Buildings Grow, Trees Die

The Presidio Trust’s mission is to achieve financial sustainability and preserve the natural and cultural resources of the park, but facts revealed at the corporation’s first-ever public budget discussion on May 12, exposed the conflicting values of these goals.

“If we don’t spend more on the forest, we’re going to lose it,” Executive Director Craig Middleton stated at the public meeting. “All the trees are dying at the same time, because it’s an even age forest.”

In the Trust’s 2004 capital projects budget, 73.9 percent of expenditures are devoted to buildings, while landscape, natural resources and forests receive only 13.2 percent. Because the federally-appointed corporation is racing to comply with a Congressional mandate that will eliminate the park’s need for government funding by 2013, the Trust has devoted the lion’s share of its resources to residential and commercial development.

Since Bill Clinton announced that he hoped the Presidio would “show the way to the future” when he signed the Trust Act in 1996, opponents of federal park privatization have warned that this agreement could cause economic concerns to overshadow environmental ones. These worries were legitimized when a study, available through the Trust’s website, was released in February by the National Academy of Public Administrations. According to the report, “While natural resource preservation, park access, and natural and cultural programs are major components of the Presidio Trust’s mission, they are not prominent in the organization’s structure.”

The NAPA report stated that while the Trust should meet its financial self-sufficiency goal in ten years, its margin for error is slim. Complaints that changes to the original Trust Management Plan that allow broader criteria for commercial tenants, almost triple the amount of “replacement” (as opposed to restoration) construction, and limitations on public access have been enacted to reach this goal have echoed throughout the community for years, but the main concern expressed by citizens at the budget meeting was a major lack of public accountability.

Don Green, a member of the Sierra Club-Presidio Committee, argued that because the Presidio’s developments will have long-term affects on the park and its neighbors, the strategy behind this growth should be open to the public. He cited negotiations regarding the Letterman project as a reason for concern, pointing out that the Trust vastly underestimated it’s potential revenues for the project until after contract for the enormous Lucasfilm complex were settled. He also pointed out that the budget projection scheduled to be released this fall cover only a 5-year horizon, which is not long enough to include 2013, the critical year when the Trust must achieve financial self-sufficiency.(regarding the Lucas reference, I can cite specific figures if necessary, this example is in reference to the fact that the Trust refused to acknowledge the impact of increased property values during the boom years in the late 90’s on their projected revenue)

The Trust’s latest development proposal, the rehabilitation of the historic Public Health Hospital just north of the intersection of Lake and 15th Streets into a 400,000 square foot, 350 unit apartment building is the biggest current source of public frustration at the Trust’s exemption from planning procedures that govern the rest of the City.

Resident of the adjacent Richmond District, which currently has only five developments with over 50 units, the largest with 85, have challenged the Trust to justify the potential traffic, safety, and environmental implications associated with the massive scale of the conversion. The Planning Association for the Richmond, the largest neighborhood organization in the City, recently sent a letter to the Trust commenting on the Hospital proposal’s environmental assessment. The letter stated, “The public has not been informed of the calculations behind the financial requirement and there has been no public discussion of other ways the Trust could meet its revenue needs without promoting the maximum development.”

At the May 12 meeting, Woody Scal of the Richmond-Presidio Neighbors group offered alternative, lower-density suggestions for generating the one million dollars in annual ground rent revenues that the Hospital development is expected to earn, but Middleton refused to debate the proposal, only saying that the final decision has not been made.

“I and my other neighbors are disappointed in the Trust on this issue,” Scal told the Guardian following the budget meeting. “I don’t think they’re realizing that, as a unique urban park, they have to take into account that they have real neighbors and while the neighborhood wants to be supportive, the Trust hasn’t listened to our concerns.”