Lawsuits seek to stop UCSF expansion
“It is our position that Parnassus is the wrong location for a massive regional hospital, which should be located in a more accessible site.”
San Franciscans for Balanced and Livable Communities
Three organizations filed separate lawsuits Friday in an effort to stop UCSF from building a 2 million squarefoot hospital and academic facility expansion at its historic Parnassus campus.
The groups that filed lawsuits in Alameda Superior Court — San Franciscans for Balanced and Livable Communities, the Parnassus
Neighborhood Coalition and the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium — seek to overturn a decision by the University of California Board of Regents to allow the Parnassus expansion to go forward.
They argue that constructing a large, regional hospital on a dense hillside sandwiched between two residential neighborhoods would have severe environmental impacts on everything from traffic to air quality to public transportation. They argue that the impact of the project was not adequately considered in the environmental study UCSF completed for the development.
“The hospital will add close to the square footage of two Transamerica buildings to an already over built campus situated between two mature neighborhoods,” San Franciscans for Balanced and Livable Communities stated in a letter. “The real need is for a hospital serving the population of San Francisco and particularly the residents of the West part of the City. It is our position that Parnassus is the wrong location for a massive regional hospital, which should be located
in a more accessible site.”
The group argues that UCSF should live up to a 1974 agreement that capped expansion at Parnassus, a deal that ultimately prompted the public university to build a new hospital in Mission Bay. As a state agency, UCSF is exempt from city planning and zoning regulations.
Former Mayor Art Agnos, who joined the Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition lawsuit, said the “aim of these lawsuits is not to stop this project, but to make it work for all of us.” He compared the battle to the fight a decade ago over a new California Pacific Medical Center on Van Ness Avenue. Eventually pressure from residents convinced the hospital to construct a smaller complex at that site and expand its St. Luke’s facility in the Mission.
“The aim of these lawsuits is not to stop this project, but to make it work for all of us,” Agnos said.
UCSF said that it could not comment on potential litigation but said that the project has “broad community support” — including that of Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who represents Parnassus Heights.
The university pointed out a twoyear planning process that included “28 community meetings and hundreds of productive conversations.” During those negotiations UCSF agreed to build 1,200 housing units for staff and
facility and to invest $20 million in public transportation improvements.
“Through this process, neighbors, community stakeholders and UCSF developed together a plan to modernize our outdated Parnassus Heights campus and hospital so that we can serve San Francisco residents’ care needs for decades to come,” stated UCSF. “At a time when the City’s economy is under incredible pressure from COVID19, the construction of our new hospital and modernized campus will create thousands of jobs.”
John Elberling, director of the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium, said UCSF should expand closer to its Mission Bay hospital, at one of four sites: Pier 70, the Potrero Power Plant, Candlestick Point or Mission Rock, near Oracle Park. All four sites have better public transportation and would have little neighborhood impact, he said.
The Parnassus expansion “is simply in the wrong place — a monumental narrowthinking failure of CityBuilding Vision,” he said.