The interior secretary met privately with the federal agency’s board on Thursday and left before the public session, where tenants of the park’s 1,400 homes asked for a cap on rent increases.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum came to the Presidio on Thursday, met behind closed doors with the board of the federal agency that runs it, and on his way out offered San Franciscans the reassurance many of them had come looking for.
“There will be no sell-off,” Mr. Burgum told news cameras after the closed session, according to The San Francisco Standard and KTVU. “We’re not selling an acre of the Presidio.”
Asked about further development in the 1,491-acre park at the northern tip of the city, the secretary said there were “exciting opportunities to do a better job of preserving and expanding the strong mission that’s already here,” KTVU reported, adding that “the Presidio’s done a great job, had a great year, and the future’s very bright.”
Mr. Burgum did not stay for the board’s public session. The board’s chair, Lynne Benioff, told the audience he “got called away and was unable to attend,” The Standard reported. Ms. Benioff declined that outlet’s questions about the meeting with the secretary.
Why the visit drew a crowd
The Presidio is unlike any other national park. The former Army post is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, but most of it is managed by the Presidio Trust, a federal agency Congress created in 1996 and required to pay its own way by leasing the park’s homes and historic buildings. The Trust’s board is appointed by the president.
That arrangement put the park in the administration’s sights early. A February 2025 executive order on reducing the size of the federal government listed the Presidio Trust among agencies to be cut to the minimum the law requires, and in May President Trump removed six board members appointed under his predecessor and named his own. The administration has framed those steps as part of a broader effort to shrink federal spending and bring independent boards under closer presidential direction, and Mr. Burgum’s statement on Thursday was its clearest public word yet on the park’s land.
The visit also came as conservation groups have accused the administration of entertaining sales of park land elsewhere. In an emailed reply to The Inquirer, the National Parks Conservation Association said it had no further details on the Presidio meeting but pointed to Yosemite National Park, where it says the administration has pursued an acreage sale. The group provided a statement from Neal Desai, its senior Pacific regional director.
“Secretary Burgum told Congress that he would protect ‘every single inch’ of our national parks, but his actions have been more like death by a thousand cuts,” Mr. Desai said, adding, “how exactly does anyone expect us to believe the Presidio is off limits to this administration when Yosemite is currently on the chopping block?”
The Interior Department, the National Park Service and the Presidio Trust did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Thursday’s meeting or on the association’s statement by Saturday night. The Inquirer has not independently confirmed the association’s characterization of the Yosemite proposal.
Tenants want a cap
About 100 people came to the public session, according to The Standard, and the sale question was only part of what they wanted to discuss.
San Francisco’s rent-control and tenant-protection laws do not apply on the Presidio’s federal land, where the Trust leases roughly 1,400 homes and apartments. Residents told the board that renewals have brought increases of 7 to 10 percent a year. One tenant said her rent had risen about 40 percent over five years; another said she had been told a 7 percent increase was meant to bring her lease to “current market levels.”
“Until rent solutions are identified, we ask that a temporary cap be enacted for renewal increases at no more than the federal cost-of-living adjustment, which is 3.6 percent for 2027,” one resident said, to applause, according to KTVU.
Speakers also raised proposals, circulated in some tech and policy circles, for “freedom cities” and so-called network states on federal land. “Turning any part of the Presidio into one would betray the very reason the Presidio Trust exists,” one speaker said. No such proposal for the Presidio has been made public, and Mr. Burgum’s comments did not address the idea.
What the board talked about instead
The board’s open session dwelt on the park’s budget and plans: repairing roads and trails, modernizing the electrical grid and restoring forest habitat for native wildlife. “If we build it right, nature will come roaring back,” said Jean Fraser, the Trust’s chief executive, according to KTVU.
Ms. Fraser announced in February that she would step down after about a decade leading the Trust. Ms. Benioff said the board had completed a second round of interviews and expects to hire a successor early next year, The Standard reported. KTVU reported that a follow-up meeting between the Trust and a neighborhood association is being scheduled for next month.
For the residents who spoke on Thursday, the secretary’s promise answered one question and left another open. The land may not be for sale, but the rent on the homes built on it is still set, as one tenant put it, by “the new San Francisco market rate.”
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
