Balboa Reservoir Development Project

City College Stakeholders File CEQA Appeal

Irreparable Damage to City College — Legal Violations at Balboa Reservoir Project Cited
graphic showing SFPUC and City College properties at Balboa Reservoir
Project Elevation as presented at the West of Twin Peaks Central Council in October 2017

An appeal to the decision of the Planning Commission is scheduled at the Board of Supervisors, likely sometime in August. The appeal alleges that substantial violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) resulted in Certification and "is invalid because it understates the project's significant and unavoidable impacts. Many of the claimed benefits are not supported by substantial evidence in the record and the claim that any one of the claimed benefits would suffice to outweigh the project's impacts is conclusory and unsupported by any explanation or justification, especially when several of the significant and unavoidable project impacts would adversely affect human health and safety for inhabitants of the area surrounding the project including bicyclists, students, and young children."

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This is NOT the time for any Project to go forward that will all but destroy the access for 70,000 college students, most of them from working class, immigrant, black or brown communities.”

Appellants attorney Stuart Flashman filed the appeal on June 19th, 2020. It represents appellants Alvin Ja, Wynd Kaufmyn, and Madeline Mueller, some key issues were noted.

  • fails to give an accurate and complete description of the project area and existing conditions.
  • fails to analyze the significant impacts of the Balboa Reservoir Project’s significant impacts on the construction schedule of planned City College buildings.
  • fails to give stable, accurate, and finite descriptions of the affordable units it promises.
  • fails to fully identify and mitigate significant impacts on noise, air quality, transit delay, pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
  • fails to include feasible alternatives, such as 100% truly affordable housing.
  • ignored the changed circumstances presented by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

"There is no reason to rush through the approval of a Project that would have been highly flawed and suspect even before the deep game-change of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the need to analyze its future effects," appellants said in their July 22 press release.

"This is NOT the time for any Project to go forward that will all but destroy the access for 70,000 college students, most of them from working class, immigrant, black or brown communities."

Supplemental Details for Key Issues

 
1) The Project EIR fails to give an accurate and complete description of the project area and existing conditions. 
The report lacks adequate information on the present and future needs of City College of San Francisco and two adjacent high schools. The combined enrollments represent approximately 70,000 students.
 
2) The Project EIR fails to give an analysis of the significant impacts on the construction schedule of planned City College of San Francisco buildings.
In the recent March 2020 election, San Francisco voters, by an 80% majority, approved an $845 million bond for City College facilities. As a result, planned new construction will start almost immediately to complete City College's West Campus, located on the eastern portion of the reservoir property - directly adjacent to the Balboa Reservoir Project. The EIR fails to assess the significant impacts the Balboa Reservoir Project construction will have on the construction schedule of these planned City College of San Francisco buildings, and surrounding conditions, when the two construction schedules appear to overlap.
 
3) The Project EIR fails to give stable, accurate, and finite descriptions of the affordable units it promises.
The Project describes the affordable units as "up to 50% of the units". This is vague and aspirational. It does not comply with the requirements of a legally sufficient EIR.  Project descriptions under CEQA must be stable, accurate, and finite. Instead, this Project's EIR depends on future surveys, future funding restrictions, and other input before committing to an actual affordable housing plan.
 
4) The Project EIR fails to fully identify and mitigate significant impacts on noise, air quality, transit delay, pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
The EIR shockingly lacks adequate consideration of the many childcare facilities and classes scheduled at immediately adjacent City College buildings. 
 
5) The Project EIR fails to include feasible alternatives, including 100% truly affordable housing.
The EIR examines only a Project built under a private for-profit umbrella requiring amending the existing community plan in order to allow building market rate housing. However, the Balboa Park Station Area Plan mandated, “first consideration to the development of affordable housing on publicly-owned sites.” Construction of a 100% affordable housing was not ever considered, let alone given first consideration.
 
The EIR promotes the development by claiming it will provide up to 50% affordable housing. However the developer will only fund 19.3% of the affordable units (which is less than 10% of the total units.) There are several funding possibilities available to build more deeply affordable units in greater numbers than described in the EIR. Such possibilities do not depend on privatizing public land for developers' profits, and would also have much lower negative impacts on the environment. It is unacceptable not to consider feasible alternatives whereby public land stays in public control.
 
