Enabled the streaming to Facebook YouTube LinkedIn and twitch um so we will start here momentarily it’s now 11:55 we have about 5 minutes before the start of the program so those of you who are logging in early welcome to today’s program we’ll start here soon e e
Hello everyone uh we’re now about three minutes from the start of the program I just wanted to um remind everybody uh uh well first of all thank you for joining today’s program um in terms of asking questions for today’s program we encourage you to use the Q&A function we
Also encourage you to share your uh thoughts or any additional resources or links that you think people should know about through the chat box uh but for questions please use the Q&A box and we’ll do our best to answer everyone’s questions and the time allotted at the end of our
Presentation um we do have an hour total for today’s program but there are a lot of people signed up for this program so it does help to ask your uh questions early um so as soon as you think of the question feel free to type in the chat
Box and our moderator will uh filter through those at the end of the program e e e e welcome everybody to today’s program uh my name is John Haber I’m the FI uh Field Services director for the California preservation Foundation I’m filling in for my colleague Lisa Versace
Today um for those of you who may be less familiar with the work of the California preservation Foundation we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization committed to ensuring the rich diversity of California’s historic resources and cultural heritage are identified protected and celebrated for their history and for their valuable role in
California’s economy environment and quality of life our work is made possible by the generous support of our members donors and sponsors including our lead education sponsor WJ um we invite you to join this preservation Community by going to californ preservation. orgm mhip uh you may also donate to cpf by visiting californ preservation.
Orgon our website is also where you can find information on other future programs and events for today’s program our moderators will be Rita Cofield trustee and board secretary for the California preservation foundation and Alicia pich architectural historian and planner with architectural Resources Group our speaker today is Ashley Lindsay she’s a
Planner with the city and county of San Francisco I wanted to thank all three of our participants today for generously do volunteering their time to be here and a word of special thanks to Ria and Alicia who are members of our education committee and helped conceive and organize this wonderful
Program for our audience if at any time during the program you have questions for the speakers or uh anything else you’d like to ask please use the Q&A box which can be found at the bottom of your Zoom window we have set aside time at the end of the program for questions
And we’ll do our best to get to everyone’s in the time allotted and as a reminder our program will be recorded in full and will be accessible on our Facebook page YouTube channel and Linkedin profile I’m now going to turn it over to Alicia pich and Rita Cofield to introduce the program
And uh our speaker today thanks John thank you John um so I wanted to um kind of start out today by just giving a very quick overview of why we wanted to put this um webinar together um and um um on effective Community engagement um Rita and I have many conversations
About this um and it’s something that we’re passionate about um a community outreach is something that um many of us are familiar with um more recently though we’re seeing cities move Beyond community outreach which is sort of a one directional approach um to community engagement um which goes both ways in
Preservation planning and since it’s a relatively new approach that we’re seeing um cities using we wanted to provide a case study um to see how one city has approached it how the process has gone and what they learned in the process now I’ll turn it over to Rita
Who will give an overview of the program today all right thank you Alicia I think we can just jump right into Ashley’s presentation I think um um I am super excited because again it’s uh like Alicia said a lot of folks are doing this um but not uh many organizations
And um Ashley’s with the city um not many organizations have actually uh completed the process so uh it’ll be um very interesting uh to see um uh how her organization and how sort of they um uh tackled this community uh Community engagement rather than community outreach um approach to it with that
I’ll turn it over to Miss Ashley thank you so much Rita Alicia for uh that introduction John for kind of kicking us off today uh with that I will go ahead and share my screen so please bear with me can can you see my screen or my PowerPoint okay great uh so good
Afternoon everyone again my name is Ashley Lindsay and today I’m excited to share in ites into the African-American Citywide historic context statement and its recent adoption process um in my nearly eight years with the San Francisco planning department I’ve had the privilege of working on various projects from land use
Development to cultural resources survey uh last year I took on the role of Engagement coordinator for the Citywide cultural resources survey program which is within our preservation team today’s presentation will cover the African-American Citywide historic context statement our approach to racial and social Equity key project Milestones Community Partnerships and the adoption
Process um so many of you may be familiar with what a historic context statement is but for those who don’t know a historic context statement provides an analytical framework for identifying and evaluating resources explaining how geography history and culture shaped a community’s development over time they guide us in recognizing
The importance of certain properties and their characteristics the African-American Citywide historic context statement delves into the rich history of San Francisco’s africanamerican community from Mexican and Spanish Colonial periods to the present day while it’s not exhaustive it does focus on key events individuals and areas critical to understanding the built environment the
