The future of The Presidio

By DICK TARPLEY

Closing a military base can cause great economic turmoil to a city. Jobs are lost. Businesses suffer.

Sometimes, however, the land and facilities left behind provide new opportunities for a city and add to its quality of life - and even new jobs.

Such is the case of The Presidio, headquarters of Sixth Army before it fell victim to the military base closure effort in 1994. The land is considered the most desirable in San Francisco. Congress approved conversion of the lush 1,500-acre area along the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay just south of the Golden Gate Bridge, into a national park, but said it (unlike any other park) must become self-supporting after an interim period.

A seven-member board of trustees appointed by President Clinton has the responsibility of making that a reality. Leasing 600 old Spanish mansions and modern duplexes for MONTHLY rents of $1,500 to $4,800 should make that likely enough after expiration of the Army's five-year lease of half of the park while it completes closure requirements.

But this is San Francisco. The angriest and most powerful lobby, often with pickets, advocates creating public housing for San Francisco's 12,000 homeless in Wherry housing (old military barracks near a beach on the west coast of The Presidio grounds).

"This is $80 to $100 million worth of housing that is available," said Sister Bernie Galvin, founder of Religious Witness With Homeless People. "Our government has the responsibility to provide housing. It is a right, not a privilege." San Francisco's present facilities include only 1,400 shelter beds for homeless.

While people are sleeping in the streets, she said, "this is being made into a park for the rich people only, although they say it's a park for everyone."

Mayor Willie Brown and his Board of Supervisors also want the Presidio to convert the barracks to low-income housing. They and Sister Galvin reject a Park Service offer to donate the barracks if the city will move them to another site.

Agreeing with environmentalists, while saying she is sympathetic to homeless concerns, Amy Meyer, a trust board appointee, said the barracks do not fit the area. She said The Presidio location is far removed from work opportunities or transportation to jobs, social services or food. "Warehousing the homeless in there is just preposterous," she said.

Meyer pointed out that "Congress set the land aside to be a national park to respect its natural, recreational, scenic and educational value."

The Presidio's spectacular setting, its historic houses and prominent buildings, including the old Palace of Fine Arts (built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and now a hands-on Exploratorium for youngsters), should be attractive as a park for local citizens as well as for national park visitors from everywhere else.

I played the beautiful 160-acre former military golf course (now open to the public) while my wife attended the annual American Bar Assn. convention. After the early morning fog lifted, the views were sensational.

Nobody likes the suggestion that the park coddles the rich while ignoring needs of the poor. But moving homeless to The Presidio would create far more problems than they would solve. If it will be cost-effective, why not move the barracks elsewhere?

The Presidio is a national park. San Francisco will benefit greatly, but its purpose should not be to meet San Francisco's social and financial needs. Rent and leases will pay most administrative costs. The golf course will be self-supporting. All of us can go there and enjoy the views, the museums, historic housing and future Park Service additions.

And, if politics and special interests don't interfere, Congress won't have to appropriate a cent.