San Mateo historic preservation policy debate continues

During a meeting Monday, June 17, the city approved a plan to update its approach to historic processes, which would create more localized designation reviews and future historic resource surveys. The plan would “constitute a significant policy initiative and require meaningful staff resources,” according to a staff report.

The plan didn’t sit well with all residents and councilmembers, however, especially Councilmember Amourence Lee, who has been vocal about her disapproval of the Heritage Alliance’s tactics, which she said are undercutting the city’s good-faith efforts to work on a resolution for everyone. Last year, the group submitted an application to the state Office of Historic Preservation, which has the ability to confer the historic status on the neighborhood, regardless of whether the city ultimately agrees with the assessment. The group has paused its application, although it has yet to publicly state the application has been withdrawn.

“If we’re choosing to move forward with a local process that … can be easily or demonstrably bypassed, what does that mean in terms of our position on any application that supplants our own local ordinance that we would be investing half a million dollars in, when we are facing an egregious deficit?” Lee said. “I’m very concerned that our councilmembers are considering advancing this without an assurance from the San Mateo Heritage Alliance that they will withdraw their application.”

Many housing advocates have sided with Lee’s view, that seeking historic designation has often become a tool for affluent communities to thwart future development and dictate a neighborhood’s aesthetic. The issue is not unique to San Mateo – a historic district dispute continues in the Alameda Park neighborhood of San Jose, and similar divides are occurring in Los Angeles and San Diego.

The issue has also poured more gasoline on an already tense relationship between Lee and Mayor Lisa Diaz Nash. While Nash has recused herself from conversations around Baywood’s status as a historic neighborhood — as she resides in the neighborhood — she has shown more sympathy to the Heritage Alliance’s overall efforts, and her husband was a previous board member of the organization.

Lee has since lobbed numerous public criticisms toward Nash, both related and unrelated to the historic districting policy. During the June 17 meeting, city staff and two councilmembers interjected at various points to redirect her line of questioning toward the council.

While the majority agreed to move ahead with robust investment in a historic designation program, most councilmembers also called on the Heritage Alliance to withdraw, or at least continue pausing, its application with the state.

“If we move forward [with this], I would hope that the Heritage Alliance would put the process on hold, at least until we can move forward and see where this is going. That seems like the right thing to do,” Deputy Mayor Rob Newsom said. “But there’s no teeth and no way I can regulate that one way or the other.”