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Why a Push to Make San Francisco's North Beach a Historic District Has Housing Advocates Worried

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People form a line for slices at Golden Boy Pizza on Green Street in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. A San Francisco neighborhood group wants to designate North Beach as a historic district, but pro-housing groups are raising their red flags, saying that this move is merely a maneuver to block more housing from being built in this neighborhood. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

A local preservationist group in North Beach on Wednesday is hoping to make its case to city officials to designate the neighborhood as a historic district — a move San Francisco housing advocates say would make it all but impossible to build new housing there.

The San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission will hear comments from the public about the proposal. It has until the end of the month to present its recommendation to the state’s Historical Resources Commission, which is expected to vote on it and other nominations in early February.

The Northeast San Francisco Conservancy, a neighborhood group, applied for the designation in June and is hoping the move will help preserve roughly a dozen blocks of North Beach, mostly along Columbus Avenue, Powell Street, Stockton Street and Broadway. The area includes several iconic sites, such as Washington Square Park, City Lights Bookstore, the Old Spaghetti Factory Cafe and Saint Francis of Assisi Church.

Saints Peter and Paul Church and apartment buildings in North Beach, on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

“North Beach has an amazingly rich history,” said Nancy Shanahan, a historian with the Northeast San Francisco Conservancy and wife of former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose district included North Beach.

However, housing advocates warn that if the group is successful, more than 600 buildings within that area would be exempt from certain state housing laws. It’s a tactic that’s become increasingly common in recent years as state officials have levied stricter laws on cities and counties, requiring them to plan for a record number of new homes. The move in North Beach follows Baywood in San Mateo, Montebello near Los Angeles and North Florence Heights in San Diego, all of which have sought the same designation.

An apartment window looks out above Columbus Cafe on Green Street in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

“When you’re talking about turning an entire neighborhood into a historic district with the goal of making it harder — impossible — to build any housing there, that’s very concerning,” said State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).

Along with enjoying special property tax benefits and opportunities for more funding, historic districts have stricter rules for how developers can retrofit or redevelop buildings to preserve the architecture and historic character of the district. To keep up with those stringent standards, developers often have to spend more on projects, meaning the resulting building is either expensive or never gets built.

San Francisco is home to a handful of historic districts recognized by the state and national register, including parts of Russian Hill, Golden Gate Park, Jackson Square and the Presidio, but the city itself plays a minor role in designating these districts as “historic.” Instead, it’s up to the State Historical Resources Commission.

(Clockwise from top left) A for-rent sign on Jasper Place, apartment numbers on Bannam Place, pedestrians on the corner of Krausgrill Place and Filbert Street, and a man carries drycleaning on Green Street in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

This centralized process dates back to the early 1900s, but housing advocates, including Wiener, argue these designations are increasingly being “weaponized” to slow new housing or prevent it altogether. Anyone who wants to designate a particular area as a “historic district” — and can afford to pay architectural experts and historians to draft an application — can simply submit their nomination to the state.

“The problem here is that you have people who do not want to see any new housing built in North Beach not going to City Hall to have the conversation, but going to a state body and asking them to short-circuit local conversations,” Wiener said.

Pedestrians and cafe-goers mix along Columbus Avenue in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

Shanahan refutes that interpretation: “This is not a maneuver to block new housing from being built in North Beach,” she said.

However, Woody LaBounty of San Francisco Heritage, a local historic preservation advocacy group and proponent of the plan, said the state’s increasing zeal in ensuring new housing gets built across California does play a role in his support for the proposal.

“It’s especially important now because so many of these state housing production bills try to basically get outside of local control,” he said. “This is a great way to take another look at this before you just tear down this building to build a larger building because there’s something special here that probably should be preserved.”

A pedestrian crosses Union Street in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring cities to report historic districts to the state’s housing department to monitor how those designations impact the city’s ability to address housing needs.

The state’s housing department has tasked San Francisco with making room for more than 82,000 new homes and apartments by 2031, and city officials have consistently made it clear that all neighborhoods should expect to “accept their fair share of affordable housing.”

Jane Natoli, San Francisco Organizing Director of pro-housing group YIMBY Action, said that when affluent neighborhoods like North Beach try to exempt themselves from housing laws, it puts a larger burden on other neighborhoods with fewer resources to plan for more housing, and it can make those historic neighborhoods more expensive.

“I think most people can reasonably agree that there are historic resources that we want to save, but when we paint with too wide a brush, it becomes just another tool to obstruct housing and make it harder to live in California,” she said. “Then who can appreciate the history? Who gets to enjoy that historic neighborhood if they can’t afford to live in it or near it?”

A dilapidated building on Union Street and Columbus Avenue in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

LaBounty agreed that it’s not fair that, usually, only affluent neighborhoods like North Beach and Saint Francis Wood in San Francisco or Baywood in San Mateo, can afford to go through the lengthy and expensive process of getting designated as a historic district. However, he said that disparity was only a sign there should be more support from local and state governments to assist less affluent communities who want to document their historic sites.

“For us, it’s not about freezing things; it’s about managing change, and we can all work together to do that,” he said. “I think that people who want more housing and the people who want to save special places — we can work together to get more housing into these neighborhoods and save the places that everybody loves.”

A garage, painted in the national colors of Italy, faces out on Vallejo Street on the corner of Margrave Place in North Beach on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a correction. An earlier version of the story misidentified former Supervisor Aaron Peskin as a current elected official. 

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