Supervisors order further historic review for Sunset house, overturning planning exemption

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to disapprove the Planning Department’s determination that a proposed multi-story addition at 2462/246220 Seventh Avenue was categorically exempt from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The board’s vote disapproving the exemption directs the department to perform further environmental and historic-resource analysis for the project, which proposes substantial additions and alterations to an existing single-family house in the Parkside neighborhood. The motion passed 7–2.

Residents and neighborhood preservation groups, represented at the hearing by counsel, argued the structure and its block could be an unrecognized historic resource and that the department’s categorical exemption should be set aside because there is a "fair argument" of potential adverse impacts. "We have more than met the burden of coming forward with enough facts to establish that there may be historic resources at risk with this project," counsel Steven Williams told the board.

SPEAK (Sunset Parkside Education and Action Committee) and local residents described a pattern of early 20th-century development on the East side of Seventh Avenue and urged the board to require at least an initial study or historic evaluation before allowing a near-demolition addition. "This is historically important as a building on a block which shows how the Parkside was developed," Inge Horton, chair of SPEAK's architectural inventory committee, told the board.

Planning staff and the project supporters said the existing facade dates to 1924 and that review at the planning department had included preservation staff and public notifications and a discretionary-review hearing. "In order to be considered a historic resource, the building must meet the same four criteria as those for listing on the California Register of Historic Places," planning preservation staff Sophie Middlebrook said, adding that the department found no substantial evidence at the time of approval that the property met those criteria.

The project’s representative, Judy Rensler, said the record shows the house was built in 1924 and argued the appellant’s claims amounted to a request to place the entire Sunset under a moratorium while neighborhood surveys were completed.

After extended public comment from neighbors, preservationists and historians, Supervisor Magoldrick moved to disapprove the Planning Department’s categorical exemption and to direct staff to prepare findings reversing the planning determination and to return the matter for additional review. The motion passed by a 7–2 roll call.

The board’s action does not itself prohibit alterations; rather, it requires the Planning Department to revisit the environmental record and, if necessary, conduct an appropriate CEQA review that addresses potential historic resources before permits can proceed.