African-American historic context statement will Aid community history Advocates and city planners in the identification documentation recognition and protection of buildings and sites associated with the social and cultural heritage of San Francisco’s africanamerican Community this is a living document and we will continue to update it and it will evolve as we learn
More so next I’ll talk about our racial and social Equity approach uh traditionally historic preservation efforts have primarily focused on tangible cultural resources such as buildings and sites however this narrow Focus has often result Ed in assessments of significance driven by experts and mandated by regulations which have inadvertently
Excluded voices from diverse communities including American Indian black and other people of color from the decision-making process it’s crucial to acknowledge that without the active involvement of communities the interpretation of what is considered valuable and worthy of protection remains skewed and incomplete in 2020 the San Francisco historic Pres ation commission and the
Planning department adopted resolutions to Center preservation planning efforts on principles of racial and social Equity this commitment entails exploring Innovative approaches to incorporate new ways of honoring and sustaining cultural heritage additionally it involves expanding participation building capacity and fostering Partnerships to ensure that communities have the necessary resources
And agent to guide and lead the preservation of their historic resources and cultural heritage so knowing that we needed to Center racial and social equity in our work efforts one of our goals was to expand engagement with underrepresented communities and cultivate vibrant Partnerships we also sought to be inclusive through collaborative
Processes and aim to forge deeper connections through living tools tools which I’ll talk about in the next few slides um integrating community-led engagement and preservation allows evaluations to be informed by community members with lived experiences they offer invaluable insights into historical significance and cultural heritage enriching our understanding and
Ensuring a more inclusive preservation process with this shift in our approach our projects EV Evolution reflects a transition from data focused to community-led that supports co-creation with communities now we’ll cover the Project’s history and recent Outreach efforts in 2013 we embarked on a significant Journey with the initiation of the africanamerican Citywide historic
Context statement thanks to support from the historic preservation fund committee this project is a testament to the collaborative efforts of community members historians organizations preservation professionals and City staff drawing from existing africanamerican scholarship including the invaluable work of Dr Albert brousard Sue Bailey Thurman and alila Beasley an assistant Advisory Group was
Formed comprising of community historians activists and planning professionals together they worked to guide the completion of the draft in January 2016 we reached a milestone with the publication of the draft report written by Tim Kelly Consulting for plank historic Consulting Alfred Williams consultancy and planning department staff subsequently in May
2016 the historic preservation commission held a public hearing to gather public feedback public highlighted the need for additional research and a more comprehensive document responding to this feedback our preservation staff collaborated with the San Francisco African-American historical and Cultural Society to conduct further research community outreach planning and revisions although major revisions to
The context statement were completed in 2019 the process faced delays due to the pandemic after the pandemic and in 2022 the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in collaboration with our preservation staff spearheaded a series of focus groups these sessions aim to introduce the context statement delve into potential landmarks identified in the
Report and uncover additional significant places across the city from Fall 2023 to Winter 2024 we hosted a series of community events to familiarize Community with the context statement so what was our goal it was to connect with the community identify any information gaps and gather input on how
They wanted significant places to be recognized and celebrated which I’ll dive deeper into in the next few slides next I’ll cover our Community Partnerships so first I want to acknowledge all the contributors who played a role in shaping the historic context statement this document which has been over 11 years in the making
Again is a tesate to the dedication and collaboration of everyone involved when it comes to community engagement it’s been a journey of managing City agency relationships nurturing Community Partnerships and creating a space for Meaningful input with this in mind we were able to develop living tools that can inform decisionmaking within our regulatory
Framework so in September 2023 we partnered with the San Francisco African-American Arts and Cultural District and the Dr George W Davis Senior Center to host a community Forum this partnership was built on trust and understanding of the community’s needs our goal was to gather feedback on the African-American Citywide historic
Context statement while also supporting the community’s existing programming thanks to careful planning and preparation the event was a success allowing for Meaningful conversations with community members following the for we analyzed and synthesized the information gathered providing us with a solid foundation to continue engaging with the community based on their
Feedback thanks to careful planning and prepar oh my apologies so on January 208th we had the opportunity to table at the Engleside Branch Library during their annual open house uh it was a fantastic day of Engagement where we connect Ed with over 70 individuals predominantly young families um Youth
And some elderly members of the community we then organized a second Community Forum in partnership with the Booker T Washington Community Service Center which was also held at their facility The Forum was designed to be engaging and it featured opening remarks musical entertainment and engagement stations to to Foster conversations between staff and