6) The EIR ignored the changed circumstances presented by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Public Comments on the draft SEIR were completed on 9/23/2019 and responses to comments were not issued by the SF Planning Department until 4/29/2020. This was more than a month after San Francisco entered its first shelter-in-place order and roughly three months after San Francisco’s first Corona virus cases, but Planning ignored the circumstances of the COVID- 19 pandemic and its implications for the for the future use of the Balboa Reservoir site and the surrounding area. 
The circumstances of the ongoing pandemic demand that the analysis presented in the EIR be re-evaluated. A new analysis is needed before an informed decision can be made about the true impacts of the Project. 

July 2020

Big Balboa Giveaway Bad Break for City College

by Jean Barish

The Balboa Reservoir Project was, sadly, unanimously approved by the SF Planning Commission May 28. If you listened to the hearing, I hope you took notice of the many concerns voiced by project opponents. This project is an unjustified and unreasonable give-away to a private developer.

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the SF Public Utilities Commission will sell the land, over 17 acres, for approximately $11.2 million ... about $640,000 per acre for prime San Francisco real estate ... the City of San Francisco is offering to sell prime real estate to a privateer for more than 90% below market rate”

According to the Development Agreement between the City and Avalon Bay, the project developer, the SF Public Utilities Commission will sell the land, over 17 acres, for approximately $11.2 million (page 1231). This is about $640,000 per acre for prime San Francisco real estate.  According to a casual perusal of the prices for a lot in San Francisco on Zillow, about one tenth of an acre is selling for over $1 million, or $10 million per acre. In other words, the City of San Francisco is offering to sell prime real estate to a privateer for more than 90% below market rate. If that's not a give-away, I don't know what is.

Next Steps Graphic
Stay tuned for further developments

For public land adjacent to City College of San Francisco, this unconscionable. 

Additionally, the future of City College of San Francisco hangs in the balance. The Balboa Reservoir Project, an oversized, largely market-rate development that will be built on land used by City College for years, will cause City College to shrink and become a shadow of its former self. The decline of City College will significantly impact thousands of people throughout San Francisco: students who need a class to matriculate to a four-year college; students who need certification for a vocational training program; seniors for whom classes provide the physical and emotional support they need to stay healthy, vital, and engaged; and people of all ages who are taking non-credit classes to learn new skills, such as ESL, or who simply want to become more productive and fulfilled members of the community.

proposed project at Balboa Reservoir

In 2013, a Budget and Legislative Analyst evaluation estimated that City College’s value to the City was over $300 million by providing job training, skills training, jobs for 2400 faculty, administrators, and classified staff, market value of jobs attained by CCSF graduates, state and federal grants, low-cost higher education compared to for-profit two year programs. But it’s not just economic. It’s also about improving the quality of life of everyone in City by providing well educated and well-trained San Franciscans, from home health aides to tech workers to engineers to artists and musicians.

This Project is a giveaway to a private developer that will decimate City College, and will not benefit the neighborhood or the City of San Francisco. It should not be permitted. 

Jean Barish

Read Jean Barish's detailed letter to the Planning Commission (PDF).

June 2020

Public Land for Housing: Balboa Reservoir?

meeting of interested people in the Balboa development
Photo by: Otto Pippenger

By Maya Lekach

When Mayor Ed Lee surveyed San Francisco looking for unused land that could be repurposed, the site of the Balboa Reservoir on Ocean Avenue was one of the first to be considered.

The newly created Public Land for Housing commission held their first community meeting on the subject of this site on January 21st at Lick Wilmerding High School.

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While low income housing is often subsidized by the government and market rate housing is subsidized by hearty paychecks (or trust funds), it is moderate income housing that takes a back seat. If the city carries on at this rate, it will quickly become a polarized environment: the ultra rich and the ultra poor. ”

The meeting and the impending development was advertised as the possibility of 6,000 new homes in San Francisco. While this might have held exciting promise in the Financial or SOMA districts of San Francisco, where many new residents work and play, the reaction was a resounding difference when the local community came out to speak their part at the meeting.

The discussion was an exercise in creating a town hall vibe in the big city. The attendees were mostly homeowners from the surrounding neighborhood, namely Ingleside, Sunnyside, Balboa Park and Crocker Amazon. Many came with their neighbors, some speaking for those who held less of a grasp on the English language.

