San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Sausalito’s Marinship site focus of fight over housing
Sausalito had a brush with national history on a September day 75 years ago when a huge crowd came to an elaborate ceremony to celebrate the launching of an oil tanker named Mission San Francisco at the wartime Marinship shipyard. It was a great and happy day. World War II had ended only the week before, and the Mission San Francisco was the final big vessel built in Marinship, and the last of more than a thousand ships built in the Bay Area during the war.
That day, Sept. 8, 1945, seemed to mark the end of an era. Its work done, Marinship shut down within weeks. But the old shipyard never really went away and Marinship is back in the news.
Many of the buildings put up during the war are still there, including the administration building on the north end of town, the Industrial Center Building and the big old structure that houses a huge model of San Francisco Bay and a museum. Local historians believe Marinship is the most intact remnant of the dozens of wartime shipyards.
And now a proposal to build affordable and senior housing in the old shipyard has stirred up passions in the town. Sausalito people have always had strong opinions about the look and character of the place, but this time a new element has been added: Proponents of the housing idea say it would bring more racial and economic diversity to a wealthy city that is 92% white.
Affordable housing “is the only way we can increase diversity in this town,” Mayor Susan ClevelandKnowles said at a July City Council meeting. She was one of the majority who voted 41 to take a look at changing zoning rules that prohibit housing in the 225acre Marinship district. “There is no other potential place for this,” she told me this week.
To say that opponents disagree would be an understatement. They are passionate about Marinship as it is, many of them tenants in the Industrial Center Building, itself a survivor of the wartime shipyard.
“The real question is what’s the best use for Marinship,” said Sandra Bushmaker, a former council member who is active in the Sausalito Working Waterfront Coalition. She sees the Marinship district as part of the culture of Sausalito, “industrial and maritime and a place of freedom for artists.” She thinks housing is not compatible to these uses. And besides, she and other opponents say, the housing idea is really the first stage of major development — the use of diversity as an argument for housing is really a kind of modern day Trojan horse. “Racial justice is a much bigger issue than housing in Marinship,” she said. But she thinks it’s the wrong place, “Housing and residential would change the landscape of Marinship,” she said. When most San Franciscans think of Sausalito they think of a pretty little town just across the Golden Gate, noted for its restaurants and shops. It has a considerable international reputation, and before the pandemic it attracted well over a million tourists a year. It’s so famous Pepperidge Farm even has a “Sausalito” cookie.
But Sausalito is also a residential and commuter town. The population is older than in most Bay Area cities — 37% are over 65.
A mile or so north of the expensive homes and the yacht harbors full of sleek boats is another part of town. Not far from the big upscale Mollie Stone supermarket and trendy restaurants like Fish are boatyards and small industrial operations. It’s a curious mix. Some places like the Spaulding Boatworks, where old wooden boats are restored and revered, are next to abandoned boat projects and tumbledown shacks.
In a sense, parts of Marinship reflect the older and more freewheeling Sausalito, where people were allowed to drop out of conventional life. All waterfront communities have people like this. The key to their lives is independence and life on the water. And change is their enemy.
On the other hand, there are also solid business enterprises in Marinship. “It’s the economic engine of Sausalito,” said John DiRe, a member of the working waterfront coalition. “It’s booming. It’s as busy as it’s ever been.”
But Marinship comes with a past, and that raises concern about its future. The shipyard was built in a hurry.
Ground was broken in March 1942, and the first ship was launched in September. The shipyard was built atop an old saltwater marsh and to fill the land, a nearby hill was bulldozed. There were no environmental laws in wartime and now the site is sinking. Marinship was contracted to build 100 ships and they completed 93 before the war ended. It’s possible the soil may be toxic and unsuitable for housing. “We don’t want another Hunters Point down here,” Bushmaker said. That’s a reference to major toxic problems encountered in a former San Francisco shipyard.
But Mayor ClevelandKnowles has thought about these and other concerns. She sees the goal of affordable and senior housing as important to the town. “I want to make it possible for people who work in Sausalito to be able to afford to live here,” she said. She also thinks housing could be built near existing office buildings in Marinship and dismisses the idea that housing and light industrial uses are incompatible. “We can keep the maritime and light industrial character,” she said. “That’s the primary vision.”
DiRe and others also want to overhaul Marinship’s industrial base and make it a center of innovation — but without housing.
But it’s clear that prime waterfront land is at a premium and no matter how the debate comes out Marinship faces a different future.