C.W. Nevius
San Francisco Chronicle

There are moments in the life of a city when events reach a critical point. This is one of those moments.

The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard redevelopment project has provoked wild claims, scary rhetoric and small-minded bickering for decades. The plan includes a hotel, office space, retail, parks and housing over 720 acres. The problem is that the redevelopment is on the site of a former Navy base, and parts of the overall area are contaminated by things like solvents, petroleum products and heavy metals.

Critics claim it isn’t clean enough to be safe, but studies show that it meets the appropriate standards. But while the cleanup has continued, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, abandoned buildings have languished on the site – industrial ruins with a Bay view.

The 10-1 vote, with only Supervisor Chris Daly dissenting, was a joyous moment for Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who has spent most of her 10 years on the board pushing to build the community support and political backing needed to move the redevelopment project forward.

Early in the meeting, Maxwell called on the board to quickly approve the plan, which she said would reinvigorate the city’s long-neglected southeast section, which she represents.

“We have the rare opportunity to achieve the great work of a number of community members who since 1974 have dreamed of how to fill a hole left in our neighborhood,” she said. “There’s a certain fear this will bring change to the Bayview. … Well, I say, ‘yes’ and about time.”

Mayor Lee joined Bruce J. Katz, vice president of the Brookings Institution and founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, and Lennar Urban President Kofi Bonner for the tour of the Shipyard. Katz, who regularly advises federal, state, regional and municipal leaders on policy reforms that advance competitiveness of metropolitan areas, is especially interested in ways this new development will contribute to the new economy.

“This project is of global significance,” Katz said as he walked the hilltop community at Hunters Point that offers expansive views of the San Francisco skyline and the Bay. “There are few places in the world that look like Hunters Point. This development will provide the first real innovation district in the United States. This should be celebrated.”

After more than a decade of community-based planning, hundreds of public meetings and final approval by the City’s Board of Supervisors, development of the Hunters Point Shipyard-Candlestick Point is underway. The multi-billion dollar, public-private partnership will transform the long-dormant Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and adjacent Candlestick Point portion of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.

“This project is so transformative for our city,” said Mayor Lee. “It involves literally building new villages on 700 acres that consisted of complete, utter blight. People living there had no hope. I am totally excited about this development because it does bring hope to our city.”

Following the tour, more than two dozen local elected officials, regional planning experts, labor leaders and others met with Lee, Katz and Bonner for a roundtable policy discussion on the economic benefits of the project. Attendees included Mayor of Alameda Marie Gilmore; incoming City Administrator for the City of Oakland, Deanna Santana San Francisco Chronicle Editor John Diaz; San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen; San Francisco Planning Commissioner Katherine Moore; Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s District Director Dan Bernal; Ken Jacobs, director of the UC Berkeley Labor Center; Dennis Conaghan, director of the San Francisco Center for Economic Development; Egon Terplan of SPUR; Jennifer Wolch, Dean, UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design; Deborah McKoy, director of the Center for Cities and Schools Institute for Urban Planning and Regional Development; Mike Theriault, Building and Construction Trades Council; Tim Paulson, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council and Conny Ford of the San Francisco Labor Council; and Ginny Fang, Executive Director of China SF and several others.

At its build-out over the next 20 to 30 years, the 700-acre development will generate a significant new supply of housing in San Francisco, including market rate and below market rate housing. The first phase of the project is already under construction and will feature up to 1,600 homes, including an affordable housing program that ensures that at least 27 percent, and up to 40 percent, of the total units are below market rates.

The project includes a 3 million square foot “innovation district,” for green office space, clean technology, research and development uses. The district is anticipated to stimulate the region’s job growth and become a major component in the Next Economy’s new green businesses.

The creation of the new community will spur an investment of more than $400 million in new infrastructure and transportation improvements to re-connect the site with the surrounding community, the City and the region. This includes a new bus rapid transit line, express bus service, pedestrian and bicycle networks and the extension of the Bay Trail.

The project also spans more than 300 acres of new and restored public parks and open spaces, including a significant contribution to the improvement of the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. This represents the largest park development in the City’s history since Golden Gate Park was constructed.

Along with new green open space, the development will entail a number of cutting-edge, sustainable development practices including a commitment to achieve LEED Gold for neighborhood design. The Shipyard will become one of the Bay Area’s most sustainable communities, utilizing 100% clean power from hydropower and solar energy.

