An Invitation to Help Plan the Presidio's Future



Public Meetings Begin

The National Park Service is launching a major public planning effort to chart
a course for the future of the Presidio.  The Presidio is slated to close as a
military post during the early 1990s and be transferred to the Golden Gate
National Recreation Area (GGNRA) - a Bay Area national park.  Brian O'Neill,
the General Superintendent of the GGNRA and the person responsible for the
planning effort, extends an invitation: "In my discussions around the
community, almost everyone agrees on one thing: the Presidio is a special place
that deserves a special future.  I invite people from around the Bay Area to
help plan that future."

The planning process will begin with public meetings in May and June at various
locations around the Bay Area, and continue into 1992.  The resulting plan for
the Presidio will outline an overall vision of the future of this enduring Bay
Area landmark as it enters a new era as a national park.  

This new era was initiated in 1988, when a Congressional Commission proposed to
close the Presidio as part of cost-cutting measures throughout the Department
of Defense.  By the law that created the GGNRA in 1972, the closure of the
Presidio requires its conversion to a national park.   

When Congress confirmed the Presidio closure proposal in late 1989, the
National Park Service began developing a planning process to start in Spring of
1990.  By long-established policy, the process will be as open as the post
itself, with extensive public involvement in the form of hearings, meetings and
workshops.  



The first public hearings are scheduled for May 15 in San Francisco, May 22 in
San Rafael, May 29 in Oakland, May 31 in Redwood City, and June 2 in San
Francisco.  The meetings will be coordinated by the Golden Gate National
Recreation Area Advisory Commission - a group of eighteen Bay Area residents
appointed by the Secretary of the Interior.

These hearings will focus on some broad RPlanning GuidelinesS for the Presidio
(see page 5).  The National Park Service developed these guidelines, which
emphasize rigorous controls on any new development and focus on historic
preservation and compatible adaptive new uses of the buildings.  These
constraints result from the Presidio's status as a National Historic Landmark,
as well as its inclusion in the boundaries of a national park.

The hearings begin a two-year planning process for the Presidio's future.  A
Presidio Planning Team has been assembled to complete this project.  The team
will work in close collaboration with GGNRA General Superintendent Brian
O'Neill, and Western Regional Director Stanley Albright.  William Penn Mott,
former director of the National Park Service, will continue to advise and
assist the Presidio planning effort as Special Assistant to the Regional
Director.

This team will actively seek the advice of people throughout the region about
the best course for the Presidio.  Congresswoman Barbara Boxer summed up the
significance of the process, "We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape
the destiny of this magnificent public asset by participating in the public
planning process established by the National Park Service.  Let's all put our
best energies toward achieving this goal."

Contact:

	National Park Service
	Presidio Planning Team
	Bldg. 227, Crissy Field
	Presidio of San Francisco
	San Francisco, CA  94129

	415-556-8600



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