Julia Marchetti | San Francisco Legacy Business Program, Preservation Policy and Planning

Julia Marchetti (MCP/MSHP '21) shares her summer internship experience:

"Largely motivated by mounting development pressures and increasing fears of displacement and cultural erasure, San Francisco’s Legacy Business Program was established in 2015 as the first of its kind. While traditional preservation policies, like historic designation at the local level, are successful in protecting particular buildings from demolition, this type of tool does very little to protect the uses of a building, such as a business.

Under the auspices of PennPraxis/RM in collaboration with the San Francisco Planning Department, Julia Marchetti (MCP/MSHP) considered the effectiveness of the program from a number of perspectives such as business proprietors, City Council, the San Francisco Planning and Small Business departments, and community activists concerned with historic preservation and anti-gentrification efforts over the course of a six-week research project. The goal of this project was to create a baseline assessment of the data available and recommend other data that should be collected, analyzed, and updated in the months and years to come. This project marshals quantitative data, documents spatial patterns, and uses these data to reflect on larger conceptual and strategic questions surrounding the Legacy Business Program.

A series of interviews added important context by providing key insights into the program’s strengths and weaknesses as well as raising additional questions. Specific outcomes of this project include a master spreadsheet with complete business and property level data for all LBP participants, a report (drawing on document research, interviews, SWOT analysis, and recommendations for next steps and additional research), and a PowerPoint slide deck summarizing this initial foray into evaluation (for presentation to the Historical Commission and other interested parties)."