The board still needs to approve the specifics at its July 27 meeting, but the surprisingly strong 8-3 vote in favor of the redevelopment plan shows the support is there, said Sophie Maxwell, the force behind the project that supporters say will transform her Bayview-area district.

“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “One of the reasons I ran (for supervisor) was to usher this through, and now I’m concentrating on pushing it over the finish line.”

The timing is perfect for Maxwell, a Bayview resident who served on a local committee working on plans for the shipyard before being elected to the board in 2000. She will be termed out of office in January.

The redevelopment plan calls for homes for 24,000 residents, open space and space for office, retail and research and development. Fights over the plan have centered on removing toxic substances and developing sensitive wetlands.

Improvement efforts

Both supporters and opponents of the project vowed to craft amendments designed to change parts of the redevelopment plan when it returns to the board later this month, but Maxwell isn’t worried.

“I expect that everything is going to pass,” she said. “There might be some changes, but the core values are going to stay.”

Even some of the project’s opponents suggested the effort over the next two weeks will be to improve the plan rather than torpedo it.

“The EIR is behind us and I’m not going to continue to raise concerns about the cleanup” of toxic substances on the former base, said Supervisor Eric Mar, who joined supervisors Chris Daly and John Avalos in voting against approval of the environmental impact report. “I want to make sure that we have the strongest enforcement we can make to ensure that the developer follows through on the promises made to the community.”

Lennar Corp., the Miami-based home builder developing the shipyard, has signed a community benefits agreement requiring that 32 percent of the 10,500 planned units be affordable housing, including replacement of the aging Alice Griffith housing project; providing job training for local residents and setting goals for local hiring. The $25 million promised for community benefits also will include educational improvements, a scholarship fund and improvements to the Southeast Health Center.

The developer has long been the target of complaints from opponents, including some at Tuesday’s 9 1/2-hour-long hearing, who charge that Lennar received a sweetheart deal from the city for the shipyard property and has been more concerned about profits than community health. While cleanup is continuing, local, state, and federal reports have found much of the site clean enough to develop.

The company has fought those complaints for years, but weeks away from seeing most of its political problems end, it isn’t inclined to pick a fight.

“We recognize that such a large project has its foes as well as supporters,” said Kofi Bonner, a Lennar vice president.

Opposition to bridge

The largest remaining sticking point is the plan to connect the shipyard property and Candlestick Point with a bridge over Yosemite Slough. The plan has brought howls of protest from environmental groups.

The bridge will cross a large patch of wetlands that is slated for restoration. Groups like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society challenged the environmental impact report, arguing that the city could avoid the bridge by routing traffic around the slough, a ride that would take only minutes longer.

Planners said the more direct route is needed for buses to serve the community. But National Football League officials have also said that the bridge is a requirement if a new stadium for the 49ers is ever included in the project.

Supervisor David Campos, who voted for the environmental impact report, argued Wednesday morning that “the argument as to why the bridge is needed has not been made,” and reminded the board that the vote on the report “is not the end of the process.”

But the proposals suggested so far are fixes to the existing plan, which supervisors say is on the cusp of final approval.

“Last night was a milestone; it’s something people in the Bayview community cared about so much,” said board President David Chiu. “We’re moving forward with a project that will impact the future of San Francisco.”

Bay City News Report

San Francisco supervisors approved early this morning the environmental impact report for a large redevelopment project in the city’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

The public hearing, which began at about 4 p.m., ran so late into the night that members of the public began addressing the board with “good morning.”

“It has been a long night, but it has been a long 20 years,” said board president David Chiu, who was referring to the project’s evolution, shortly before the 1:35 a.m. vote.

The proposed redevelopment would add 10,500 residential units, 320 acres of parkland and open space and retail and commercial space at the 720-acre site on the former Hunters Point U.S. naval shipyard, which is a federally designated Superfund site contaminated by toxic waste.

Although the board approved the report with a split 8-3 vote – supervisors Eric Mar, Chris Daly and John Avalos voted against – it will take up the issue again later this month when it considers last-minute amendments proposed by Chiu.

The vote was 8 to 3 with supervisors Chris Daly, Eric Mar, and John Avalos voting to uphold the appeal of the EIR.

The redevelopment plan, led by master developer Lennar, calls for creating a neighborhood of 10,500 homes, plus parks and amenities on the 720-acre site of the former shipyard. The development also includes 3.5 million square feet of commercial space — the planners envision a center of green technology — as well as 800,000 square feet of retail and 320 acres of open space and parks.

