Historic District FAQs

 

​What is a Historic District?

Per the Los Angeles Conservancy, “A historic district is a formally designated group of buildings, structures, sites, and spaces that relate to one another historically, architecturally, and/or culturally. Individual buildings within a district don’t need to be highly significant on their own. The area’s overall cohesiveness, uniqueness, and architectural integrity are what matters.”

​

​​

 How is a historic district created?

 There are three types of historic designation:

• National: Listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

  • The California Office of Historic Preservation recommends a nomination to the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. for final review and listing by the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places.

  • State: Listing in the California Register of Historical Resources.

    • Nominations are submitted to the California Office of Historic Preservation and reviewed and approved by the California Historical Resources Commission.

  • Local: Designation by the City

    • The City Council can pass a resolution conferring historic designation on a building, structure, site or district, as per Chapter 27.66.020 subsection b of the City of San Mateo Municipal Code 

​

What are the benefits of historic designation?

Advocates of historic designation cite several benefits to historic designation, including:

• Preservation of the architectural style(s) of a building or district

• Increased property values

• Exemption from recent state laws, like SB 9 and SB 35, that allow property owners to split their lots and/or construct a duplex.

​

What are the drawbacks of historic designation?

Rocket Mortgage provides a good explanation of some drawbacks to historic preservation, including:

• ​

• It limits your options as a property owner

  • The City of San Mateo requires individual historic properties and “contributors” to historic districts to conform to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. This locks in a property’s architectural style and any features that contribute to its “historic integrity”. The city can prohibit demolition and any changes that impact the “historic integrity” of the property, including limiting materials, colors, windows, doors and landscaping.

• It increases time and cost to renovations

  • All planning applications in the City of San Mateo involving a historic resource are required to hire an architectural historian to ensure the project conforms to the Secretary of the Interior’s standards. These additional reviews, with both the architectural historian and the City, can add significant time to a project. (And more time equals more cost.)

  • Historically appropriate materials can be significantly more expensive and add tens of thousands of dollars in cost, for example clay tile roof vs asphalt shingles, or wooden windows vs vinyl windows. The city can also require the project adhere to original methods of construction, which can also add time and cost.

​

•  It can be more difficult to sell the property

  • Potential buyers are limited to those who are willing to accept the restrictions, increased cost, and other drawbacks of historic designation.

• It can be harder to obtain financing for the property

• It can be harder to obtain insurance for the property

  • One San Mateo property owner of a historic resource was unable to renew their homeowner’s insurance on account of the increased fire risk from the original wood shingle roof.

​

Why apply for historic designation as a district instead of as individual properties?

The criteria for a property to obtain historic designation are less strict if it is considered as part of a district than if it is considered individually. To be listed on the California Register of Historical Resources an individual property must meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States.

2. Associated with the lives of persons important to local, California or national history.

3. Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region or method of construction or represents the work of a master or possesses high artistic values.

4. Has yielded, or has the potential to yield, information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California or the nation.

To be considered a “contributor” to a historic district a property simply has to add to the historic associations, historic architectural qualities, or archeological values for which a district is significant and possess historic integrity. Many properties in San Mateo’s Baywood neighborhood that did not individually meet the criteria for historic designation qualify as “contributors” to a historic district, per the San Mateo Heritage Alliance.​

​

What is happening in the Baywood neighborhood of San Mateo?

The San Mateo Heritage Alliance, with support from the Baywood Neighborhood Association, has submitted a nomination to the California Office of Historic Preservation to have the Baywood neighborhood listed in the National Register of Historic Places. They bypassed the City of San Mateo and did not ask the City Council to confer historic designation on the Baywood neighborhood, as is possible under Chapter 27.66.020 subsection b of the City of San Mateo Municipal Code.

​

 

Refuting the Claims of the San Mateo Heritage Alliance &

Baywood Neighborhood Association

​

The San Mateo Heritage Alliance (SMHA) and Baywood Neighborhood Association (BNA) have made some claims that warrant critical evaluation, including:

​​

Baywood property owners will be able to vote on historic designation

• There is no “vote” in the traditional meaning of the word. Most people assume that a vote is a tally of ballots, with the outcome dictated by the majority of votes. Neither of those things are the case in the state’s process.

• Page 71 of the CA State Law & Historic Preservation: Statutes, Regulations & Administrative Policies 4855(b)(1) states, “Private resource owners must make any objection to listing in a notarized letter…” and appears to refer to these objections as a “vote”, going on to say in subsection A, “Within a district, each owner has one vote regardless of how many buildings, or what percentage of the area of the proposed district, such person owns.”

• However, section 1 also states “If a private resource owner does not reply to a properly transmitted letter of notification, the absence of a reply will be interpreted as consent to the historical resource designation.”

• This is akin to unreturned ballots being counted as "yes" votes.

• Additionally, Subsection B states “If a majority of private resource owners should object for any reason, the proposed individual resource or district will not be listed. However, in such cases, the Commission shall designate the resource as ‘formally determined eligible for listing in the California Register.’” Both CEQA and San Mateo’s General Plan define “historic resources” as “buildings, structures, sites, and districts” that are listed in or determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and/or California Register of Historical Resources. There is no practical distinction between “listed” and “determined to be eligible” when it comes to the applicability of CEQA and San Mateo’s historic preservation ordinance.