Participants during the Forum we presented the revised context statement and shared feedback gathered from the First Community Forum at the Dr George W Davis Senor Center this provided an opportunity for additional input and ongoing dialogue so with all of this engagement in mind to date our historic context
Statement has identif ified over 40 properties associated with africanamerican history that may be eligible for local Landmark designation here on this slide are a sample of some of those potential landmarks for both Community forums we created interactive boards showcasing key names sites and events from the context statement we then invited the
Community to add recognize and prioritize items for further research or designation each station covered major themes in the context statement including arts and culture Community leaders and potential landmarks participants engaged with the content providing valuable feedback for landmarks we offered Maps identifying designated and eligible landmarks enabling realtime input on what should
Be considered eligible this approach empowers for the community to inform us which eligible landmarks should take priority the feedback we received from our community engagement events was incredibly invaluable after thorough analysis we identified key themes and areas of focus which are now documented in a community input tracking
Report um during these events we also ask community members for their suggestions on potential part Partners to explore these areas further their suggestions were diverse ranging from Individual community members to churches businesses Social Service organizations and City agencies as I mentioned earlier we developed a community input dashboard
And on this slide it’s just a a snapshot of part of the document um and we also refer to it as the community input dashboard essentially it encapsulates themes that surface through our analysis of community input these themes highlight gaps in information regarding people organizations and community events that
Are recommended for inclusion in the context statement our department developed responses and recommended actions for each gap which is outlined in the report and it includes plans for further Community consultation recognition Miss opportunities and estimated timelines for completion to provide Clarity on how feedback will be addressed let’s take
The example in the first row of undern named leaders and figures not included in the context statement as a short-term goal updates to Educators health workers and religious leaders have been identified to expand existing themes in the report this information was provided by community members and rais at each
Community event so we anticipate completing updates to this theme over the next year so let’s discuss adoption and next steps so as you’ve seen from the key project milestones and the project history we did go through several rounds of revisions um we built Community Partnerships and we hosted several
Engagement activities and with all of that I’m thrilled to announce that the historic preservation commission unanimously adopted the African-American Citywide historic context statement as a living document just this past February um it’s a big milestone for our team and I want to emphasize that this document wouldn’t have reached the point
Of adoption by HPC without the invaluable Partnerships and guidance from the community as mentioned earlier we’ve provided recommendations in the dashboard and identified areas for updates in the context statement these updates include expanding the history and significance of landmarks such as the Third Baptist Church bethl am church and first am Zion
Church we’re also addressing missing biographies of church leaders and their contributions to community housing civil rights and social programs additionally we adding biographies of African-American professionals artists Educators civil rights activists and Community leaders in future updates we’ll focus on profiling important civil rights and Civic organizations highlighting the significance of community and recreation
Centers and acknowledging the impact of leadership and staff at these neighborhood institutions we’ll also provide additional detail on long-standing businesses and Community institutions the revised report will feature a forward by Carl Williams from the San Francisco African-American historical and Cultural Society expanded histories of the African-American churches and the contributions of
Community Advocates leaders Educators and public figures additionally will’ll include an expanded discussion of influential Civic organizations sororities and fraternities as well as professional organizations in our ongoing updates to the draft we’ll also delve deeper into civil rights history and pres present day anti-displacement efforts led by African-Americans moreover we recognize
The need to acknowledge the impact and Legacy of Redevelopment as well as as as well as celebrate and uplift significant community members and places that were lost moving forward we will continue to strength existing Partnerships and build new relationships with community members and organizations so before I conclude I
Just want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Francis McMillan Malik Looper Taylor Booker Rich sucra Erica rebe the SF survey team and planning staff contributors and Community Partners without their dedication and contributions we would have not made it this far and theyve Been instrumental in this work so with that I’d like to
Conclude and thank you was so wonderful thank you um thank you Ashley I know we have some questions um uh a couple questions already in the chat but congratulations um to you and your team for what I think is truly uh Community engagement and not just uh simply
Outreach um I am impressed uh with how your team seems to have genuinely earned the right um for Community to move forward and complete the work I I I suppose that’s why it took so long as you were building you were moving at the
