Board backs Planning Department on 178 Seacliff Avenue demolition; tables related items

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Sept. 22 upheld the Planning Department’s environmental review for a proposed demolition and rebuild at 178 Seacliff Avenue, approving the motion to move item 26 forward and tabling two related items (27 and 28). The board’s vote to approve item 26 was 10–1; Supervisor Fewer cast the sole no vote.

The vote followed a legal explanation delivered to the board by the city attorney, who described how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) treats historic resources. City counsel told the board that when a neighborhood is the certified or potentially eligible resource, CEQA analysis looks at the district as a whole — not single speculative future projects that the agency cannot reasonably foresee. The attorney said the Planning Department had concluded that the loss of this single contributor would not substantially impair the district’s integrity.

Why it matters: The case illustrates how CEQA’s rules on historic resources and “reasonably foreseeable” future impacts are applied: a district may be the resource, and the loss of an individual property will not automatically trigger a finding of a…