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Historic Preservation Commission debates 'facadism' and asks staff to draft guidelines on facade retention
Summary
Commissioners engaged in a lengthy, wide-ranging discussion about facade retention and 'facadism' — reviewing local case studies, trade-offs between retaining facades versus interiors, setbacks, visibility, and CEQA implications — and directed staff to draft factors/guidelines for future cases.
A major portion of the Historic Preservation Commission’s April 6 hearing was devoted to a substantive policy discussion about facade retention — popularly labeled 'facadism' — and how the department and commission should weigh setbacks, interior volume preservation, visibility, and streetscape outcomes in projects that add substantial new construction behind or above historic façades.
Justin Gervin (department staff) opened with a taxonomy of facade-retention typologies (downtown high-rise projects, low-rise industrial garages with large additions, and small-scale residential cases) and illustrated trade-offs…
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