Speed Of Trust um so as a reminder um I know that uh John put it in the chat as a reminder for your questions it’s preferable if you pop them in the Q&A box um you can also put them in the comments or if you would like to um ask
Uh Ashley yourself just raise your hand um and we’ll keep an eye on that and uh John will take you off uh mute so the beauty of being a moderator is that we get to ask our questions first so I have uh um I know that there are two uh two
Or at least three questions in the chat um but my first question um Ashley is that is it correct that this is the city’s first African-American historic context statement yes that’s correct this is the city’s first African-American Citywide historic context statement okay um are there other um historic context statements
That that you all have done yes uh there are statements so um our team has developed various context statements and they are categorized into three different categories uh so that’s architectural cultural and thematic context today there are 23 that are Geographic six that are architectural eight thematic and three cultural that
Have all been adopted um and then there are also uh 15 others that are in progress um so so yeah we we have quite a few yeah that’s fantastic okay um and my last question and then I’ll uh ask the first question that’s in the chat
You call it a living uh a living document what’s the system in place for that ongoing dialogue especially since there are regulatory tools involved sure that’s a great question um as you mentioned we are we’re moving towards developing the processes and tools that support continuous dialogue and partnership with communities
Um for example through the community input dashboard that is the tool that we’ve developed and we hope that will kind of be um the source that allows us to engage with community site what they prioritize and use that as a way to um reference what should be incorporated
Into our work plans so again this ensures that we’re continuously receiving input and then we will share that back out with community and our historic preservation Commission to make sure that um we’re just addressing Community priorities um okay one one last question um what do you say to people who
Say like how big is this going to get like this is going to be a massive document if you’re like continuing um to have it be a living document are you concerned about that is that something that like is there a cuto off point that
Your team is like okay once we have all of this in once we have 300 Pages we’re done like what do you say to um folks who are like there’s going to be a lot yeah that’s that’s a really great Point um again I think you know history it it
Never stops it’s being made right now um so in terms of the document we we haven’t developed a strategy of how we’ll manage that if it’ll become like volumes or anything like that but I think based on the feedback that we have right now there is an opportunity to
Conduct research with community members and Community organizations to either just provide updates to the existing report um and then in terms of the the dashboard that we’ve developed that should as we’re addressing some of those themes those should fall off of the dashboard while new ones are being
Incorporated okay good it’s a good strategy okay so first question from um our participants is what types of activities were used at the engage M stations so with the engagement stations we um so for this particular project we created six stations the first station was more of like the introduction to
What is a historic context statement and then the remaining stations covered either chapters or specific themes from the report and then the last station we made that more of an engagement Focus where we wanted to receive feedback from community on how they would like to see um either resources or particular
Individuals recognized so we were receiving in put on like would they like to see walking tours um would they like to develop some type of Festival things of that sort so the boards were split up between just general content and then we had a second set of boards where folks could um
Interact with either like a map or there was an space provided for them to provide comments to give us additional information on individuals um particular sites that might have been missed from the report and then we created essentially like a passport for um participants to use so
Every time they completed a station they got a sticker and if they went through all the stations they were entered into a raffle and so that really kept folks engaged um because that motivated them to get through the stations but then they were also providing feed back to us
In real time um and then we also provided at our just general Outreach events at libraries we created kind of like a matching game for um participants to work on and that was really popular with kids and um parents were helping their children fill out the form so they
Were kind of learning in real time so those were some of the um materials that we created to help engage um participants great uh we have a question from Holly who says how long was your public Outreach effort and what attendance um was attendance more robust initially or later in the
Process that’s a great question so as I mentioned this project was 11 years in the making I joined the team about a year ago and when I was joining the team that is when we were exploring like how do we shift our approach and make this more of an equitable and inclusive
Process so I can speak more to that um and with that it really took time first we had to identify who our community partners with we had a series of kickoff meetings just to kind of introduce ourselves and understand what their priorities were before we could even
Plan an event so I think it took time to it took time to build trust um but once everything was in place and we wanted to develop and organize the program that kind of went through seamlessly and every is really excited to do that um for the community forums in terms of
Participation I’d say we had about uh a little over 70 folks involved um and then Outreach at the libraries that ranged anywhere from like 40 to 70 folks so I’d say that was um a significant size group and my understanding is that back in 2016 there were a series of um Outreach activities
