The Main Post Update and Draft SEIS comment period have been extended until November 17, 2008. The Presidio Trust has also postponed the date of the Board of Directors meeting to November 13, 2008. The meeting will be held at 6:30 pm at a location yet to be determined.
–Doug Kern
Tags: main post, SEISThis September 9th article from the Los Angeles Times explores the ongoing Main Post controversy. (h/t to TDK Reader KW)
The Fishers have made it clear that they want their building to sit on the promontory at the top of the parade ground, and those familiar with the negotiations said there is a chance that if the museum’s site, size and design are not approved, the Fishers would retract their offer.
Wow.
Just the site, size and design? Is that all?
“Their” building?
–Doug Kern
Tags: Craig Middleton, Don Fisher, main post, museum, SEISThis online August 22, 2008 article in Preservation Magazine, describes the ongoing controversy surrounding the Contemporary Art Museum at the Presidio (CAMP) and reports this news:
Kicking it Up a Notch
In a rare move, this week the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation requested guidance from the National Park Service in the form of a “Section 213 report.” That document, due in October, will assist the council in its review of the proposed museum by recommending ways to ”avoid, minimize, and mitigate” harm to the Presidio National Historic Landmark District. The council’s sparingly used request is a direct result of a July 8 letter from National Trust President Richard Moe, who explained the need for an objective review of the proposal’s impact on the park.
In this previous post, I took a look at the Section 106 process from the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Now, the rarely invoked NHPA Section 213 is put into action. What is Section 213 and what does it mean for the Presidio Section 106 process?
Section 213 [16 U.S.C. 470u].
To assist the Council in discharging its responsibilities under this subchapter, the Secretary at the request of the Chairman, shall provide a report to the Council detailing the significance of any historic property, describing the effects of any proposed undertaking on the affected property, and recommending measures to avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects.
This is an important request by the Executive Director of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) to the Director of the National Park Service. As noted in the article and the section language these reports seek to make recommendations about avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating adverse effects to the National Historic Landmark District (NHDL). This report will aid the ACHP in the Section 106 consultation process.
This interesting Section 213 report for the proposed Highwood Generating Station on the Portage Route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition near Great Falls, Montana, determined that proposed mitigations were not effective or adequate and went on to say that the proposed construction was immitigable unless the project was relocated. That project has received widespread negative public reaction and has been tied up since the Final EIS was issued in January 2007.
–Doug Kern
Tags: National Historic Preservation Act, Section 106 consultation, Section 213
According to the Presidio Trust website the comment period for the Main Post SEIS has been extended to October 20, 2008. This is approximately a 30-day extension.
There will be a Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon Street.
In addition, the Trust will hold workshops on the Main Post. According to the website:
The workshops will also provide a forum to discuss further the kinds of activities that the public would like to see in the Main Post in the future.
The workshops will be held:
–Doug Kern
Tags: main post, SEISWe are hearing a lot about Section 106 in the Main Post debate.
What is Section 106 and where does it come from?
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) was passed in 1966 and according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the independent federal agency created by the NHPA,
The goal of the NHPA is to have federal agencies act as responsible stewards of our nation’s resources when their actions affect historic properties. The ACHP is the only entity with the legal responsibility to encourage federal agencies to factor historic preservation into federal project requirements.
The NHPA has 46 sections:
The full text of Section 106 states (note: emphasis mine -ed.):
The head of any Federal agency having direct or indirect jurisdiction over a proposed Federal or federally assisted undertaking in any State and the head of any Federal department or independent agency having authority to license any undertaking shall, prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds on the undertaking or prior to the issuance of any license, as the case may be, take into account the effect of the undertaking on any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register. The head of any such Federal agency shall afford the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation established under Title II of this Act a reasonable opportunity to comment with regard to such undertaking.
Once the NHPA became law, the Act was placed into the appropriate Title, Chapter, Subchapter and Sections of United States Code. In the case of the NHPA, it can be found in:
You can find examples of drilling down through the US Code to the NHPA here and here.
OK, so the short paragraph listed above is Section 106. What is the Section 106 process?
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), as an independent Federal agency, may create rules or regulations in order to implement US Code. These regulations have the force of law. In order to implement Section 106 and require Federal agencies to evaluate the impact of all Federally funded or permitted projects on historic properties, the ACHP created the “106 process” in their regulations.
The ACHP rules are contained within the Code of Federal Regulations under
The regulations of the ACHP Section 106 process are contained in the links listed below:
Incidentally, you can see the Presidio Trust regulations in Part 1000-1099, Presidio Trust.
That’s a brief overview as to what Section 106 is and where it comes from. You may be interested in reading these three particular sub-sections as they are clearly relevant to the current situation at the Main Post:
There is obviously a lot more to interpreting these regulations and making sure that the Presidio is afforded the protections that these laws and regulations intended for historic resources.
–Doug Kern
Tags: main post, Section 106 consultation, SEISTDK Reader WH shares his thoughts…
Parking on the El Presidio is a tough problem that has to be solved. Worse, there is Moraga Street cutting across the archeological site directly in front of the 1778 structure, the Officers Club now. And Moraga is on the city’s scenic 49 MIle Drive. How can it be cut off so the historic site can be revealed and presented, or that the traffic on it can easily be diverted?
