Balboa Reservoir development finally nears approval.
The first time San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee heard about a proposal to build housing on the Balboa Reservoir it was the late 1960s and he was a young student at San Francisco City College.
“They were talking about it even way back then,” Yee said.
That proposal went nowhere, as did three subsequent efforts by San Francisco mayors Dianne Feinstein and Art Agnos to develop the 17acre property in the 1980s and 1990s. All of the proposals were blocked by a combination of neighborhood opposition and resistance from City College staff and students looking to preserve the land for future expansion.
Now Yee is set to reverse that losing streak with a vote Tuesday that could set the
stage for the most significant development on San Francisco’s west side since Parkmerced was built in the 1940s and 1950s. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a development agreement and a special use district that would rezone the surface parking lot off Ocean Avenue to allow 1,100 housing units to be built.
The development agreement includes a commitment that the developers — Bridge Housing, AvalonBay and Mission Housing — make 550 of the units affordable. It will also include 4 acres of open space, a large child care center, a community center and $10 million in fees to the city for transit and infrastructure improvements. Of the 550 affordable units, 150 would be set aside for teachers and staff from City College.
The project likely will be approved, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of opposition.
Dozens of faculty leaders and students at City College of San Francisco spoke out against the housing development Monday at a news conference, saying not only that the project was supposed to provide hundreds of units of affordable housing, but that the Environmental Impact Report has also failed to take into account the coronavirus pandemic’s destructive effect on public transportation. As a result, they said, students who can’t park at the school simply won’t show up.
Wynd Kaufman, an engineering instructor and union activist, said, “This project will have a devastating impact on City College students.”
The group called on the community to urge the supervisors to reject the project, or require that it provide at least 550 units of affordable housing for teachers, staff and students.
Yee said that he has done his best to bring opponents and the development team together. He successfully pushed for a 100slot child care facility, 50% of which will be set aside for lowincome families.
Over the past month of negotiations, the developer also agreed to other changes, including making the belowmarketrate housing permanently affordable. Some of the land will remain publicly owned, but leased to the developer, rather than the developer owning it.
“I have done the best that I could in terms of resolving as many of the issues as possible that the community was concerned about,” Yee said.
“With any major project you are going to have issues that can’t be ironed out, especially in a neighborhood that is not used to development.”
Yee said that he would have preferred slightly fewer units but that the developers made a convincing case that the project would not be economically feasible if it were to be cut back.
Some critics are calling for the process to be slowed down.
Yee declined to delay the vote despite an Aug. 3 letter from City College interim Chancellor Rajen Vurdien requesting that the vote be pushed until after city college and the developer are able to finalize a memorandum of understanding.
Project opponent Jean Barish said that the vote should be delayed while issues are resolved. She said more study is needed of the revised development agreement, which she called “vague and wishywashy.”
“There is real concern that this is being pushed through at warp speed without adequate notice and resolution of outstanding issues,” she said.
She also accused the city of “lining the developers’ pockets” by selling the land for $11.4 million, well below what housing development sites typically sell for.
But Bridge Housing Executive Vice President Brad Wiblin said that the cost of building the public infrastructure — including streets and parks — would be close to $40 million. The low price of the land also reflects that half of the units will be dedicated to permanently affordable housing, said Wiblin, who stressed that 55% of the 17 acres would remain publicly owned.
City college is also advocating more parking, but the city is trying to reduce vehicle miles traveled to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, Wiblin said.
He called the Balboa Reservoir “a legacy project” for Yee, who will be leaving office at the end of the year because of term limits.
“Nobody has seen this kind of leadership around housing on the west side,” he said. “It will be a major achievement if we can get across the finish line.”