Planning Department launches multiyear 'SF Survey' to map citywide cultural resources

The San Francisco Planning Department on June 23 unveiled the SF Survey, a multi-year program to document and evaluate the city’s built and intangible cultural heritage and to integrate findings into a searchable public inventory.

Marcel Boudreaux, survey and designation team lead, told the Planning Commission the survey’s purpose is to “make the unknown known” by assigning CEQA-related historic-resource status to age-eligible parcels and by recording community-identified intangible cultural heritage. The department will use Arches, an open-source cultural-heritage platform, to store site histories, biographies, photographs and community-submitted stories.

Why it matters: Planning staff said clearer, publicly available historic-resource data will improve transparency in permit review and give communities a formal way to document cultural significance before projects enter discretionary review.

What staff described
- The SF Survey will proceed in phases prioritized for racial and social equity, existing context statements, and staffing capacity; the pilot field survey took place in Crocker Amazon.
- The inventory will include both tangible resources (buildings, sites) and intangible cultural heritage (oral histories, social practices, festivals) and will allow communities to control what they share.
- Arches will link resource models (people, events, architectural features) and the city’s Property Information Map (PIM) for public access.

Community outreach and evaluation
Staff emphasized outreach strategies developed with community partners, including internship programs, neighborhood walks, and translated materials to reach people with limited English proficiency. Frances McMillan said the survey aims to center preservation planning in racial and social equity, and Maggie Smith described tools and partnerships to broaden participation.

Adoption process and timing
Draft findings will be published for each phase in PIM; final adoption of citywide findings will wait until the citywide historic context statement is complete so determinations can be made with a citywide lens. Staff foresee a multiyear effort with phased public review and opportunities for community-submitted corrections to draft findings.

Next steps: Staff will continue fieldwork and community engagement, load legacy data into Arches, and return to the commission with updates and draft findings by phase. The department emphasized the inventory will be a living repository to be updated as new information and community input arrive.