• In other words, the practical outcome is the same, regardless of how the majority votes.

​

National Register designation imposes no regulations or requirements on historic resources

• There are a number of federal and state laws as well as local regulations that apply rules and restrictions on historic resources. Perhaps the most impactful is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

• Per the California Office of Historic Preservation Technical Assistance Series #1, CEQA requires "substantial adverse changes" to historical resources - defined as “demolition, destruction, relocation, or alteration such that the significance of an historical resource would be impaired” - to be avoided or mitigated if possible.

• The Technical Assistance Series acknowledges that “While demolition and destruction are fairly obvious significant impacts, it is more difficult to assess when change, alteration, or relocation crosses the threshold of substantial adverse change.” Ultimately it is up to the local jurisdiction (i.e. the City of San Mateo) to determine if that threshold is crossed.

• Another impactful restriction is San Mateo’s historic preservation ordinance which requires individual historic properties and “contributors” to historic districts to conform to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. 

​

Only the city of San Mateo can regulate San Mateo’s historic resources

As noted above, there are a number of federal and state laws that apply rules and restrictions on historic resources.​

​

Historic designation reduces costs

• It is generally accepted that insurance, financing and renovations cost more for historic properties. In the City of San Mateo, all planning applications involving a historic resource are required to be evaluated by an independent architectural historian to ensure the project is in compliance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. The cost of this evaluation is billed to the property owner.

• The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation require that materials and features that are important in defining the building’s historic character be preserved, repaired and replaced in-kind, in that order, if feasible. This is typically more expensive than replacing materials with modern alternatives. For example, a historic Spanish Colonial property with an end-of-life clay tile roof will likely be required to be replaced with clay tiles. Clay tile roofs are typically 2-3x more expensive than modern asphalt shingles. 

​

San Mateo’s Historic Preservation Ordinance only applies to the Downtown and Glazenwood historic districts

• San Mateo’s Historic Preservation Ordinance applies “to all individually eligible buildings in the City, all individually eligible and contributor buildings within the Downtown Specific Plan area, and all structures located in the Downtown Historic District, as adopted by resolution of the City Council.”

• It does not currently apply to the Glazenwood historic district.

• As part of San Mateo’s 2040 General Plan the city will be updating its Historic Preservation Ordinance. Given that the San Mateo Heritage Alliance advocated for the city to include contributor buildings in the city’s definition of “historic resource”, it is likely they will advocate for the Historic Preservation Ordinance to be expanded to cover all historic districts & contributor buildings in the city. Every time SMHA has pointed out that San Mateo’s Historic Preservation Ordinance only applies to the Downtown and (incorrectly) Glazenwood historic districts, we have asked them to go on the record about whether or not they will advocate for a Baywood historic district to be covered by the updated ordinance. They have declined to go on the record.​

​

Baywood has been identified as a National Register eligible historic district multiple times in the last 35 years

• The San Mateo Heritage Alliance website states, “Baywood has been identified as a National Register eligible historic district multiple times in the last 35 years: initially by the author of San Mateo's 1989 Historic Resource Survey; then by the State Office of Historic Preservation…” 

• However, San Mateo’s 2040 General Plan Environmental Impact Report (pg 3-7) states, “The 1989 Historic Building Survey undertook preliminary documentation of several neighborhoods located on the east side of El Camino Real. These neighborhoods were subject to an intensive survey and include Central, East San Mateo, Hayward Park, San Mateo Heights, and North Central. Other than the Glazenwood Historic District, which is located within the Hayward Park neighborhood, the 1989 Historic Building Survey did not formally evaluate these neighborhoods as historic districts. The neighborhoods with high concentrations of older homes on the west side of El Camino Real, including Aragon, Baywood, Baywood Knolls, and San Mateo Park, were subject to a visual (windshield) survey. The 1989 Historic Building Survey recommended that future historic resources surveys be undertaken to comprehensively document and evaluate these neighborhoods as historic districts.”​

​

New state laws allow your next door neighbor to construct a 4-unit apartment building without your knowledge, without public hearings, with no neighborhood notice and with no input from members of the public. A historic district will prevent 4-plex construction in the Baywood neighborhood.

• Apartments (including fourplexes) cannot be built in a single family neighborhood unless the local government rezones the neighborhood to allow apartments. That is unlikely to happen in San Mateo, particularly because single-family neighborhoods were excluded from any changes in San Mateo’s 2040 General Plan.

• There is no state law that allows construction of 4-plexes in a single family neighborhood. SMHA may be confused about Senate Bill 9 (SB 9), which streamlines the process for a homeowner to create two units of housing (like a home + ADU) and/or subdivide their lot. Developers are unlikely to use SB 9 because there is an owner-occupancy requirement. In this Planning Commission meeting, City Staff explains that neighbors within 500ft are notified when a project proposes demolishing over 50% of a structure, a two-story addition over 50sqft and/or new construction. 

• In any case, only one SB 9 application has been filed in the entire city of San Mateo since the law went into effect two years ago, and it wasn’t in Baywood.