There will have to be some compromises, but there is no excuse for not having a plan. The Trust refuses to face reality concerning parking becasue it does not want to discourage future tenants. Even now, the historic streetscapes that had little or no parking, as along Funston, are crowded with cars. One part of a plan might be some parking extended between the Library and Day Care Center, maybe with one level under ground and one on the surface, landscaped so it is not very visible. Parking in that area could serve a history center built nearby and the Officers Club. This suggestion does not solve the Moraga Street problem, however.
–Doug Kern
Tags: main post, SEIS, transportationAfter viewing this post, TDK Reader DP makes a request:
The proposed parking near the archeological site of El Presidio de San Francisco is a severe negative impact on the special nature of the historic site.
Are you able to describe this aspect in more detail?
Yes, I think I can describe what people may be upset about. The archeological site of El Presidio de San Francisco is the seminal archeological feature of the Presidio historical period beginning in 1776, and a key feature of the National Historic Landmark District. Page 35 of the Main Post SEIS envisions a restored El Presidio site as a major historical element of the main parade ground and, I believe rightly, a major visitor attraction.
Unfortunately, other leased buildings crowd this particular site. My understanding is that Building 39 is leased to a tenant for at least another 30 years and their lease agreement includes parking within a certain distance of the building.
How does this parking impact the El Presidio site? Two proposed future parking areas for this building are shown on Page 27 of the Main Post SEIS. Page 95 of the document shows a table indicating that there will be 75 parking spaces at the El Presidio site for Alternatives 2 (the Trust preferred alternative) and 2A.
The figures on Page 35 and Page 27 are not at the same scale. It is a little difficult to make out how the parking translates from Page 27 onto Page 35, but here’s a go at it. Parking is allocated directly adjacent to the most archeologically sensitive site on the Presidio and ironically, it’s not even for visitors to the site! (Maybe, they can squeeze in.) The parking area largely eliminates the intimate plaza, and brings noise and traffic almost on top of a culturally precious area. Clearly, reality is not quite the vision depicted on Page 35.
The Trust says they would prefer not to have the parking in that spot, but that their hands are tied. (I thought they were in charge.) They will try to get rid of the parking in 30 years, or so. Maybe.
Parking rules!
–Doug Kern
Tags: El Presidio site, History, main post, parking, SEISIn this July 29 Chronicle “Letter to the Editor” one reader laments.
She refers to this July 27 article by Harold Gilliam, the Chronicle’s environmental columnist for three decades, that gave her hope for a green vision of the Presidio, “a vision to stir our blood.” Reflecting on the Presidio of San Francisco, Mr. Gilliam asks,
So what happened to the original vision? And now that green is the color of the day, the year and hopefully the century, isn’t it high time we revive that vision?
–Doug Kern
Tags: SEIS, visionThis past evening, Monday 28th, the Presidio Trust held a workshop to discuss the transportation, parking and traffic impacts resulting from the Main Post museum, lodge and theater proposal. The meeting began at 6:30 p.m. and lasted until a little after 9:00 p.m. The meeting was well-attended by the public and Trust staff. I estimate that the crowd was over a hundred people.
Let me commend the Trust staff who led the meeting. They made a Powerpoint presentation, fielded questions and actually responded to the audience in real time. In my own experience the Trust rarely responds to questions in real time at large public meetings. Such a format is difficult to pull off without a reasonable command of the data. The audience asked a lot of detailed questions and made comments. The Trust responded, sometimes acknowledging that the comment was a “good point.” It was conversational, not confrontational. Refreshing.
I left the meeting feeling that transportation impacts had not been fully analyzed, however. Several audience member questions or comments stood out. Here is a small sampling:
I learned that there is a 217-page Appendix A to the SEIS, specifically on transportation, that was not included in the printed version of the SEIS. This document includes level of service reports for existing and future conditions at various intersections for all of the alternatives.
This meeting was a healthy exchange of information on the specific and highly important transportation component of a very controversial proposal. I hope the communication lines stay open.
–Doug Kern
Tags: main post, parking, SEIS, traffic, transportation
From today’s Matier and Ross, this on the Presidio Trust’s Main Post SEIS meeting on Monday. (h/t to TDK Reader MY.)
Hundreds of people were turned away from Monday night’s packed, six-hour Presidio Trust hearing over Gap founder Don Fisher’s proposal for a contemporary art museum on the old Army base’s parade grounds.
There was no shortage of political orchestrating leading up to the big meeting, on both sides.
For weeks, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief political consultant, Eric Jaye, and community organizer Alex Tourk had been working for Fisher to drum up a big turnout of fans of his proposal.
Calls and letters went out to scores of nonprofits and community groups that have benefited from Fisher’s philanthropy, including the San Francisco Boys and Girls clubs, the African American Democratic Club and Friends of the Urban Forest.
On the flip side, foes led by the Presidio Historic Association mobilized a neighborhood turnout against the project - including posting talking points for opponents on the association’s Web site.
There was also some criticism from unexpected sources - such as Margaret Brodkin, the mayor’s own director of the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. Despite having declared her support for Fisher’s museum, she dispatched a staffer to the meeting to raise concerns about its effect on a nearby day-care center.
For all the public hoo-rah Monday, the museum would sit on federally controlled land - and Fisher’s real battle may rest with the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The latter is warning that the building’s size, location and design would have “adverse effects” on the park.
–Doug Kern
Tags: Alex Tourk, Don Fisher, Eric Jaye, Gavin Newsom, main post, Margaret Brodkin, Presidio Historical Association, publicity, SEIS