Held and that was more of like a um like an open H or like a I guess you would just say like more of like a panel discussion where you present what the project is um but I would say in the last year that’s when we really decided
To make the engagement more expansive and more inclusive and make it more of a back and forth dialogue great um let’s see from a practical this is John from a practical standpoint how do you maintain um maintain a cable living document I don’t I don’t quite understand what that
Means but do you publish a new addition for each update and I think you answered that that you are sort of in the process of figuring out what that looks like if it’ll be volumes or if it’s digital um he also asked to include explanatory notes when outdated information is
Corrected in the subsequent additions or do you just um make it updated so right now we do have the document available on our web page and it is in PDF form um my understanding is that we when we make updates we just replace the version that is on our web
Page I would have to speak with the preservation planner who is kind of managing the updates to the report um but I can get back to John I can provide my email at the end of the program to get back to him on that okay great um
Did you mention how it was funded this is a s this is a this was a city Grant right so yeah with the initiation of the document it was there was a grant um to kind of support the development of the document for the engagement we are
Partnering with uh Erica rebe from Inc common and she’s kind of helping guide our um engagement framework for the project and it’s through that uh City contract that we are able to compensate Our Community Partners uh for their time and their effort to um developing these engagement
Events okay Alicia is there any anything in the Q&A no there’s just in the chat um yes I am keeping an eye in the Q&A um so I guess sort of speaking to um related to um um sort of the length of Outreach and and things like that over the course of
The project one of the questions was um how did you um first approach Community Partners to work on this report um and also um did you find that attendance at public Outreach events changed over the course of the project is it more robust initially or more robust later in the process
Um so in terms of Partners in terms of City Partners we try to identify organizations that were working on programs or projects that already aligned with the context statement um so you know the Human Rights Commission was just a really great um organization to partner with as it align I think with
Trying to understand the history and experiences of African-American community in San Francisco um and then again that we were partnered with the San Francisco African-American Arts and Cultural District and so I think just with their background and um relationship to the project it just made sense to partner with
Them um and then in terms of attendance I I would say I it’s kind of hard to compare because I was not um present at the original engagement activities um back in 2016 but I would say attendance at these events were really robust um just in my experience
In terms of attending other engagement events for other projects I would say it it matched if not exceeded that and so it did seem like it was really well all attended historically these types of Engagement activities tend to be contentious and I think because we were really intentional with the programming
For this and making sure that we had community buyin and we were developing those Partnerships it made it more of um just an open conversation and folks were genuinely happy to see planning staff in community and and to speak with them and so I I think we found to be really
Successful great uh Mike is asking about the size of your budget needed to do the work um so I guess if you could share that I don’t know if that’s uh something that you have to keep uh close to the best in terms of you know the Grant and
Then having more funding and then you know for it going uh for such a long time yeah uh yeah I think it’s a little bit above my uh job classification um however yes we do definitely need a dedicated budget to do engagement work um a lot of the organizations that we
Partner with they and can be you know um may have their short on Staffing sometimes they need additional support in terms of developing content materials and so um and we’re really leaning on them to support us with the Outreach and connecting us with community and making sure that community members are
Participating um and so yeah it’s truly important to have funds set aside to compensate Community Partners we don’t want to just ask them to dedicate their time and and take from them um we also need to be giving back to our Community Partners and Community organizations for
The time that they’re spending to put on these types of events and so um yeah it’s just so that’s built in is that built into the it’s built the framewor project um since did we talk about the regulatory tools that were involved what are some of the regulatory tools that
Were um yeah that’s a good question so um our team at the planning department you know we working within various understandings and Frameworks related to cultural heritage so from community’s holistic perspectives we are also balancing that with the more rigid regulatory Frameworks um and so our role is to facilitate conversations and identify
How existing tools serve communities and propose updates um to those regulations so we utilize a range of regulatory Tools in our work including our planning code and administrative code um their squa and environmental review as well as the guidelines from the national California register and then we have our
Local landmarking designation process so we take all of that into account with uh recommendations from community and cultural organizations um and in terms of some of the um input that you received how exhaustively did you document that input um questions including like did you keep everything did you track Who provided it
Um and then sort of how you did that so from in my PowerPoint slide we did create um a dashboard which summarizes the themes or areas of focus but we do have appendices um that cover like each individual individual response that we receive from community members um so we it’s essentially a
