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What a tangled web: CAMP gets even more complicated
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The Presidio Trust received another demerit last week, this time in the form of a Section 213 Report (sounds kind of daunting, doesn’t it?) that portrays the Main Post Update (MPU) in a rather uncomplimentary light. The MPU is the Trust’s plan for the development of the Main Post and contains, among other projects, the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio. The 213 report, authored by the National Park Service (NPS) for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), put it like this:
The proposed undertaking will have a significant adverse effect on the Presidio of San Francisco National Historic Landmark District because key character defining features and contributing resources will be adversely and irreversibly affected.
The ACHP acts as the advisory group to the federal government for projects with historic districts such as the Presidio and a negative conclusion like the one stated in the report does not bode well for the Trust and Don Fisher, the developer of the museum. At least that’s what I thought, until Mr. Fisher’s spokesman told me this:
The Presidio Trust's analysis considers a number of alternatives and the preferred alternative remains the Main Post. The Section 213 report is a comment letter like any other and the CAMP team will continue to collaborate within the parameters of the Section 106 process. The Fisher family is deeply committed to the Main Post and we are optimistic about the momentum within the community in support of the CAMP project.
Or this response from the Trust:
The National Park Service has acknowledged that the new design for the art museum comes very close to meeting the objectives associated with new architecture in a historical context–but the design still needs to evolve.
Did I miss something? This report to the ACHP slams the Trust’s plan and specifically the proposed museum. But the Trust says the “new design…comes very close to meeting the objectives”?
In the words of the Captain in Cool Hand Luke, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.
The 213 report is not “a comment…like any other”. It carries considerably more weight and will figure as a major part of ACHP’s analysis. The 213 report lends support to CAMP’s opponents and, if litigation is pursued by those opponents, would lend credence to their arguments.
The report goes further and suggests that CAMP may be better located at Crissy Field where the impact to the historic district would be less. That option would not necessarily be welcomed by some groups, particularly the Cow Hollow Association and Marina Community Association, but it is an option. And options still exist for locations completely outside the Presidio.
The train wreck I described last week seems to be on track.
For more info: Section 213 Report on the Presidio
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