The Board of Supervisors advanced the designations on Tuesday, most of them drawn from a program tied to the city’s upzoning; under city rules owners cannot opt out, and the files show little owner input either way.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved, on first reading, ordinances designating 19 buildings as city landmarks, from the Transamerica Pyramid to a Western Addition church, two neighborhood movie houses and three North Beach sites tied to the city’s gay and lesbian nightlife. It gave final approval to a 20th, the Jefferson Airplane House at 2400 Fulton St., and adopted resolutions beginning the process of creating historic districts in the Castro and North Beach.
The votes the Bay Area Reporter covered were unanimous, 11 to 0. The clerk’s legislative records list the 19 ordinances as awaiting final passage on the board’s consent calendar, the status assigned after a first-reading vote, and the Jefferson Airplane House ordinance and the two district resolutions as sent to Mayor Daniel Lurie. The board’s official minutes had not been posted early Wednesday.
Landmark designation is one of the most consequential land-use tools the city has, and one of the least discussed. The Inquirer reviewed the board’s Nov. 10 agenda, the legislative files for each item, the Historic Preservation Commission’s resolutions and the Planning Department’s case reports to establish what designation changes for the people who own these buildings, whether they had to agree, and what they told the city.
What was on Tuesday’s agenda
The 19 ordinances, items 14 through 32 on the board’s agenda, came to the full board from the Land Use and Transportation Committee, which recommended them on Nov. 2. They fall into two groups.
Ten come from properties initiated by Supervisor Stephen Sherrill of District 2: the Allen-Weaver-Durant-Smith Auto Showroom at 1625 Van Ness Ave.; the former National Urban League headquarters at 2015 Steiner St.; Mr. Cudworth’s House at 2040 Union St.; the Lincoln Grill at 2049-2051 Fillmore St.; the Presidio Theatre at 2336-2346 Chestnut St.; the Arthur Castle Home at 2402 Steiner St.; Hannibal Lodge No. 1 at 2800-2804 Bush St.; the Bridge Theatre at 3008-3010 Geary Blvd.; the Vogue Theatre at 3290 Sacramento St.; and the First AME Zion Church at 2155-2159 Golden Gate Ave.
Nine were sponsored by Supervisor Danny Sauter of District 3: Finocchio’s, the former female-impersonation cabaret at 500-508 Broadway; the George Perine House at 535 Powell St.; the Italian Athletic Club at 1630 Stockton St.; the Maybeck Building at 1736 Stockton St.; Mona’s Candle Light at 463-473 Broadway, an early lesbian bar; the Nam Kue School at 755 Sacramento St.; the Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery St.; the University Club at 800 Powell St.; and Vesuvio Cafe at 253 Columbus Ave.
Because landmarks are created by ordinance, the board must vote a second time, expected at its next meeting, before the designations go to the mayor.
A preservation program built alongside upzoning
Most of the 19 were not singled out one at a time. They are the first phase of what the Planning Department calls the Family Zoning Plan Landmark Designation Program, run alongside the citywide rezoning meant to allow more housing.
The program’s objective, according to the Planning Department’s August transmittal to the board for District 3, is “allowing for more housing, while still preserving San Francisco’s most cherished architectural, cultural, and/or historical resources.” Phase 1 is limited to buildings already rated Category A historic resources in past surveys, with no more than one dwelling unit, outside public and RH (single-family and two-family) zoning districts, along with properties tied to underrepresented communities in the city’s adopted historic context statements. Later phases are to reach into RH districts.
The case reports describe why each building qualifies. Planning staff called the Transamerica Pyramid, completed in 1972 to designs by William L. Pereira Associates, “an excellent example of high style Brutalist architecture” and tied it to the Downtown Renaissance that led to the 1985 Downtown Plan. Finocchio’s, the staff wrote, “was one of the earliest and most significant queer spaces in San Francisco.” The Nam Kue School is described as “the earliest and longest surviving school preserving Chinese culture and language in America,” and Vesuvio, in a 1913 building it has occupied since 1948, as significant for Italian American and counterculture history.
The Historic Preservation Commission recommended the District 3 designations on Aug. 19. Its resolution on the Pyramid, No. 1633, passed 5 to 0, with Commissioners Cox, Tsern-Strang, Baroni, Foley and Matsuda in favor and two commissioners absent. The Planning Department found landmark designation exempt from environmental review.
What designation changes
The legal effect is set out in the legislative digest attached to each ordinance. Under Article 10 of the Planning Code, “once a structure has been named a landmark, any construction, alteration, removal or demolition for which a City permit is required necessitates a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission,” citing Planning Code Section 1006 and Section 4.135 of the City Charter. The digest describes this as “a high degree of protection.” The city now has more than 300 individual landmarks under Article 10, it says. Each ordinance lists the specific features that must be preserved or replaced in kind.
A Planning Department guide to Article 10 describes how that review works in practice. Department staff issue certificates for smaller jobs, such as window replacement or a new storefront; the commission hears larger projects, such as additions or new construction. A fee is charged, “scaled relative to the total construction cost.” Interior work in spaces that are not designated, ordinary maintenance and repairs do not need a certificate. A proposal to demolish a landmark, “though not impossible,” does.
The guide lists drawbacks as well as benefits. Some owners, it says, “might be concerned about fees or the additional time required for permit processing.” On the other side of the ledger, designation makes a property eligible for a Mills Act contract, “which can provide up to a 50% reduction in property taxes in exchange for the rehabilitation, preservation, and long-term maintenance of historic properties,” as well as the more flexible California Historical Building Code and, for income-producing buildings, a 20 percent federal rehabilitation tax credit. Three Mills Act contracts, for 1-25 Montgomery St., 67 Potomac St. and 2261 Fillmore St., were pending in committee on the same agenda.
