On January 15, the Planning Commission, on a 4-3 vote, approved the construction of a LEED-Platinum building at 110 the Embarcadero, next to the historic Audiffred building.  The building uses living “green” walls to capture stormwater and regulate the internal temperature, solar panels to generate electricity, uses recycled materials in construction and is generally a fine example of green architecture.  What’s the catch?  Well, the developer requested a zoning change to increase the 84-foot height limit for this block by 54%, to 130 feet (total height will be 140 feet).  Planning staff recommended against this zoning change, but were overruled by a bare majority of Commissioners, whose stated goal was to encourage this kind of green construction in the City, and referred to the historic YMCA building, constructed farther down the Embarcadero before the establishment of the height limit, as higher than 84 feet.

But does this help the cause of green development to raise heights and shadow open space?  Waterfront height limits are a well-established policy.  The Port’s 1997 Waterfront Land Use Plan states: “….Relate the height of buildings to important attributes of the city pattern and to the height and character of existing and proposed development. The downtown financial core — the major place of tall buildings in the city — should be kept separate from other less intense activity areas in surrounding low rise development. It should taper down to the shoreline of the Bay.”   These height limits aren’t some kind of arbitrary ruling; they were created to protect and preserve our City’s connection to the waterfront.  Why should being green exempt a building from such an important rule?

In addition to breaking a long-held urban design rule, the increased building height will cast shadows on several nearby open spaces, including Justin Herman Plaza, Herb Caen Way, the plaza on the northeast corner of Mission and Stewart Streets, and Rincon Park along the Embarcadero. Is it green to reduce the usability of limited downtown open downtown open space by taking away sunlight?  Unforunately, only Justin Herman Plaza is protected by the Shadow Ordinance, and the Recreation and Park Commission readily granted the variance needed for the project.

Spot zoning by this and prior Commissions is commonplace; but that doesn’t mean that it should be.  The rules only count if they are obeyed; and San Francisco risks losing its cohesiveness and character if rules that are supposed to guide our City’s growth are changed to accommodate individual development that says its being green.

San Francisco Tomorrow supports green building - but the need to build green should not set aside well-established height limits, and San Francisco’s General Plan and Zoning Maps should not be cast aside to encourage green development.  We already offer streamlined approvals for green buildings; offering up our General Plan on a platter is neither wise nor necessary.

The decision of Commissioners Antonelli, Borden, Lee, and Miguel to approve this project and also to approve a mitigated negative declaration rather than require a full environmental impact report is being appealed to the Board of Supervisors. The zoning change is scheduled to be heard at the Supervisors Land Use Committee on March 16th, and the appeal of the environmental review will be heard at the full board on Tuesday, March 17. 

The Chronicle printed a rendering of the proposed building – to see it, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/08/BARC140BBI.DTL&o=

Chinatown:  Unique Cultural Place—Part Two

The more is unveiled, the more enthralling is Chinatown’s lineage.  Its history, mystery, architecture, spaces, detailing and societal infrastructure embody a unique tale---of creativity, cultural cohesiveness, combativeness and adaptability.  Of another time and in a far-flung place, the largest Chinese settlement outside of China made the most of available means, institutionalizing a vibrant urban village.  Chinatown has multiple layers of uncelebrated history, which can be accentuated today to sustain its economy and its survival. 

New Grant Avenue is the oldest street in San Francisco, originally known as the Calle de la Fundación (Street of the Founding), later called Dupont Street until 1908.  At 827 Grant Avenue, near Clay Street, a small bronze plaque marks the site of San Francisco’s first built structure.  Often hidden behind retail displays, the plaque reads:

Shadows of History Around Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square, today’s pulsating Chinatown “living room”, was San Francisco’s historic civic center---a few blocks north of the then waterfront.  Here, Captain John B. Montgomery of the USS Portsmouth raised the first American flag in San Francisco.  At the park’s Clay Street edge, a plaque pronounces: 

Along Walter U. Lum Place, a tall stone monument topped with a gold-gilded sailing ship is dedicated to Robert Louis Stevenson.  At Kearny and Clay Streets is another commemorative plaque:

Commercial Street was an active mercantile thoroughfare leading to the “Long Wharf” at Montgomery Street.  During the Gold Rush, shops and hotels were set up on the wharf, which later extended 2,000 feet into the Bay.  A cornucopia of history swirls through Chinatown and needs to be memorialized.

Gold and the Railway:  A Transformational Migration
In 1848, with the start of the Gold Rush and the beginnings of an urban San Francisco, the first 780 Chinese immigrants began their odyssey.  Thousands of Chinese, mostly Cantonese from southern China, were drawn to the US mainland.  In 1856, “The Oriental”, San Francisco’s first Chinese language newspaper, published a directory listing 81 Chinatown businesses.  However, 80 percent of the Chinese in California in the 1850’s and 60’s were located in the mining sites.  Prior to 1860, only 8% of the Chinese population in California resided in San Francisco; most departed immediately for the mines.  In the 1860s, the transcontinental railway brought thousands more Chinese “contract workers”.  The Chinese were highly regarded laborers, and deemed as exotic and interesting curiosities.  Chinese settlements, called Chinatown, Little China or Little Canton, became newsworthy places.

