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Historic Preservation Commission recommends Planning Department budget, asks for dedicated landmark staff
Summary
The commission recommended the Planning Department's FY2014–2016 budget to the Planning Commission and mayor's office, asked for a dedicated Planner 3 for landmark work, sought a formal backlog metric and signaled support for funding additional positions through a one-time $3 million appropriation to cover unfunded headcount.
At the Feb. 19 meeting the Historic Preservation Commission recommended approval of the Planning Department’s proposed FY2014–2016 budget and asked staff to add specific language in a comment letter before the Planning Commission review.
Keith DeMartini, the department’s finance and IT manager, summarized the proposal and recent adjustments: revenue is projected at $37,700,000 for the coming fiscal year; the department adjusted one proposed monitoring and reporting position from 0.5 FTE to 0.77 FTE to reflect a phased hiring schedule and annualization; and the department plans to use current-year surplus to fund eight currently unfunded positions through a one-time appropriation of about $3,000,000. DeMartini asked the commission to recommend the budget to the Planning Commission and mayor’s office.
Commissioners endorsed four priority items to include in their comment letter: (1) dedicate a full or fractional FTE to the Historic Preservation Commission’s work program (Commissioner Pearlman and others supported creating a Planner 3 to start Jan. 1, 2015); (2) establish a measurable backlog metric and require midyear reevaluation to allow course correction; (3) track backlog quarterly and seek additional headcount if the backlog does not decline; and (4) amend policy language to explicitly include legislation that affects historic resources. The commission took a voice consensus and recorded unanimous support for amending the comment letter.
DeMartini said that the fee-elimination proposal included in the budget is small ("one tenth of one percent or less of the entire budget") and that changes to fees require a public hearing because they are contained in the planning code. He also confirmed that grant and capital requests in the packet had no changes.
Next procedural steps: staff will present the same budget to the Planning Commission and forward the recommendation to the mayor’s office; the commission’s comment letter, incorporating the four agreed points, will be finalized for submission to the Planning Commission.