Spreadsheet and it lists out either the individual the uh business is it a residence is it a church um so we have all of that itemized um and then we do have we saved signup sheets from all of our events but in terms of the input that’s not associated with any specific
Individual sorry I popped out uh for a minute there um there’s one question in the in the Q&A says what um Allison wants to know what kind of intangible cultural resources is the city proposing to interpret and was their oral history included that’s a a really great
Question and our team is um we’re still trying to develop how we want to approach in tangible cultural heritage right now we have a tool that’s under development it’s in beta form and it’s called Community stories and it’s essentially a survey but it allows um anyone from the public to share photographs stories
Um audio files uh text um and they can upload any of this to the community stories platform and and just share um any of their experiences um or anything from the past that they would like to be documented and so this is a way for the Department to kind of hold that
Information but make it still be publicly accessible um but again in terms of intangible cultural heritage we are looking to part partner with different Community organizations we um right now there I want to say with the urban studies program at the University of uh San Francisco they are conducting oral
Histories and we are asking them to test out the tool to kind of supplement that project um but we’re just hoping that’s something that can be built out over time and that will’ll have many users throughout the city um Daniel talks about the concept of moving at the Speed Of Trust he wants
To know how do you know um if you’re moving too slow or too fast or how did how did you know well that’s a good question um I think we are all aware that you know working within a regulatory framework we have very strict timelines and time
Frames that we have to adhere to um but I think it pushed we had to kind of think outside of the box and be a little bit flexible um we do have projects that are moving a little bit more slower than we’d like and that’s okay because we need to make sure that
Our partners feel comfortable with um the project that we’re developing and um you know a lot of individuals and communities they have experienced a lot of um harm from local government policy um and practices that have been put in place and so I think it’s only fair that
You know we move at the Speed Of Trust um and it takes time to develop that trust and it’s also one of those things where I think it’s you know it’s delayed gratification you kind of have to put in the time you’re not going to have yeses
Across the board right away after the first kickoff meeting it takes time to one I think you know you have to go in with sometimes without any expectations and you have to be willing to be open to hearing um other people’s perspectives and remain curious and and kind of meet
A community where they’re at and then we as planners it’s our role to figure out how do we utilize our regulatory tools to um support Community needs and help them develop the programming and um policies that will support uh their priorities good there’s one more question on the Q&A in other community
This is Alexandria in other community engagement talks she’s heard that it’s best practice to meet people where they are like you said um she says uh can you talk about um how your engagement events achieve that meeting people where they are definitely um some you know typical
Outreach sometimes will try to book a room like in one of our city offices and have folks come down to the city but or join a Planning Commission hearing or a preservation hearing and those can usually be in the middle of the day it’s they’re inconvenient they’re hard to
Access and so um when we’re talking about meeting Community where they’re at we have to understand where where are the places that people frequent um we noticed that a lot of Youth and um community service centers seem to be a a great location because they provide services directly to the community
People already gathered there and then making sure you’re um scheduling it so that it’s accessible so we would many times host the events like at 5: or between 5: to 7: knowing that folks would have to um pick up their children after work or they might
Just have a long commute to get to where the wherever the venue is and so just being considerate of like where where do people live where do they work um and where do they hang out and so that was crucial to like meeting folks with where
They were at um yeah hope that answers that question yeah that’s good there’s a question from sry Alicia H there’s a question a question from uh I believe it’s anounced uh uh oh it’s Chris um Chris winch um in reflecting on these community outreach efforts I like this
Question um what’s been the biggest hurdles and surprises um that your department has learned through the process hurdles and surprises I guess surprises could be good or not so good um biggest hurdles and surprises I think going through this process say again just moving at the speed of trust with
Community moving with um Community Readiness uh in my um my land use development projects it’s there strict timelines and you have to move things for it accordingly and you get it done by the time frame no matter what and for me it was such a transition of we didn’t
Figure out what our goals were or what um or who the Community Partners we’re going to be that we’re going to be involved and so it um was a shift of just learning how to be really flexible but then also trying to find ways of how to support our partners
Um and then I think other challenges uh Contracting within the city um every agency every Department doesn’t differently and so there’s not really a standard process so trying to navigate that process this was a major challenge um and just making sure that uh everybody is on the same page has the
Same um shared goals at the end of the day it takes time to develop shared goals within within the department within the department as and with our Community Partners and our sister agency so again it takes time some could take a month it could take a few months to
