State backs historic status for upscale SF enclave

The state Historical Resources Commission has recommended the St. Francis Wood neighborhood of San Francisco for historic designation, a status that could allow the area to bypass a state law meant to spur dense development.

Historic status would safeguard St. Francis Wood from SB9, the controversial housing law that overrides local zoning to allow the development of rental properties in single-family neighborhoods, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. To win historic designation, the National Register of Historic Places must approve its bid by mid-June.

Critics at a recent commission hearing said that the neighborhood was using the bid for historic designation to avoid SB9, likening it to an attempt by the Silicon Valley city of Woodside to avoid the law by claiming the entire town was a mountain lion habitat. The bid failed.

The hearing on St. Francis Wood was just the latest in a heated debate over state housing laws, exclusionary neighborhoods and SB9, which allows homeowners to subdivide lots and build two units of housing in areas zoned for single-family homes.

The law has sparked intense backlash in both urban and suburban communities, which have turned to creative means to try to avoid opening up more neighborhoods to density.

In San Francisco, pro-housing advocates have criticized pending fourplex legislation that could undercut parts of SB9. More than 30 cities are creating ordinances to water down SB9.
Other cities have sued the state.

The St. Francis Homes Association, which said it’s been working on the historic designation for years, cited the neighborhood’s unique community planning, architecture and landscaping.

But critics also pointed to the neighborhood’s racist roots. When it was established in 1912, St. Francis Wood had a clause specifically prohibiting people of “African, Japanese, Chinese or of any Mongolian descent” from owning property.

“Granting this neighborhood protected status would be to celebrate that history and protect it by law,” Robert Fruchtman, a housing advocate and San Francisco resident, said.

But commissioners, while acknowledging its racist past, said they believed the neighborhood was worthy of historic designation because of its special architecture and planning. They said St. Francis Wood, designed by the famous Olmsted brothers, brought together a multitude of architects to create a cohesive, walkable and transit-oriented neighborhood.

“I’m very uncomfortable with the speakers who reduced the history of St Francis Woods to racism,” said Commissioner Alan Hess. He said racial covenants are part of history and something “we need to know and we need to communicate.”

“The history of planned communities is much broader than that,” he said, and St. Francis Wood is an important part of preserving history, “both good and bad.”

[San Francisco Chronicle] – Dana Bartholomew

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