and proposed adding one new position dedicated to processing accessory dwelling unit (ADU) applications, citing a "big increase" in ADU applications and corresponding revenue to support the role.
Landis also described two proposed changes tied to the budget package: a drafting change to the planning/administrative code to remove the word "sign" so that enforcement revenues may be used for broader enforcement activities, and a new lower-tier circulation review fee for simpler projects that would be significantly less than the approximately $25,000 transportation review fee now applied to some projects. The circulation review fee was developed jointly with the Municipal Transportation Agency, she said.
When commissioners asked for specifics about the types of legislation the department may review, Tim Frey, department staff, said the budget includes a line item to cover work with the legislative team and noted that any legislation affecting historic resources requires review and comment by the commission. He confirmed that state housing issues could be part of that work.
After staff questions and no public comment, a commissioner moved to recommend the proposed budget to the Planning Commission. The motion was seconded and passed in a unanimous roll-call vote, 6–0.
The Planning Department plans to transmit the recommended budget to the mayor’s office for the next steps under the city’s charter timetable.