Develop that um but once that’s ironed out I feel like everything else just kind of falls into place great um I have a question um the potential landmarks that have been identified what happens to them now do they get like sort of moved on do they
Get cach a for moving on what what does it look like for the landmarks that the community identified through the process so right now um we’re kind of I think as planning it’s our role to kind of help hold the information but ultimately we’ll take our lead from
Community so we plan to work with the community to advance the research on potential landmarks um and they can help us determine which property should be prioritized But ultimately um through Community if they would like their elected officials or HPC to kind of push that forward that’s when our team would
Start to move start to work on those landmark designations so I think it just depends on community Readiness okay so in that process you let them know that you’ve identified these sites and the next steps for you if you choose to are bringing it before the
Correct uh Daniel uh has a question in the Q&A box do you have any advice for Community activists um and how they can be most effective in being heard by government when there’s no true Community engagement process that’s a a great question I guess what comes to mind for me if there
Is no true Community engagement process is allowing or utilizing like existing um Outreach pathway so for example if there are commission hearings and there’s public comment opportunity encourage in activists to speak in those forums everything is on public record and um it’s it’s good for elected officials
And our our boards and our commissions to be aware of what their constituents are concerned with so I I would suggest using that as a platform um or just even you know taking the time to have a coffee meeting and and meeting with um different activists and organizations just to here where they’re
At sometimes I think with our work we’re always looking to like get something at like we should be expecting something but I think it’s good to also just be aware and be informed of what’s going on in community as well great um Katherine asks how do you
Speak to the obvious benefits of this work um to the quality of life in San Francisco in general how would you speak to the obvious benefits oh John uh John has a a an answer or response rather um I think in terms of like the obvious I think our community input
Dashboard again that’s the living tool that we really want to highlight and it’s vital for Gathering and um analyzing feedback from the community so I think by using that tool Community input remains at the Forefront of our decision making processes and so that’s really what is empowering residents to
Actively participate in shaping the future of their communities okay um great and I think there’s one more in the Q&A from Cindy hi Cindy do you have places the community considers important but don’t meet Landmark criteria like those places that the folks brought uh to your attention but don’t uh really
Meet Landmark criteria if so how do you handle that with the community how do you how do you manage expectations yeah we we’ve um communicated that you know we based on their input we want to be able to document everything and so but of course we need to conduct additional research
To determine if you know this information should live within the historic context statement um or if it even qualifies for landmarking I I think to date we received I want to say over over a 100 individual named leaders events businesses and residents that were not identified in the context
Statement and so I think we have to work with Community to conduct additional research to see if that if it even meets the minimum eligibility for landmarking um but we have been very transparent in that um letting them know again that this is a document to kind of
Hold information um but it’s not the end all be all great uh Jazzy has a question in the uh in the chat as someone in a relatively new role of community outreach and engagement I think I think Jazzy we asked that question in the chat what would you recommend to be successful
Outreach and engagement to be a successful Outreach and engagement specialist but before you answer that Ashley you don’t come from a background of uh Community engagement so what did that look like for you and trans transitioning to this job that um had the importance of community engagement
And then um maybe tacking on Jazz’s question about um to be a successful Outreach and engagement specialist sure um I’ll be honest diving into Community engagement was like jumping into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim um so my background again was primarily revolved around Regulatory Compliance
For land use development and so that focuses on the objective aspects of the physical and built environment but I’ve always been fascinated by people and how their lived experiences and environment shape their decisions so I believe that a project or program can only succeed if it’s
Resonating with its users um and I think that’s what inspired me to explore community engagement work and I think in order for Community engagement to work I think as a planner it’s our role to kind of be a connector we are the conduit between community and then regulatory we
Can um we’re conduit of information and so I think by trying to bridge the gap between communities and the resources that we have access to can contribute to successful um community engag M and then I think even though it was not my area of expertise I think just being willing
Um to learn and adapt uh has made it uh just a rewarding Journey so far nice um we don’t have if we don’t have any more questions I have um one more um should I have a few more uh can you describe your team’s cultural mapping activities in the
Community I know you touched on it a little bit but what did those cultural mapping activities uh include what did they look like so um our team’s cultural mapping activities in the community um is an integral part of just the overall SF survey project I mentioned we work on historic context