The 1870s---Tumultuous Times for Chinese in America
A major economic downturn and the Panic of 1877 threw millions out of work.  The transcontinental railway was completed, rendering thousands more jobless.  Chinese were economic scapegoats in mining, farming, logging and manufacturing---forced out of cities like Seattle and Tacoma.  With increasing violence and threats, Chinese miners drifted toward cities in search of less expensive, less dangerous employment.  Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, organized violence against Chinese intensified, along with political restrictions.  The regional and occupational routing of Chinese workers forced many to return to China.  Others migrated eastward and many retreated to urban Chinatowns.  By 1880, 30% of the Chinese in California were located in San Francisco, up from 8% prior to 1860.

Candlestick/Hunters Point Shipyard Update:    Development Promises Human and Environmental Renewal

The area encompassed by the joint Candlestick and Shipyard project has been an important priority for the San Francisco environmental community for some time. Environmentalists within the Bayview and Citywide have raised millions of dollars to help improve the environment here.  They have contributed substantially to knowledge regarding the ecology of this part of the City. 

The proposed Phase 2 Candlestick/ Hunters Point Shipyard joint project includes the entirety of the lower catchment of Yosemite Creek. This previously blighted portion of San Francisco’s ecology is now being restored, thus improving not just the natural but the human environment of one of San Francisco’s most challenged communities, providing park and social amenities on a par with those enjoyed by neighborhoods adjacent to the Marina, Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, Lake Merced, and Dolores Park.

A number of environmental groups have written to request that the Mayor, Lennar Corporation and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency incorporate sound watershed management strategies and sustainability principles into the planning for the development of the Shipyard Phase 2 such as:  toxic clean-up, wastewater management, and improvement of public transportation.  Public transit, walking and bicycling should be the primary modes of transportation for the project.

Over the past forty years environmentalists in Bayview Hunters Point and the City generally have cooperated to improve environmental quality in San Francisco’s Southeast community. Examples include:
Friends of Candlestick Park – advised DPR on the management of the State Recreation Area;
The Campaign to Clean-up the Shipyard (Arc Ecology) - exposed the toxic and radiological pollution of the Hunters Point Shipyard in the early 1980s;
People’s Earth Day in the Bayview (originally the New Bayview Committee, Arc Ecology, later GreenAction, Southeast Alliance for Environmental Justice, Literacy for Environmental Justice);
The Yosemite Slough Watershed Collaborative conducted surveys of habitats and the mapping of the Yosemite Slough Watershed in 2001 (a project including the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, Clean Water Fund, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Literacy for Environmental Justice, University of San Francisco, and Arc Ecology);
The Hunters Point Shipyard Conveyance Agreement (Supervisor Sophie Maxwell’s Kitchen Cabinet on this project included the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, Communities for a Better Environment, the Community First Coalition, and Arc Ecology);
The closure and demolition of the PG&E Power Plant (GreenAction, Literacy For Environmental Justice, Communities for a Better Environment, Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates);
From Pollution to Parklands, a conceptual analysis of potential park design for the southern waterfront of the Hunters Point Shipyard; and most recently
The Save Candlestick SRA Campaign an effort to save Candlestick Point State Recreation Area from Governor Schwarzenegger's budget ax (the New Friends of Candlestick, the Neighborhood Parks Council, Golden Gate Audubon, Nature in the City, Literacy for Environmental Justice)

State Park Lands, City Parks and Open Space
The City and Lennar will respect and not decrease the current footprint of Candlestick Point SRA even if the Park is expanded through future acquisitions
--Small adjustments to the current footprint may be appropriate, but significant reductions in the width of the Park from the shoreline to its interior boundaries must be avoided.
--The City and Lennar will incorporate the plan for a South Basin Yosemite Slough Waterfront Park, including ecological and habitat preservation-based setbacks from the mean high water mark of the shoreline, allowing for future sea level rise;
--The City and Lennar will provide an accurate description of new parklands that the project would provide and agree that:
--The City’s community-supported park master plan of 1986 must be incorporated as a guide
--The developer must not count existing state and city open space acreage as its contribution of open space to the project
--Parking lots are not parks nor are they open space
--Any loss of habitat must be appropriately mitigated.
--No expressway or major boulevard will be built through State Park lands
--New parklands created by the project should connect with existing open space to allow for wildlife movement.

Bridge over Yosemite Slough

The City and Lennar will agree to study all gateways to the area, including the bridge over Yosemite Slough and a “no-bridge” alternative.  The City will include these studies in both EIRs that address access to the project and will maintain a transparent and open process for evaluating the costs and benefits of the bridge by making all of their studies on this subject as well as all of the transportation data available to the public.  The City and Lennar will not interpret or construe votes in favor of Prop. G as voter approval of a bridge across Yosemite Slough or the South Basin.

Sustainable Design
The sustainability plan for the Shipyard and Candlestick Point must address environmental justice issues that currently impact the surrounding environment and community, emphasizing the reduction of environmentally destructive activities, promoting the minimization of resource use, and providing for long-term health and environmental benefits in the forefront.