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SEC. 4. RELATION TO CITY PLANNING CODE AND THE PROVISIONS OF THE CHARTER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO. (a) Article 10 of the City Planning Code is the basic law governing historic preservation in the City and County of San Francisco. This ordinance, being a specific application of Article 10, is both subject to and in addition to the provisions thereof. (b) Except as may be specifically provided to the contrary in this ordinance, nothing in this ordinance shall supersede, impair or modify any City Planning Code provisions applicable to property in the San Francisco Civic Center Historic District, including but not limited to existing and future regulations controlling uses, height, bulk, lot coverage, floor area ratio, required open space, off-street parking and signs. (Added by Ord. 413-94, App. 12/23/94) SEC. 5. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE. The San Francisco Civic Center possesses a unique place and significance in the areas of architecture, history, and environment worthy of protection as an historic district. The land on which the Civic Center stands was declared a City Hall Reservation as early as 1870. Portions of that reservation land were sold to raise funds for City Hall construction, and Old City Hall - located on the site that had first been used as the Yerba Buena Cemetery, approximately where the present library stands - was erected between 1871 and 1897, in a lengthy project marked by the now well known City government corruption of that time. In 1899, B.J.S. Cahill, with the encouragement of Mayor Phelan, proposed a grander vision for the area, with the dual goal of clearing up land titles clouded by the dubious practices of the promoters of the Old City Hall and, at the same time, of creating an imposing setting for the entire area. This plan envisioned clearing out smaller structures and visually uniting the remaining monumental structures - Old City Hall, the Main Post Office, the Hibernia Bank building, and other larger structures - and setting them off against new open spaces (such as a planned extension of the Golden Gate Park panhandle to Market Street). Conflicting new developments were blocked for a time, but the plan eventually failed, in large part because of general distrust - bred of experience, perhaps - of large government projects. Undaunted, former Mayor Phelan soon led the formation of an Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco. In 1904, the Association invited Daniel Burnham to design a grand plan for the City, with B.J.S. Cahill providing a design for the Civic Center. This produced two visions of the Civic Center: Cahill, with the practicality borne of personal and local experience, proposed using existing structures and City-owned land to create a central plaza, surrounded b