Historical Properties & CEQA

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was passed into law by the State legislature in the 1970's. One of its provisions is that cities must evaluate the environmental impacts of projects that they oversee. One example of an environmental impact is the loss of a historic resource. The minimum threshold for a property to POSSIBLY be historic is 50 years of age or older. This does not mean everything that is older than 50 is historic, it just means that the possibility must be looked at.

Here in Burlingame, we have not done this on a broad scale, but 15 other cities in San Mateo County have adopted historic lists to determine ahead of time which structures are and are not historic. Since Burlingame has no list, individual properties over 50 years may come under scrutiny. In general, when a property might be redeveloped, the issue crops up. Doing it this haphazard way doesn't help anyone--buyers, sellers, developers, or neighbors. It just adds uncertainty to the process.

We have seen several examples of this recently in Burlingame including two houses on Douglas Ave., one on Bloomfield Rd., one on Sanchez Ave. and just recently one in my neighborhood on Newlands Ave.

The press coverage of the one in my neighborhood was particularly uninformed, so I would like you to bear in mind the following:

These issues stem from a 30 year old State Law (CEQA).
The property is a single house and out-buildings on a double lot, built in 1922, and a developer was proposing to demolish it and build two new homes.
I consulted the Burlingame City Attorney who indicated that I had a duty to provide him with the information about the history of the house and the neighborhood. I had this information because it is publicly available and I knew the current homeowner had commissioned a study on the history of his property in 2004. I did exactly what the City Attorney advised me to do--no more and no less.
If I had not provided this information to the City, it would certainly have been discovered as part of the CEQA process and would have raised the question (a legal question) of why this information was not disclosed earlier.

As I have advocated for the last eight years as a councilmember, the City of Burlingame needs to conduct a simple, commonly understood inventory like 15 other local cities have done. Then buyers, sellers, developers and neighbors would have clarity and certainty on what is and is not historic according to the law.