Issue 320___Will you want to live in San Francisco - tomorrow ___June 2008

 

LAKE MERCED:  SFT supports
Water-Related Recreation at Lake Merced

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is taking over the management of Lake Merced as of July 2008, and has begun a master planning process. The most contentious issue on the table is the future of the gun-related activities on the lake: the Rod and Gun Club and the police firing range. Besides the noise, a major problem for neighbors and lake users alike is whether these uses are compatible with the unique resources of the lake. SFT believes the lake must be developed to serve a varied group of park users and benefit the natural resources.

San Francisco Tomorrow supports non-motorized boating as an appropriate use of the lake, provided that the launch facilities do not interfere with sensitive habitat, and provided that the aquatic center does not become privatized.  Boat rentals and lessons should be available to a broad cross section of the City’s diverse population.  Here are the major points we emphasized in our recent letter to the PUC:

  • Lake Merced and its shoreline and uplands belong to the public; no privatizing uses should be allowed. The shoreline should be reserved for lake-dependent, or at least water-related, uses that cannot be located elsewhere; shooting facilities and wildlife hospitals are not lake-related uses.
  • The highest and best use for the gun club site is ecological protection and restoration; as the largest and most significant freshwater coastal wetlands between Point Reyes and Pescadero, Lake Merced deserves more than a narrow fringe of habitat around its shore. We do not understand why, after skeet shooting is clearly designated as inconsistent with the Evaluation Criteria, the Combined Land Use Scenarios continue to consider it.  The noise of gunfire keeps many people away from the lake and impairs the visitor experience of those who do come.
  • No subsidized parking should be provided anywhere.  Service on the #18 and/or #29 Muni lines might need to be increased.  In comparing the various alternatives, the respective carbon footprints should be taken into account.
  • SFT supports environmental education and urges that a small, transit-accessible, lake-oriented nature center be provided in an appropriate location where building and paving can be kept to a minimum.  
  • Boating is a public trust use.  A rehabilitated boathouse facility on Harding Road could be a valuable recreational amenity, as long as it doesn't become privatized.

The gun-oriented uses at Lake Merced do not fit the long-term best uses of the site. There are other sites for these users, such as the National Guard site near the lake or at Sharp Park
.
SFT joins Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC), San Francisco Beautiful, Nature in the City, Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society in advocating for environmentally-friendly recreation uses and equitable access to the Lake Merced open space.

No place for Recreation on the Northeast Waterfront?


The latest proposal for one of the largest chunks of Northeastern Waterfront is to locate the city’s cruise ship terminal on Piers 27-29. Instead, SFT believes that recreation, available across the spectrum of indoor and outdoor uses, is the best use of these enormous enclosed pier sheds and most of the surrounding open pier space at 27-29, as promised in the city’s adopted Waterfront Plan. The latest development idea in the Port’s long efforts to bring new uses to Piers 27-29 is now to relocate the office development scheme, put forward two years ago by Walter Shorenstein at 27-29, to Pier 30-32, south of the Ferry Building, and to move the Cruise Terminal approved for 30-32 to Pier 27-29.  The idea is that office development at 27-29 on the Northeast Waterfront would continue to generate opposition among the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, although an 11-story cruise ship can block views of the Bay almost as much as an office building (but for only 60-80 days a year).  Has everyone forgotten that one of the goals of the Waterfront Plan was to bring indoor and outdoor, city-serving, recreation opportunities to the huge pier sheds at Piers 27-29? This is a project SFT has long supported.

Late in the last century, years of meetings and planning for the Northeast Waterfront resulted in a plan to create a public recreational facility at Piers 27-31. An RFP (Request for Proposals) was published by the Port and both Chelsea Piers and the Mills Group presented proposals. The Chelsea proposal, modeled on their successful waterfront recreational facilities in New York, was the hands-down favorite of the Port Commission’s analysts, both for its economic viability and compliance with the Waterfront Plan and the RFP.  But at the last minute, Mayor Brown stepped in and directed “his” Port Commissioners to hand the exclusive contract to his friends at Mills. Years later, after claiming to have spent $20 million in pre-development, Mills couldn’t make it work, and sold their exclusive rights to Shorenstein for $8.5 million.  Since then recreation seems to have missed the boat.

Waterfront property falls under State Public Trust Land Use guidelines. Public Trust in this case means maritime uses, or at least, making the water’s edge accessible to the general public. Restaurants, retail shops, hotels are accessible, offices are not. Layer over this city planning limitations which allow no hotels on the water, and what the neighbors want, not another Pier 39, and the options become much more difficult.
 
Port staff have asked cruise operators what their dream terminal should provide in developing the current $100 million Cruise Terminal plan. It would use the seismically sound Pier 27 shed and surrounding pier to host 60 to 80 cruise ships a year. Cruise ships arrivls would require100,000 square feet for staging and luggage handling, plus parking for 30 tour buses and dozens of taxi-cabs to get tourists to and from the city’s hotels and attractions. Instead of recreation in these sheds, we’d get traffic management and baggage handling. Port staff admit that cruise terminals lose money, but the tourists that pass through them leave their money in town.

 

Why Have Recreation on the Waterfront at all?

In the dense downtown area, there are few public recreational spaces.  Residents and visitors can be found running and skating up and down the Embarcadero because there’s nowhere else to go.  Pick up soccer and volleyball have been kicked out of Sue Bierman Park next to the Ferry Building. Residents, office workers, and visitors need a safe place to actively recreate in the northern portion of San Francisco.  By comparison cruise ship offers more recreation space on board than downtown San Francisco.
 
Pier 27 offers the possibility for 11 acres of indoor and outdoor recreational space. The huge pier shed is 175 x 1100 feet with no interior columns to obstruct field sports, roller sports and even batting cages, none of which exist anywhere in San Francisco.  This is why the Northern Waterfront Plan required that Pier 27 and 29 be put into recreational use, and the state approved the plan.
 
However, it is possible for a public recreational facility and a cruise terminal to coexist at Pier 27, but not without serious compromise. Currently the cruise terminal is the lead project, recreation getting what crumbs are left.  In a recent article in the Examiner, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers are said to support the Terminal at Pier 27, but they are trying to limit the number of cruise visits annually as the 1,000-foot long, multi-story highrise ships will block their cherished views.  
 
If the past is any guide, plans for the future of Pier 27, including the new Cruise Terminal, will not have smooth sailing. Recognition of the need for major recreational facilities could bring in significant and needed support, but for now the Tourist Bureau seems to be running the show.



Lots of other images of what Piers 27-29 should be!

Bottled or Tap Water in Golden Gate Park?

Why have critical drinking fountains been removed from Golden Gate Park, forcing the public to buy bottled water from vendors?
The only drinking fountain on the car free 1.5 miles of John F. Kennedy Drive, at the skating area at 6th Ave, was disconnected by the City when the water main was was replaced and now Rec and Park have to find $50,000 to run a new water line out of the Park to Fulton. Also the historic drinking fountain in the Music Concourse was simply removed without notice by the contractors for the Concourse Garage and deYoung Museum. After missing for three years, Rec and Park are proposing to put a fountain on Tea Garden Drive, but not back in the Concourse where the public actually needs it.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT PRESIDIO MEETING
July 14th at 6:30 p.m. in the Presidio Officers’ Club, the Presidio Trust will meet to decide whether the Fisher proposal for a Contemporary Art Museum should be located in the most historic heart of the Presidio’s Main Post.


SFT AWARDS RECIPIENTS and PRESENTERS at this year’s Annual Dinner