Supervisors back landmarking process for Lincoln Park amid strong community support and golfers’ concerns

The Land Use and Transportation Committee voted to forward to the full Board a resolution to initiate landmark designation of Lincoln Park — the site of the former City Cemetery — under Article 10 of the Planning Code.

Supervisor Connie Chan, who introduced the resolution, said the site is deeply meaningful to many immigrant communities and described City Cemetery’s history from 1870 to the early 1900s, when the city converted the land to a park and golf course. She said an estimated 20,000 bodies remain beneath the turf and that Chinese immigrants accounted for a substantial portion of the burials; she cited surviving cemetery structures including the Gong Chau (Gongzhou) funerary chapel as reasons for an archaeological landmark designation.

Woody Labonte of San Francisco Heritage presented archival materials describing the cemetery’s sections (ethnic, fraternal and veterans’ plots), the ad hoc removals that continued through 1916 and the presence of surviving monuments on the golf course. Allison Vanderslice of the Planning Department explained that archaeological review under the California Environmental Quality Act would remain in place and that ordinary maintenance and irrigation work would continue to undergo current review procedures and would not change as part of the landmarking.

Hundreds of callers participated: preservation groups, descendants of families associated with the cemetery, AAPI historic-preservation advocates and historians strongly supported initiating the landmarking work and asked for signage and interpretation. Several golfers and the San Francisco Golf Alliance urged care in drafting the final language so maintenance, irrigation trenching and renovations would remain possible; they said they sought assurances that normal course operations would not be impeded.

Supervisor Chan introduced clerical edits to remove duplicate society names in the resolution and proposed a 90-day extension (for a total of 180 days) for the Historic Preservation Commission to review the nomination. The committee approved the amendments and then voted to forward the amended resolution with a positive recommendation; the clerk recorded 'ayes' from Supervisors Peskin, Preston and Melgar.

The committee’s action sends the item and the amended resolution to the full Board for further public hearing and decision. Planning staff and Rec & Park representatives were listed as available to answer questions at subsequent steps.