The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) provides for the protection of the environment and defines "historic resources" which may include buildings, sites, objects, districts or structures. The CCSF and other California local governments are required to determine whether or not, the resource is an historic resource and secondarily, whether the proposed project would cause a "substantial adverse change," to the resource.

Lerner and Associates has assisted clients in the Review and Comment on Environmental documents adopted and issued by the CCSF Planning Department and other jurisdictions in the Bay Area and has provided specialized expertise in the determining whether the environmental document is adequate as it relates to a historic resource or whether a higher level of environmental review is warranted.

Two areas of specialization of the firm include Historic Resource Evaluation Reports (HRER’s) and CEQA Appeals of Categorical Exemptions issued by the Planning Department, Major Environmental Analysis Section relating to the substantial alteration or demolition of historic resources.

These CEQA Appeals are often tied to Discretionary Review filed by adjacent neighbors, neighborhood organizations and interested parties on a proposed development project within the City and result in Public Hearing at the Board of Supervisors and the City Planning Commission, respectively.

Staff of Lerner and Associates is available to assist clients to determine whether a CEQA Appeal related to a "substantial adverse change" to an historic resource is appropriate and how to intervene with the project sponsor to revise a project that lessens the impact on the subject property and surrounding properties.

Additionally, staff can assist in conducting research and documentation on properties where little or no information currently exists, providing qualified historian, architectural historian and preservation architecture services and drafting letters and background reports to the decision makers, as needed by the client.

According to the Planning Department’s CEQA Procedures, it is stated that generally, a project that follows the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring and Reconstructing Historic Buildings (1995) by Kay D. Weeks and Anne E. Grimmer, shall be considered as mitigated to a level of less than a significant impact on the historical resource.