All is peaceful on 14th Avenue and Lake Street on a recent Sunday afternoon. Along this bucolic stretch bordering the Presidio, an ultrafit mother pushing a baby jogger schusses quietly by. A Mercedes glides out from a driveway with barely a hum. Even the dogs in this Richmond neighborhood of $1 million-plus homes don't bark but scamper merrily on for walks in the woods.

Behind the placid facade, however, lies a nasty street fight. In one corner is the powerful, federally run Presidio Trust, looking into developing a massive 350-unit apartment building in the park's old Public Health Services Hospital 100 yards away. In the other is a battalion of well-financed residents crusading to scale back the development to a more palatable 230 units. By November, embattled neighbors tried to take control of one thing that the Presidio cannot: the city streets. They enlisted Supervisors Jake McGoldrick, who introduced a resolution, cosponsored by Michela Alioto-Pier, to close the 14th and 15th Avenue gates. If you can't keep the developers from building a monstrosity, well, barricade the bastards in.

Is it another case of privileged NIMBYs digging in their Prada heels in protest or development gone greedy? Ever since the Presidio Trust was established in 1996 to transform the former Army base into an economically self-sufficient national park by 2013, San Franciscans knew many of the park's 800 buildings would be converted. But from the get-go, neighborhood activists, environmentalists, and city agencies have argued over those plans. In early 2003, the large-scale commercial development from the soon-to-be-completed Lucas complex raised hackles among Marina residents fearful that everything from traffic snarls to newly laid underground power lines would bring urban blight.

With such a history, the Richmond residents are quick to rebut any suggestions of NIMBYism. "We're simply asking for no overdevelopment," says Claudia Lewis, president of Richmond Presidio Neighbors. The group claims they are all for renovating the dilapidated, graffiti-scarred hospital, presently bookended by two architecturally inappropriate wings (tacked on in the 1950s) that make it look oh so...East Berlin. But under the current proposal, the housing complex will be the largest ever built north of Market. Thousands of cars would be funneled into two narrow streets, leaving pollution in their wake, despite efforts to persuade the intractable, slow-moving Caltrans to create an alternate route diverting traffic to Highway 1. Mix in the perception that the Presidio Trust acts with condescension toward residents and their "parochial concerns," as the trust's president was quoted as saying, and you've got a recipe for war. "There's a lot of lip service," says Lori Brooke, president of the Cow Hollow Association, which supported the fight against the trust during the Lucas construction. "You feel that they're thinking, ‘It's just a few whiny neighbors.'"

Craig Middleton, president of the Presidio Trust,

argues nothing could be further from the truth: by holding public hearings, the trust is acting in good faith and listening to neighbors' concerns. And the proposal is just that, he insists, one that's merely studying the environmental impact of the largest possible development. Still, Middleton and the board continue to favor developer Forest City's 350-unit proposal. "We're reluctant to say, ‘We're going to go with the smallest alternative,' because we don't have many ways to make money. I'm tempted to remind neighbors they are in a much better position working with us," says Middleton, who recalls Congress's efforts in the early 1990s to sell the park to private developers. Nor do residents have to deal with James Meadows, the former head of the trust, who negotiated unethical backdoor deals and steamrolled projects over an unwitting public.

 Nonetheless, skirmishes inflamed by the latest dispute are spreading. Now it's not just locals versus the federal government; it's also neighborhood versus neighborhood. Much as they love their sylvan splendor, current Presidio residents—some 2,000 of them—don't cotton to the idea of having their nearest exit closed off. It will be months before a plan is in place, but on one point, all parties agree. "No matter what happens," says the trust's media relations manager Ron Sonenshine, "someone is going to be screaming."