During more than 10 hours of testimony, supporters evoked the vision of a green, dense and economically vibrant neighborhood that would address decades of neglect in the city’s poorest corner. As midnight approached, dozens of carpenters, pile drivers, electricians and laborers – many of them Bayview residents — urged the board to pass a development that would create thousands of construction jobs.

“I’ve watched two communities get built while I’ve waited for something to happen in this one,” said Angelo King, a contractor and Bayview resident. “You have done it in Mission Bay and South of Market, now you have a golden opportunity to do something in Bayview Hunters Point.”

Critics argued that the plan should not go forward until the shipyard, one of the U.S. Navy’s most polluted bases, has been 100 percent cleaned up. Stephen Volker, an attorney for Californians for Renewable Energy, said the project posed “human health risks bourne by the adjacent minority community.” “I encourage you to separate the remediation phase from the development phase,” he said.

Both federal and state environmental agencies, as well as the San Francisco Department of Public Health, would have to approve any transfer of the property from the Navy, said EPA Remedial Project Manager Mark Ripperda.

“We are not going to allow any transfer unless we are convinced it is safe,” he said.

Another controversial topic was the proposed 900-foot bridge across the Yosemite Slough. The bridge is opposed by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, who argue it would harm one of the Bay Area’s last remaining wetland areas. Supporters said the bridge would be needed for the green-technology center city officials hope will create thousands of jobs.

Michael Cohen said the project faced “much greater financial risk” without the bridge because it would more difficult for employees and residents to travel between the isolated Candlestick Point and the rest of the city.

“It is the primary job-generating heart of the shipyard for the major employers we hope to have there; having that direct connectivity to BART, Caltrain, and T-Third is going to be important,” he said.

Cohen stressed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein have brought more money to clean up the site than to any other decommissioned military site in the country. More than $700 million has been spent on the cleanup so far. Failing to certify the EIR could jeopardize future federal cleanup money.

“Not only will not certifying the EIR do nothing to help the cleanup, it could set it back significantly,” Cohen said. “It is central that we are able to show that the cleanup is going to yield real public and economic benefits.”

Supervisor Chris Daly, who voted to reject the EIR, argued that the environmental documents didn’t take into account the impact the project would have on the existing residents. Just before 2 a.m., Daly gave a speech outlining his belief that “proposal doesn’t work for the majority of the residents of Bayview Hunters Point.” He called labor’s support of the project “the sellout of the union bosses” Another opponent of the project, District 11 Supervisor John Avalos, quoted 1980s pop singer Thomas Dolby, saying the EIR had”blinded us with science.”

But District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who represents the shipyard, said the environmental study was “comprehensive and exhaustive” and went “well beyond its required scope.”

“I too want the community to be healthy. I believe we can have both, either and or,” she said. “Jobs and health. Jobs and parks and health.”

At 4 p.m. today, the Board of Supervisors will hear an appeal to the environmental impact report on the project, which was approved by the Planning Commission last month after a meeting that lasted more than 12 hours. If a board majority rejects the report, it could derail a plan that’s been more than a decade in the making.

While Chiu has been studiedly noncommittal about his position on the project, he proposed five amendments at Monday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting that deal with some of the major concerns for the project’s opponents.

Arguing that the city is “at a crossroads for the project,” the board president said this is an opportunity “to make changes to the project to make it better than it is.”

When Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, the project’s leading supporter, quickly signed on to Chiu’s amendments, it appeared a deal was in the works. A few labor supporters recognized that and instantly toned down their rhetoric in favor of the plan.

“I can really see a path to getting this done,” said Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council.

Chiu’s amendments would give the board more direct control over the cleanup of one of the shipyard’s most polluted parcels and the design of a bridge over Yosemite Slough. Other amendments improve job training opportunities, provide for an early study of public power for the development and call for the developer to provide $250,000 for early expansion costs at the Southeast Health Center.

The changes could shake loose the votes of one or more of the more liberal supervisors who have opposed the sprawling, 720-acre redevelopment project because of concerns about health, environmental impacts or possible gentrification of the neighboring blue-collar Bayview community.

- John Wildermuth

It’s a go: The fight over Muni drivers’ pay and work rules is going on the ballot in November after the city’s election office said Monday that Supervisor Sean Elsbernd‘s initiative had enough valid signatures to qualify.