Before the real hubbub began, project manager Jeremy Shaw politely outlined the plan - both for the meetings and the development. He stated the planned goals of addressing public needs that the commission feels could be solved through the development of this large patch of land that has often been deemed an eyesore. possible sites for increased housing in SF

Although the need for housing and public land is real, understanding the feelings of the nearby community is crucial to taking correct action with this plot of land now that it is in the city’s hands. The meeting was thus intended as a way for the community to understand the facts but also for concerned parties to help guide the process of development from the plethora of current options into an actual proposal and plan.

To outsiders, of either the city or neighborhood, the proposed goal of increased moderate income housing seems like a great idea for a city that seems to be bursting at the seams.

While low income housing is often subsidized by the government and market rate housing is subsidized by hearty paychecks (or trust funds), it is moderate income housing that takes a back seat. If the city carries on at this rate, it will quickly become a polarized environment: the ultra rich and the ultra poor.

Local residents were strongly wary of any sort of development that might impinge upon local character and, most of all, local traffic patterns. Whether those present at the meeting were suffering from a severe case of NIMBY (not in my backyard) or if their concerns were valid arguments amidst San Francisco’s rapidly changing urban landscape is up for debate.

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Balboa Park Station Area Plan is part of a larger SF Planning project.

As participants broke off into smaller groups from the nearly 200 who attended, personal issues were discussed and priorities were ranked, allowing the maximum amount of voices to be heard by commission proctors.

Many in these smaller groups voiced concerns over the already intense parking situation in the neighborhood. The influx of cars daily for use of the City College campus as well as the new Ocean Avenue Whole Foods is already overburdening the neighborhood for parking. The belief was that a loss of this massive parking lot, eyesore or not, could only harm this problem.

Janet Lehr, a City College ceramics teacher and longtime neighborhood resident, had much to say on the subject of the college itself.

“We need to recognize the importance of City College to our community. [Roughly] 1/7 San Franciscans have taken classes at City College.” Lehr said. And, it is true, that many of these student commute by car.

Traffic problems may not seem a good enough reason to maintain a large parking lot, although it may provide an impetus for bookmarking some of the space for a multi-level parking lot. site of the Balboa Reservoir today

Many attendees argued that nothing could truly change unless the transit system was improved, allowing for less car traffic and a decreased need for housing in some of the hottest spots in the city, including this one.

What the traffic debate brings to light is the chicken-and-egg situation prevalent in such parking versus transit issues. The transit cannot grow without demand as students and other city residents continue to use their cars as they wait impatiently for busses that never arrive and trains that do not extend to their corners of even this small city.

To many, increasing public housing seems a band-aid on a citywide problem of poor transportation, causing congestion at certain hot spots. The meeting heard many a cry of “first the Mission, now here!” These BART-adjacent neighborhoods have gone from quiet residences and ethnic communities to areas highly sought after by a the new influx of local elite who would not fit into the description of moderate income.

Discussions of housing and parking made earlier ideals of creating an open space and public activity space seem like more of a utopia amidst more pressing city needs. Although arguments for a development that focused on sustainability, even going so far as to request an actual reservoir be created on the land for which it was originally intended, were hard to ignore.

Despite smiling in the face of criticism, the planning commision faced a variety of voices - many of them strong - in regards to what their priorities should be for the space.

suggestions from the public
Photo: Heidi Alletzhauser

Choosing between prioritizing local residents’ traffic and parking concerns, the need for City College expansion and maintenance, urban beautification, and the pressing need for more housing can’t possibly be an easy task for those in charge of the commission. Faced with the option of sectioning off the land into small parcels for each initiative or prioritizing some over others will be certain to anger members of the community.

It is these difficult decisions, however, that need to be made in order for progress to be made. Much ink has been spilled over those who want the city to remain the same amidst the sea of changes, but what is most important now is how the city will respond to new needs and create new solutions.

This meeting was the first of a series, with the next arriving in Spring 2015. As San Francisco takes it’s next steps, this is perfect opportunity to have your voice heard and shape the future of our city. It is these decisions that will affect the city for years to come.

Maya Lekach is a local journalist

February 2015