Treasure Island Redevelopment
Introduction
Island of Sand: The History of Treasure Island
The Redevelopment Plan
Criticism and Conclusion
References & Resources
Comments & questions to:
druiz@macalester.edu
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When the Navy moved off of Treasure Island in 1997, it left San
Francisco with 450 acres on which it could build from scratch. The city has created two political entities to coordinate and advise the redevelopment of Treasure Island.
In 1997, the Treasure Island Redevelopment Authority (TIDA) was formed
to govern the island’s redevelopment, and in 2000, the Treasure
Island/Yerba Buena Island Citizens Advisory Board (TI CAB) was
formed to provide “broad-based policy guidance and oversight regarding
the redevelopment of Treasure Island.” TI CAB has 25 members: the mayor
appoints 12, the Board of Supervisors appoints nine, and residents of
Treasure Island elect four. Both organizations have been heavily
involved in the planning: developers and government officials say there
have been hundreds of public meetings during the planning process. Both
TIDA and TI CAB have passed the current redevelopment plan by near
unanimous votes. LINK 3A However, many of the TIDA meetings are closed
to the public, and this has drawn criticism.
After years of debate, in 2005 the city threw out a proposal for a conventional suburb,
and decided to try to craft a proposal that would be “one of the most
sustainable communities in the country,” according to San Francisco
Mayor Gavin Newsom. The
$6 billion plan, the latest edition of which was released to the public
on April 6th, 2010, would be built out over the next 15 to 20 years.
A public-private partnership between the city and three private
developers – the Lennar Corporation, Wilson Meany Sullivan, and Kenwood
Investments – has created a plan which supposedly will allow the entire
development to take place without taking anything from the city’s
general fund, due to projected sky-high real estate prices for bay and
downtown views. Private capital, tax-increment financing, and Mello
Roos bonds (which levy a fee on top of regular property taxes) are
slated to pay $400 - $500 million each. In a San Francisco Chronicle
article from January 2010, Michael Cohen, the mayor’s economic
development director, was quoted saying, "It's all supported by revenue
the project generates. That's why this project is so attractive.”
The redevelopment plan has steadily added more housing, seeing increased density as a key to attracting the businesses that could serve a true neighborhood on Treasure Island. It calls for 7,540 housing units on just 100 acres of developed land on the southern and western edges of the island,
making the urbanized portions of the island as dense as San Francisco’s
most compact neighborhoods, Chinatown and North Beach. Nearly one third
of these units would be sold below market rate. The Island Center, the
focal point of the development, would have a ferry and bus terminal, a
650-feet residential and commercial building, tentatively named the Sun
Tower both for its photovoltaic inlays and to hearken back to an old
structure from the Golden Gate Exposition. The Island Center would also
have up to 500 hotel rooms, and up to 240,000 square feet of
commercial, retails, and office space.
The rest of the development consists of
two residential strips that would fan out along the island’s southern
and western shore from the Island Center, mostly consisting of dense,
low-rise structures, punctuated by 10 – 15 and 40 story towers. All the
residences would be within a 17-minute walk of the center. Nearly
three-quarters of the island, or 300 acres, would be devoted to a new
regional park with trails and recreation, which would include a 10 – 15
acres stormwater wetland, and a 20-acre organic farm. This would be the
second largest stretch of open space in San Francisco, behind only
Golden Gate Park. In addition to providing affordable housing, a
pressing need in San Francisco, the development would have other social
benefits. The Job Corps center currently on the island would remain,
and potentially provide a training center for green jobs on the
Island’s new infrastructure. Supportive housing for homeless residents
would expand. Some buildings from the naval station would be preserved,
such as Building 1, which has a rich military history. However, the
vast majority of buildings on the rest of the island would be razed.
New services planned for the island include a new grocery store,
library, and child-care center, so residents can have their needs met
nearby, and it can be a fully integrated neighborhood rather than a
suburban satellite of San Francisco.
The sustainability plan for Treasure Island is
based in a “triple bottom line” approach emphasizing environmental,
economic, and social factors. The sustainable plan was a product of the
site’s unique characteristics and restrictions, which allow it to be a
test of models that serve as alternatives to suburban sprawl. An
emphasis on public transit is one example. Treasure Island’s only link
right now to the rest of the Bay Area is the Bay Bridge, using an
infamous on-ramp that requires drivers to merge into interstate traffic
from a complete stop in only about 200 feet. Although improving the
bridge entrance is part of the plan, the bridge is functionally at
capacity, so the development plan cannot rely on automobiles, as
backlash against increasing traffic on the Bay Bridge would result.
Although housing units have one parking space each, transit has played
an extremely large role in the development, with no housing unit
further than a 17-minute walk from the transit center with ferries and
busses to San Francisco and Oakland, and parking spaces are often
decoupled from housing. The proposal even includes a test of a congestion charge for cars coming on and off the island.
Measures such as this have led many environmental organizations to
praise Treasure Island, and it has won several awards for sustainable
planning: LIST AWARDS
Remediation
of contamination and larger-scale infrastructure changes and are also
planned to make the island habitable and address future sea-level rise.
These are projected to cost $1.2 – $1.4 billion, possibly almost a
quarter of the total construction costs. One of the major concerns is
the remediation of environmental contamination. Although, since it was
primarily an administrative location, Treasure Island is not as
contaminated as other bases currently undergoing redevelopment (such as
Hunter’s Point in the southwest corner of San Francisco, a Superfund
site), it still has a toxins from its military history. Identified
contaminants include dioxin, lead, and PCBs. The Navy is currently
cleaning up the site, and is estimated to be two-thirds done bringing
it up to federal standards. In addition, the Treasure Island proposal
describes the current infrastructure built by the Navy as “crumbling,”
and lays out a plan to compact the current land and add more fill on
top, to simultaneously address seismic vulnerability and adapt to
climate change. For the latter issue, TIDA has partnered with the San
Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Corps (BCDC) to plan an
adaptive management system that allows for 16 inches of sea level rise
by 2050 and 55 inches by 2100, well within IPCC predictions of sea
level rise. Development will be set back 300 feet from the shoreline,
using shorefront park as a buffer, to allow for more climate mitigation
measures such as dykes and levees if sea levels rise faster than
expected. Michael Cohen, the director of economic workforce and
development for the city of San Francisco and a primary planner,
described the shoreline parks as “graceful mounded edges where you can walk along the top and see great vistas.”
Overall, the city has a lot to gain from this
project. In addition to the obvious benefits – the jobs provided from
construction, the increase in tax base, the 2,400 units of affordable
housing in a city that desperately needs it – a successful Treasure
Island redevelopment would cement San Francisco’s reputation as an
environmental leader among cities. And developers stand to profit due
to sky-high real estate prices due to bay views. Yet, despite the
redevelopment’s projected environmental, economic, and social gains, a
chorus of critics has warned that the development is not as well off as
rosy projections and architects’ renderings would have citizens believe.
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Last updated: 5/7/2010
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