Historic preservation nomination for 770 Wolsey Street fails to advance after heated debate

Commissioners on the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission on July 17, 2019 effectively declined to advance a community-sponsored nomination to add 770 Wolsey Street (the University Mound Nursery) to the commission’s landmark designation work program.

Staff planner Michelle Taylor described the 2.2-acre site in the Portola/Excelsior as the last remaining commercial cut-flower nursery in the city and said the department had received roughly 96 letters of support and several letters of opposition. The nomination’s author, Stacy Farr, and other supporters argued the site is significant for its association with the city’s early 20th-century flower-growing industry and the role of Italian and Italian-American families who operated nurseries in the Portola district. Friends of 770 Woolsey representatives presented a feasibility study they said showed options for an active community farm and other public uses.

Speakers for the property’s owners and developers, including representatives from L37 and project sponsor Jesse Herzog and Eric Tao, urged a different route: they said landmark designation of the whole site could make housing and mixed-use development substantially more difficult, and suggested that the environmental review (CEQA/EIR) process would allow negotiation of preservation measures and mitigation while still permitting some housing. Housing advocates and developers warned that landmarking the entire parcel could reduce the project’s capacity to deliver affordable housing and would likely prompt litigation or protracted entitlement battles.

Commission debate centered on procedural protections and trade-offs. Commissioners and staff discussed the legal and practical differences between adding a property to the landmarks work program (which would lead to a local landmark review and certificate-of-appropriateness process) and assessing it as a historic resource under CEQA during the EIR for the owner’s pending development application. Commissioners asked about nonconforming use rules, the condition of the greenhouses, the cost and feasibility of restoration, site contamination cleanup requirements, and whether portions of the site could be preserved while allowing housing elsewhere on the parcel.

Commissioner Johns moved that the commission not add the property to the landmark designation work program; the motion was seconded and the roll-call showed three votes in favor and one opposed (Chair Matsuda). That motion failed to carry the four votes needed for a final action in the shortened panel, and with no alternate motion offered the nomination did not advance — described on the record as a de facto disapproval of initiation of the landmark process. The commission did not adopt landmark status; staff said the CEQA review for the owner’s development proposal will continue and that the historic-resource issue will be considered through that environmental review.

The public hearing on the nomination included more than a dozen speakers on both sides: longtime neighbors, preservation advocates, educators and urban-agriculture proponents urged protection and reuse for community benefit; representatives of the owner and housing advocates stressed the need for housing and proposed compromise approaches. Commissioners asked staff to help facilitate future community–developer conversations and noted the possibility of preservation alternatives through CEQA that could achieve some of the community’s goals without designating the entire site today.

Next steps: The commission took no further action at the hearing. The CEQA/environmental review underway for the owner’s proposal will evaluate historic-resource impacts and potential mitigation or preservation alternatives. The commission can reconsider a formal work-program nomination later if a new application or additional research is provided.