SAN DIEGO -- Balboa Park, our city's crown civic jewel, is close to the heart of San Diego's LGBT community.

As Hillcrest's backyard, Balboa Park hosts one the the largest Pride festivals in the nation. We utilize the resource for a wide variety of sports and outdoor activities.

But one aspect we all enjoy and appreciate is the wonderful park atmosphere created by the historic architecture and landscaping. It is of such significance that El Prado is on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.

Sadly, current proposals for the rehabilitation of Plaza de Panama in El Prado do not conform with established standards for the treatment of a National Landmark.

The project involves a massive, complicated and costly bridge, road and parking structure scheme. It offers a jarring clash of modern construction in a historic setting.

Enormous dirt removal and grading will be required - heavy equipment and machinery occupying the park along with all of the noise, dust and fumes for the two or three years of construction. The bypass bridge will ruin the historic view of the park's entrance. It will severely impact the canyon below because the infill of concrete and piers required to support that bridge.

The bypass road itself will have a severe impact on Alcazar Garden, as the open end of the garden will face two new lanes of traffic. The edge of the garden will also face valet service. And they also propose to force disabled people to cross through that whirl of traffic and valet activity.

A three level semi-underground paid parking structure is slated behind the Organ Pavilion. A huge ditch will be dug to accommodate a new road leading behind the Pavilion. Pedestrians will have to walk over a relatively narrow ramp covering the ditch in order to traverse from the southern Palisades area to the northern portion of the park.

If that doesn't sound bad enough, the so called "rehabilitation" of Plaza de Panama also does not meet standards for the treatment of historic landmarks either.

While they call it a centennial celebration of the 1915 Panama California Exposition, very little of what they propose has anything to do with the historic look or use of the plaza in 1915 or 1935. They plan to introduce a glut of modern elements that did not exist in the park's period of historic significance.

Such plans might work wonderfully if we were talking about rehabilitating Fashion Valley Shopping Mall. But not our beloved historic Balboa Park.

Such drastic changes and modernization is simply not appropriate for a National Landmark.

To learn how you can help stop this destructive plan, please visit SOHOsandiego.org.

Click HERE to sign the petition to Save Balboa Park!