India Basin Waterfront Park - CEQA and Section 106

While employed at the San Francisco Planning Department from 2014-2017, Gretchen Hilyard Boyce served as the historic resource reviewer for over XX SF Recreation and Parks Department projects, including cultural resources review of the EIR for the 900 Innes master plan to redevelop India Basin into a new city park for the Bay View Hunters Point community. The project involved partnered public-private development to provide new housing, office space, and a municipal park along the bay shore in southeastern San Francisco. The development of 900 Innes is central to the transformation of a post-industrial brownfield into a 21st-century legacy park in a historic waterfront context. The future park site contains a 19th-century cottage and vernacular boatyard that have overlapping local-, state-, and federal-level historic designations. Gretchen served as technical lead for the master plan EIR and Historic Resource Evaluation and played a key role in developing the methodology for evaluation of the industrial boatyard according to cultural landscape best practices and guided the design team in appropriate landscape design treatment to comply with the Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Cultural Landscapes.

As a result of Gretchen’s long-standing relationship with the project, she was later hired through ICF from 2019-2021 to provide oversight of the implementation of CEQA mitigation measures, Certificate of Appropriateness application, and Section 106 deliverables prepared by another consultant for the project. Gretchen continued her work on the project through Groundwork Planning & Preservation from 2021-2023, advising SFRPD staff on consultant scopes of work, reviewing all technical deliverables, assisting in the development of project strategy and schedules, and coordinating with the San Francisco Planning Department reviewers. Gretchen provided senior technical oversights for SFRPD staff and their consultant team to complete the extensive suite of Section 106 documentation and mitigations, including photographic documentation, video recordation, interpretive exhibits, preservation plans to protect historical resources, and archaeological testing and monitoring plans.

Images courtesy of SF Rec & Parks