Owners cannot opt out
Whether an owner agrees is not part of the legal test. “Owner consent is not required,” the Planning Department’s guide says, “however, the Department favors a collaborative approach which emphasizes extensive outreach and participation.” Asked whether an owner can opt out, it answers: “No. Individual owners, with the exception of religious properties, can not opt out of an individual landmark or landmark district designation.”
That exception may matter for one building on Tuesday’s list. The First AME Zion Church at 2155-2159 Golden Gate Ave. is owned by the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, according to the commission’s resolution. The files The Inquirer reviewed do not record the congregation’s position on the designation.
What Article 10 does require is notice. In each case report reviewed, the department said owners received the written 20-day notice of the commission hearing that the code requires.
What the record shows about owners
The case reports describe the outreach, and how little of it involved owners speaking for themselves.
For the District 3 group, the department said Mr. Sauter held an in-person town hall at the North Beach Library on Jan. 28 and a virtual forum on Feb. 4, with mailed notices to owners, occupants and neighborhood groups. “Since the Community Forums, Planning Department staff have offered to meet with property owners upon request and received no such requests,” the report says. “Staff also had phone conversations with property owners who have decided not to pursue landmarking at this time.”
That last sentence points to the buildings that dropped out. Mr. Sauter initiated 15 District 3 properties on March 24, and the report says four would not move forward, though it then names five: the Fugazi Building at 678 Green St., the Central Chinese High School at 827-829 Stockton St., the Great China Theater at 626 Jackson St., the Chinese Telephone Exchange at 743 Washington St. and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association at 843 Stockton St. The Fugazi Building has not been abandoned: a resolution on Tuesday’s agenda would give the commission another 90 days, to Feb. 28, 2027, to act on it, the second such extension.
For the District 2 group, staff met on site with the owners of Hannibal Lodge No. 1 and the Margaret E. Crocker Mansion at 1901 Franklin St. and spoke by phone with representatives of the Upper Fillmore Storefronts and the Bridge Theatre. The report does not say what those owners told the city.
The clearest statement from an owner in the files concerns the Jefferson Airplane House. At the owner’s request, planners held a video meeting on Oct. 1, 2025, to discuss what landmarking would mean, and “the property owner expressed support for the designation,” the department reported. The owner of record is the Keena Curtin Family Trust.
The Transamerica Pyramid’s owner of record is YODA 600 Montgomery Street LLC, according to the commission’s resolution. The department’s transmittal attaches a section titled “Correspondence in Support of Landmark Designations”; the files The Inquirer reviewed contain no letter from the Pyramid’s owner for or against.
Two historic districts, and a sharper debate
The district resolutions are a different instrument. A district puts every building inside its boundary under certificate review for exterior changes, whether or not that building is itself significant, and demolitions within a district likewise require a certificate.
The Castro resolution, sponsored by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, cites a citywide survey that identified a district eligible for the California Register along Castro Street between 17th and 19th streets and along 18th Street between Noe and Collingwood streets. It names two periods of significance: commercial growth as a streetcar suburb from 1879 to 1932, and the neighborhood’s early history as an LGBTQ enclave from 1953 to 1980, “ending just before the onset of the AIDS epidemic.” The North Beach resolution, sponsored by Mr. Sauter and Mr. Mandelman, covers buildings from post-1906 reconstruction to World War II and leaves the boundaries to the Planning Department. Each resolution doubles the commission’s response time to 180 days. A district would require a later ordinance, which the Bay Area Reporter said is not expected before 2027.
The public file on the Castro district shows a real split, including among LGBTQ residents. Stephen Torres, program manager of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, wrote that its staff and advisory board support the designation, saying any legislation “that protects historically significant assets to the LGBTQIA+ community is extremely important.” César Cadabes, a Castro resident, urged the committee to proceed but to “pair preservation with strong protections for existing tenants, longstanding LGBTQ businesses, and community spaces.”
The Sierra Club’s San Francisco Group, which said it represents more than 5,000 members, opposed the district “as proposed.” Historic designation “would not formally downzone,” its leaders wrote, “but it would introduce procedural barriers such as design review, setback requirements, and the potential for discretionary rejection,” likely resulting in “less infill housing – in one of the best locations in California for it.” The group said it would drop its opposition only if the district were paired with upzoning on surrounding blocks and fewer procedural hurdles, and it opposed designating the city parking lot on Castro Street “under any circumstances.”
Julien DeFrance, a resident who described himself as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, wrote against both districts. “District-wide designations don’t protect history; they protect square footage,” he wrote. “If specific buildings have real historic value, landmark them individually, on the merits.”
Mr. Mandelman has played down the housing objection. “It is a weird fight to pick, honestly, because it is really a very small number of buildings that would be impacted,” he told the Bay Area Reporter. He leaves office in January; his elected successor, Gary McCoy, has been noncommittal about carrying the Castro district forward, the paper reported.
What comes next
The 19 landmark ordinances return to the board for final passage, then go to Mr. Lurie. The Castro and North Beach studies move to the Planning Department and the Historic Preservation Commission, and the Fugazi Building’s fate is due by Feb. 28.
Supervisor Sauter’s office, the Historic Preservation Commission’s secretary and the housing advocacy group YIMBY Action did not respond to written questions The Inquirer sent Monday about owner consent and the designations’ effect on housing.
For owners, the record points to a simple conclusion: in San Francisco, landmark status is something the city confers, not something an owner requests or can decline. The files show the city telling owners about the process and, in most cases, hearing little back.
Celia Marroquín covers San Francisco City Hall, the Board of Supervisors, city departments and the neighborhoods where their decisions land, for the Inquirer’s City Desk. More from Celia Marroquín
