Who We Are
Elizabeth Patterson
Board Member Elizabeth Patterson, Chair
Gary Widman
Gary Widman, Vice Chair
THE 1000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia is a non profit, public benefit organization. An objective is to protect the historic integrity of the Benicia Arsenal historic subdistrict C, one of four subdistricts that comprise the Benicia Arsenal Historic District. We believe the best protection is to acquire the privately held lands making up the grounds surrounding the officers’ quarters within the Benicia Arsenal historic subdistrict C. All four subdistricts are on The National Register of Historic Places including the historic buildings and their surrounding grounds.
What is the National Register of Historic Places?
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government’s official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or “great artistic value”. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.
The City is not protecting the Benicia Arsenal Historic District.
1000 Friends is suing the City of Benicia for its approval of two housing projects in subdistrict C. Before the City acted to allow development of the Officers’ Row grounds through the Senate Bill 35 process – see explanation below, there were two efforts for development of private property in the Historic Arsenal in the early and mid 2000s that failed to move forward. In both cases the failure was due to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements for assessment of potential impacts to historic resources. In fact, the City recirculated the last Environmental Impact Report (2007) because of that failure and there are numerous mitigation measures that the city could have adopted, but did not. Many supporters of the Historic Arsenal relied on CEQA to protect this historic district.
The City misused the state law streamlining the approval of housing applications.
SB 35 was passed in 2017 by the State Legislature to mandate cities process qualifying housing applications for streamlined approval without public hearings. Unfortunately, City officials and staff interpreted this to mean that CEQA was not required. This is a flaw in City processing that we have challenged. SB 35 allows developers to submit multifamily/mixed use development that is consistent with “objective standards” and the zoning. The City failed to use all of the objective standards on the “books” and approved two projects. This second flaw is another reason 1000 Friends has filed a lawsuit. LINK
What triggered formation of 1000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia?
Prior to 1000 Friends organizing, the many people in Benicia Arsenal Park Task Force (BAPTF) campaigned for many years to preserve the Arsenal’s buildings and land, intact as a historic district for 140 years. Benicia Arsenal Defense (BAD) was a virtual zoom group of Jefferson Street homeowners in this historic district, who have been protesting over the proposed SB35 projects for the past two years.
As it became more apparent that the city was moving forward on approval of the two projects despite the many inconsistencies with process, zoning, and existing standards, members of each group formed a compact to agree to work together to testify and appeal the city decisions. From this compact emerged 1,000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia (1000 Friends PHB)
