Unanimous OK for new shipyard plan
Hunters Point project to have wider array of uses
A city commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a comprehensive reimagining of the 400-acre former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard project as an “incubation zone,” with a hotel, schools and maker spaces. The vote took place even as the U.S. Navy has admitted that the $1 billion clean up of the Superfund site was botched by widespread fraud and cheating.
The city’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, which assumed oversight of the property in 2011 after Gov. Jerry Brown abolished local redevelopment agencies, voted unanimously to approve a plan to make the shipyard a more diverse and eclectic neighborhood than originally envisioned.
The plan by developer FivePoint would increase the amount of housing slightly from 10,500 units to 10,672 units. But it would add an array of uses not originally contemplated, including a 120-room hotel, two or three educational institutions and a building for micro manufacturers. It would preserve several historic buildings that had been slated for demolition.
“The vision has been clarified and blessed,” said Kofi Bonner, FivePoint regional president. “We have created an integration of the uses, brought residents closer to the work spaces and introduced more spaces that are neither commercial nor residential. We have created a template that will enable the whole area to become a true innovation
area.”
Though the project’s plans for retail are complete — they still call for 500,000 square feet of stores — Bonner said FivePoint is taking into consideration the struggling brickand-mortar shopping sector. A likely redesign would include more arts, restaurants and entertainment and fewer places to buy blouses and shoes.
“When you see places like Union Square struggling — areas with a lot more foot traffic than we have — it makes sense for us to pause and reposition ourselves,” he said.
The vote comes after a disastrous year for the project, where planning started in the years leading up to the Navy base closure in 1974.
A group of whistle-blowers who worked on the cleanup between 2006 and 2012 have, with great specificity, outlined how the company hired to clean up the base directed workers to cheat and lie about toxic substances on the site. Workers say that they spent years swapping out dirt samples from areas known to be clean and passing them off as coming from parts of the property known to be highly contaminated.
The cleanup fiasco has prompted FivePoint to delay the development of some of the hillside parcels, instead focusing on the part of the property at Candlestick Point, which doesn’t have the cleanup issues. Bonner said he had hoped to develop both sections simultaneously.
“We are as outraged as anyone that this is the position the city and the community is in,” he said. “We are fortunate that we have the ability to focus on the Candlestick side.”
Plans to redevelop the shipyard were approved in 2010. There are 309 homes completed so far in the project’s first phase with 138 more under construction. The project will include 3,345 below-marketrate units. In addition to the housing, a 10,000-square-foot commercial kitchen recently opened and construction on artists’ housing is starting this month.
Nearly all of the 13 speakers at the hearing Monday said they were wholeheartedly in support of the project.
“We have seen the rise and decline of this community and now we have the opportunity to redevelop, revive and regenerate,” said Dr. Carolyn Scott, a neighborhood resident.
Shipyard resident Jason Freed, who lives in one of the new units on the hillside, said the reimagined plan should include an increase in the amount of affordable housing. He said that the condos in the shipyard are fetching far higher prices than the developer expected, which should allow for more affordable units.
“Why are we not changing the minimum requirement for (below market rate) units?” he said. “We need those units. Do not accept these changes without more BMRs.”
Sheridan Enomoto, an organizer with Greenaction, urged the developer and backers of the plan not to move forward until the issues with the botched cleanup are fully resolved.
“We are talking about a Superfund site that is on the national priority list as one of the most hazardous and contaminated sites in the country,” Enomoto said. “We need to make sure that the entire shipyard goes through a complete retesting of all the parcels including those that have already been transferred to the city.”
The proposal still needs approval of the Board of Supervisors, who should consider it this fall. J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen
"We have created an integration of the uses.” Kofi Bonner, FivePoint regional president