Statements and we’ve got field workor going on um but we’re evaluating properties that are at least 45 years old that have not been evaluated yet and we’re concentrating on neighborhood commercial districts first and then um through that fieldwork we’ll conduct evaluations and develop draft findings and once that phase is completed we plan
To expand our fieldwork to include other areas such as residential areas schools libraries churches and then the selection of future phase locations is just determined by a variety of factors including uh Community readiness the status of historic contact statements and our team’s capacity we are a small But Mighty team um and then
Our staff regularly audits evaluations conducted across the city to ensure accuracy and compliance with current standards so ultimately our cultural mapping activities aimed to create a comprehensive and accurate inventory of San Francisco’s cultural heritage nice uh there is a question in the Q&A um Amy says you mentioned compensating the community partner
Organizations she’s asking did you also compensate community members that participated and if so how did you do that um like what was the standard and um uh how much uh so I didn’t mention I was not involved with the focus groups but for the focus groups um participants
Were compensated and they received gift cards grocery gift cards for the community forums we did not compensate each participant but we did have Raffles going on so a lot of folks did um they were able to win gift cards that way so we yeah it is definitely important to um
Compensate participants depending on the level of Engagement that you’re asking from them and compensation can look different um uh for different groups or different activities but it is a sort of a catchall for compensation I like that gift card idea um I have a question um and I we have
Like only a few more minutes uh left um so hopefully it’s not too too extensive a question um arm with the knowledge and better understanding of African-American communities and their Heritage in the city of San Francisco um what practical ways um do you and your team hope that
The city city staff property owners and even developers will use the information and the document yeah that’s a great question and I think that’s essentially why we’re even doing this work in the first place um but we hope that you know City staff property owners and developers approach
This knowledge with a sense of responsibility and commitment to positive change again we can’t ignore the fact that past government policies have inflicted harm on people of color including the African-American community so moving forward it’s crucial that we acknowledge this history learn from it and then actively work towards
Developing new policies and programs that address these past harms um I think this involves fostering community-led cultural advocacy and research and uh implementing policies that prioritize Equity inclusivity um and then again our goal is to create a more expansive sense of belonging and understanding within our diverse and complex
City yeah that’s great well I know that um I’ve gotten a lot out of this and I will be emailing you um as uh the city and gy do the African-American historic places La uh project a lot um of things in common uh you guys have done a lot of
Things well and again it’s about you know Community engagement um and not just community outreach but also so you as you know part of um you know part of government and part of you know uh planning processes and tools um yeah I’m just super excited uh
For uh more of the work um that will come out of the um the core work that you guys have done well I want to thank Ashley Alisha and I you know thank you for your time and for your expertise and for um just allowing us to bombard you
With uh all sorts of questions um and um Ashley has also said that she’s uh she’ll be available uh via email if there are any follow-up questions that you um that you have or um you know as as all of you out there dive into your uh projects your preservation projects
That want to engage um and not just um Outreach to the community um she’ll make her um uh email uh available I think are you going to put it in the chat yeah I’ll drop that in the chat right now okay a little tight though but
No thank you so much Rita and Alicia for having me it was a pleasure to be part of this webinar um and I yeah just look forward to ongoing conversations and learning from what others are doing as well so thank you again yeah thank you cpf thank you so
Much John is that there you go here I am um I I just wanted to thank the three of you uh especially um coming I went to grad school for public history but most of what I learned about Community engagement was from books and um this is
A whole different way of looking at it uh I feel a much more rewarding way so I thank you uh for for that Ashley uh such wonderful work you’re doing at San Francisco planning so um with that I wanted to um remind everybody uh we hope
You enjoyed the program if you’d like to leave feedback when you close this window or when we close this window you’ll receive a link to a survey please let us know how we did and I’ll share that with our speakers and moderators um uh we hope you’ll join us again for some
Future cpf programs including our new emerging Professional Series which we’re really excited about our next emerging uh professional uh uh program will include will feature highlight the work of Laura Dominguez who’s also on our Board of uh trustees and um we also have a pro a three-part local government
Training boot camp that’s available on our website now information on all of these programs is available on our website at californ preservation. org and while you’re there we hope you’ll also consider joining the cpf as a member memberships start at the very very low rate of $50 a year which
Includes benefits to a number of things and as always students are completely free to join uh cpf and they get free access to our paid programs as well so we hope uh you’ll consider doing that and we wanted to thank you again and we’ll we look forward to seeing you at
The ne Next program thank you very much thank thanks Sean bye everyone bye
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