Enviro, Preservation Concerns Drive Opposition to Presidio Main Post Plans

Flickr photo: 2composers

Revised plans for the Main Post of San Francisco’s Presidio national park, which include construction of a contemporary art museum for the
collection of billionaire businessman Donald Fisher, are still
unsatisfactory, say many preservationists, environmentalists, and
neighbors who attended a hearing on the new plans Tuesday night. 
Despite the fact that the museum plans have been scaled down since
their original release to the public and the National Park Service,
they could, in fact, lead to a lawsuit to stop the project from moving
forward.

In addition to Fisher’s proposed Contemporary Art Museum of the
Presidio (the CAMP), the seven-member governing body for the park, the
Presidio Board of Trustees, has tentatively approved a Heritage Center in what
is now the Officers Club, a 129-room hotel called the Presidio Park
Lodge in one of the barracks, and an expansion of the Presidio Theatre, all at the Main Post.  It has already adopted plans for the Walt Disney Family Museum for the Main Post.

According to Presidio Executive Director Craig Middleton, the organizing theme of the
altered Main Post will be sustainability, with the use of reclaimed
water for landscaping, the improvement of PresidiGo shuttle for
transportation around the entire park, the installation of permeable
surfaces to reduce runoff, and photovoltaic panels on buildings.

A conceptual design for the museum.

At this time, there are 2,200 parking spots in the Main Post, but
only about half of those spaces are used on any given weekday.  Under
the new plans, the number of parking spaces will be slightly reduced
and the parking lots – which now occupy the Main Parade Ground, the
center of the Main Post – will be relocated to the backs of buildings
and perhaps moved underground.  While the Main Parade Ground will be
transformed into a lawn, the plans project that parking lots will be at
capacity.

Nonetheless, Middleton said that the CAMP and the Presidio Lodge
are only expected to increase current traffic by about two percent
each.  Board members are planning to charge for parking. Still, members of the public objected.

The completed Main Post is projected to attract over two million
people annually, about three times the present number.  About 62
percent of those visitors are expected to come in cars.  Neighborhood
watchdogs and others have noticed that the 2002 Presidio Trust Management Plan (PTMP) includes the option for
traffic lights at six points in or near the Main Post, indicating an
expectation for possible congestion.

“Here’s an organization that’s talking about sustainability and
you’re bringing in cars? I don’t understand that,” said Tom McAteer of
the Presidio Historical Association (PHA).

In addition, he said, the
closest BART station to the Main Post is 2½ miles away, the Ferry
Terminal is three miles, and Caltrain three miles to four miles.

“With climate change and global warming threatening the very
survival of civilization, why is a huge art museum being proposed for
the Presidio's historic Main Parade Grounds, miles away from the center
of San Francisco tourism?” asked retired computer programmer and long
time environmental activist Shirley Hansen.

“The environmental impact statement doesn’t discuss planned
cutbacks on the 29 and 41 Muni lines,” buses that travel in or near the
Presidio, due to budget shortfalls, added third-year UC Berkeley law
and city planning student Jamie Volker.

Fisher,
who served as a Presidio Trust board member from 1997 until 2005, first
made public his CAMP proposal in 2007.  According to the most recent
draft environmental impact statement, the current proposed uses for the
Main Post, including the CAMP, exceed the permitted Main Post building
area by about 44,000 square feet but are otherwise consistent with the PTMP.

Not so, said Amy Meyer, a trustee from 1998 to 2003.  The CAMP “is
going to be very big, very white, and very glassy with plazas and
overhangs.  It’s going to be much bigger than anything that’s ever been
there,” she said, calling the CAMP “a donor-driven disaster.”

The Main Post’s National Historic Landmark designation mandates
that it be kept in a condition as close to its original state as
possible, according to Gary Widman, president of the PHA.  The Presidio
Trust, he says, is violating that by adding 240,000 square feet of new
construction that includes the CAMP.  The PTMP does indeed allow for a
museum, he and others noted – but in the Crissy Field Commissary, not
at the Main Post.

If the Presidio Trust decides to move forward with the plans as
they now stand, the PHA could file a lawsuit to stop the project.

San
Francisco Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, responding to concerns of
neighbors, sponsored a resolution that passed in January, supporting
the siting of Fisher’s museum within the City and County of San
Francisco and not the national park.

The Presidio Trust, as a federal agency, conducts its project
review and compliance under the provisions of the National
Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation
Act.  The end of public comment for National Environmental
Quality Act compliance is April 27th, while public comment for the NHPA
will continue.