Elsbernd’s Fix Muni Now group turned in nearly 75,000 signatures, far more than the 44,382 required.

The initiative would end the current City Charter provision that requires San Francisco to pay Muni operators at least the average of the two highest transit systems in the nation. If it passes, the drivers must negotiate their contract with the city.

Elsbernd likes his chances in November.

“When we collected signatures, we received support from all over the city,” he said. “I’m confident that if we organize the way we did for the signature drive, we’ll win overwhelmingly.”

- John Wildermuth

A splitting decision: A controversial new plan to change how people are appointed to the city’s Recreation and Park Commission got the unanimous go-ahead from the Board of Supervisor’s Rules Committee on Monday.

The full board today will hear the plan, which eliminates the mayor’s ability to appoint all members of the commission, on the November ballot.

Proposed by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the Charter amendment calls for giving the mayor three appointments and the Board of Supervisors three. The seventh member would be a joint pick by the mayor and the board president.

The idea behind the plan, Mirkarimi said, is to democratize the commission, which he said often acts as a “parallel government” because some of the commission’s decisions cannot be appealed to the full Board of Supervisors.

Nonsense, says Mayor Gavin Newsom‘s spokesman, Tony Winnicker.

“How does giving the Board of Supervisors more control and adding more process and paralysis do a single thing to help our city parks?” he said. “It’s nothing but a thinly veiled power grab.”

Thousand of jobs could be created and more than $20 billion over 20 years could be injected into The City’s economy by redeveloping the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, according to a city report released on the eve of a critical vote.

The mammoth plan to re-create the former military property — which will add 10,500 new homes and 885,000 square feet of retail space to The City — has been wending its way through the approval process. Today, the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to weigh in on several appeals to the project’s environmental impact report. If supervisors find the appeals valid, the project could be set back.

San Francisco would gain about 2,100 jobs a year during the 20-year project, according to the report by the city controller’s Office of Economic Analysis. The numbers hinge on whether a new stadium for the 49ers is constructed or whether the land is used for an office and laboratory center for science and technology companies.

The full project would add about $11 billion to The City’s property tax base. The vast majority of tax money will go back into developing the neighborhood, with $4.8 million a year going into city coffers for the first 45 years of the project’s life.

But Saul Bloom of Arc Ecology, which has been contracted by The City to research and share environmental information about the project, warned that the job and economic impact numbers were not in fact as impressive as they could be. The report said during construction, the project is only expected to create an average of 2,100 direct and indirect jobs per year. He said only about 30 percent of the annual jobs created are likely to go to members of the community.

Concerns about the project were raised Monday during a hearing of the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee. Five amendments to the project proposed by board President David Chiu were approved.

kworth@sfexaminer.com

Project’s impact

Some of the contributions that will be made with the approval of the Hunters Point redevelopment:

11,300 Jobs created by businesses in stadium plan
12,200 Jobs created by businesses without stadium
$25,000 to $185,000 Pay range of jobs created
$74,000 Average salary in San Francisco
50 percent Jobs in project that will pay less than average San Francisco salary

Source: City Controller’s Office

The supervisors’ vote on whether to accept the Environmental Impact Report represents a key point in whether the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard becomes a vibrant new neighborhood with 10,500 homes or remains a largely fallow monument to the paralysis of process that all too often characterizes city politics.

“If we do this, it’s truly a historic moment,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in an interview Friday. “There’s a generation of work culminating in one vote. For me, as I look back at the mayor’s job, this is one of the most significant things I’ve been associated with.”

Rejection of the environmental report would require “millions and millions of dollars and time to restudy” issues that have been vetted extensively, said Kofi Bonner, a vice president for Lennar, the project developer.

One of the points of contention is opposition to a proposed bridge over Yosemite Slough, which separates the shipyard from Candlestick Point. Environmentalists argue that the bridge would disrupt wildlife habitat, and have argued for a circuitous alternative route through residential and commercial areas. But the bridge also brings environmental benefits: It would be open to bicyclists, pedestrians – and the more direct public transit route would make it a more appealing option for people who live and work in the neighborhood.

The shipyard closed in 1974. In 2008, as the Lennar plan gained definition, 62 percent of San Francisco voters approved a ballot measure encouraging the city to make it happen.

It is time for the city to move on its promises to revitalize the city’s economy and a neighborhood’s potential.