Waterfront proposal goes over well in one S.F. locale
India Basin residents hope redevelopment brings basic services
Longtime India Basin resident Jill Fox isn’t overjoyed at the prospect of a pair of 14-story towers sprouting up from the mudflats across the street from her blue 1874 Victorian overlooking Innes Avenue and the bay.
Nor is she is excited about the sheer density of development headed to her quiet corner of the Bayview — 1,575 units of housing and 150,000 square feet of commercial space in about 20 buildings, ranging from townhomes to 200-unit mid-rises.
Yet despite her misgivings Fox, chairwoman of the India Basin Neighborhood Association, is supporting developer Build Inc.’s plan to redevelop 17.5 acres of waterfront land in India Basin.
That’s because she and her neighbors see the plan as their best shot at getting some of the amenities and services that people in most San Francisco neighborhoods take for granted — public transportation, a grocery store, a cafe or two, parks and perhaps even a library.
“We are the opposite of NIMBYs,” said Fox, referring to the “not in my backyard” groups that often oppose development. “What Build Inc. is proposing is an awful lot of housing. But what we are hoping is that along with that will come some things that the existing neighborhood needs.”
The San Francisco Planning Commission will vote on the development agreement next month after passing the environmental impact report and
other elements last week.
The project is a comprehensive reimagining of India Basin, which runs along the city’s eastern edge south of Islais Creek. The property is reclaimed tidal flats consisting of dirt and rocks excavated during the construction of Interstate 280. It lies just to the north of the former Hunters Point Shipyard, the Superfund site where questions over its botched cleanup have stalled the development, planned to include more than 12,000 housing units.
In addition to the housing at India Basin, Build Inc. would hand over 5.6 acres of waterfront land to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which would combine that acreage with about 17 acres of publicly and privately owned land to both the north and south. The combined swath of open land along the entire India Basin shoreline will be roughly the size of Crissy Field and be called India Basin Shoreline Park. It’s being billed as a major addition to public space in the city’s southeast.
Much of the plan for India Basin grew out of a “community vision” the India Basin Neighborhood Association released in 2010 that emphasized “fun, food and family homes.” It proposed a restaurant row, a waterfront park with boat docks, bike paths, a farmers’ market, and “21st century village homes.”
While the 1,575 homes Build Inc. has proposed far exceed the number the neighborhood group had envisioned, the developer has included most of the residents’ other goals, according to Michael Hamman, a contractor who lives in a historic former boatbuilding barn overlooking the development site.
“Very few developers are willing to work with the neighborhood like these guys did,” Hamman said. “They actually listened to our concerns and incorporated many of them into the project. On balance, most people feel we got a good bargain.”
One of the major concessions the developer made was to move all the housing back from the shoreline, opening the waterfront for parkland. The tallest buildings would line Innes Avenue, while the shortest town houses would sit closest to the water. A pedestrian-oriented main street with restaurants and a farmers’ market would run north to south through the middle of the tract. The developer has also agreed to preserve a historic shipwright’s cottage, which would be open to the public.
Much of what makes India Basin special is its isolation and wildness. More than 100 species of birds have been observed on the property, and about two dozen have nested there, including American avocet and killdeer. Among the invasive weeds like pampas grass and yellow star thistle are native species such as goldfields and lupine.
The downside is that the property has long attracted illegal dumping and homeless camps.
And that very isolation means the simplest of errands requires a car trip or riding more than one bus line.
“I love this place the way it is — undeveloped, wild, the hawks and coyotes,” Hamman said. “It is fabulous. But the trade-off is that we are going to get an urban neighborhood, cafes I can walk to and take friends to. That is the trade-off — the hawks and coyotes for a loaf of bread. I’m tired of having to get in my car if I want a cup of coffee.”
India Basin has one corner store — Surfside Liquors at 950 Innes Ave. — a small, friendly neighborhood hangout where mostly retired African American men barbecue and play cards. For groceries, residents typically drive to the Safeway at 16th Street and Potrero Avenue, 4 miles away, or the Grocery Outlet on Silver Avenue, 2.5 miles away.
While Bayview’s Third Street commercial corridor offers services like a library, restaurants and some retail, those lie on the other side of the hill from India Basin and require a bus transfer. The only bus that goes through India Basin is the notoriously unreliable 19-Polk. While a bus rapid transit line is planned for Innes Avenue, construction on that is not scheduled to start until 2021. In the meantime Fox says the city needs to get creative in connecting the rapidly growing area with water taxis, pedicabs, bike share and infrastructure for bicycles and scooters.
“The city is approving the housing development, which we need, but it is lagging behind in infrastructure in terms of amenities and transit,” Fox said. “For too long the city has said ‘the Bayview,’ and lumped us together. We are on the the other side of a big hill. Third Street doesn’t really serve us well.”
Fox said she has asked Build Inc. to create temporary uses on the site while the project permits are being lined up, similar to what developers have done in Hayes Valley and Lot A near AT&T Park, where pubs, cafes and other uses have occupied land still to be developed.
“Put something out here as soon as possible,” Fox said. “Whack the weeds. Pick up the trash. Just make a place where people who are already here in the neighborhood can have a cup of coffee and look at the view.”
In a city where any major development fuels fears of displacement and gentrification, India Basin is no exception. The eastern Bayview contains some of the poorest precincts in the city, and several affordable housing developments sit on the hillside overlooking India Basin. The Build Inc. development will include about 400 affordable units — 25 percent of the total.
Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents the area, said she strongly backs the plan. She pointed out that 40 percent of the 400 units of affordable housing — about 160 units — would be set aside for current Bayview residents.
“That is a critical piece in helping my fellow community members digest the massive amount of housing coming to the Bayview,” she said.
Not everyone is a supporter. Tori Freeman, who grew up in the Bayview and has lived in India Basin since 1998, said she likes the proposed park, but that the proposed towers are excessively tall. She is also concerned that the new housing and retail would be too expensive for current residents.
“The developers are feasting, and the changes are coming so fast,” she said, “I am not happy about the towers at all. I don’t want us to become Mission Bay.”
Meanwhile, Build Inc. is watching the scandal at the San Francisco Shipyard project, where engineering company Tetra Tech has been accused of fraud in the $1.1 billion cleanup of the site, which housed a Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1946 to 1969 and was contaminated with radioactive materials.
Vasquez emphasizes that the India Basin land was never used by the Navy or for other dirty industrial uses — most of the site was covered with water until it was filled in with dirt from Interstate 280 in the mid-1950s.
The Shipyard development controversy is “a public relations issue for us — but not a scientific issue,” Vasquez said.
If the Board of Supervisors approves the project in September, infrastructure work — water, roads, sidewalks, streetlights, power — will start next spring and the first buildings would be completed by 2022. The first phase would be 500 units. The entire project would cost $700 million.