Museum conundrum: Plans face uphill battle.(San Francisco)(Brief Article)

San Francisco prides itself on being an international destination embracing art and artists, no matter how outrageous.

But when asked to consider new proposals regarding the structure surrounding the artwork, the city more closely resembles a Puritanical colony, raising a collective eyebrow at anything that even hopes to alter the urban landscape.

Museums in San Francisco have lately had a rough go of it; planners charged with finding ways to expand the M.H. de Young Memorial and Asian Arts museums have found themselves instead performing acrobatics through bureaucratic hoops built by government officials, advocates and special interest groups, according to San Francisco Planning and Urban Development Association (SPUR) president Jim Chappell.

Some proposed museums, like the Butterfly Discovery Park, recently had to drop plans to build in the face of opposition, though officials contend they will continue searching for another site in the city.

"All of these museums are regional institutions; none of them get the majority of their patronage from the surrounding neighborhoods, but we have special interest groups or advocates who want to control the project, as they believe it will impact the immediate neighborhoods," Chappell said.

"The problem is the same for both the large and small museums, and the positive economic and cultural impact of their presence is enormous, yet we have tried to destroy them (museums) one by one from a lack of understanding and a fear of change."

Ron Miguel, president of the Planning Association for The Richmond and member of the California Academy of Sciences Citizens Advisory Group, added a slightly different take on the issue, saying, "This city tends to get a little provincial when it comes to changing anything or moving anything around, so it's only through getting out there and letting people know what's going on that is going to help." Miguel said the academy is one of the few museums in the city whose rehabilitation plans have met with little opposition.