How S.F. bypassed state toxic sites law

Contaminated gas stations, vehicle repair shops and parking garages have become prized development commodities in San Francisco in recent years as the city struggles with a crushing housing shortage.

But city officials have repeatedly stymied public oversight when assessing whether these chemicaltainted properties are safe for hundreds of new homes by allowing developers to bypass environmental reviews required under state law, a Chronicle investigation has found.

The California Environmental Quality Act prohibits certain exemptions for the tens of thousands of properties on a statewide roster of hazardouswaste sites

ards at a site before development begins. It allows the public to demand health protections and additional levels of cleanup, and requires formal consideration of those comments. To enforce compliance, people can sue agencies they think are failing to adhere to the law.

But in the past five years, the San Francisco Planning Department granted or considered categorical exemptions for at least a dozen projects on Cortese list sites, a Chronicle analysis found.

The 12 projects involve more than 250 current and future housing units around the city, in the Mission, Sunset, Cow Hollow, Nob Hill and other neighborhoods.

The city exempted nine of those projects from the state’s public environmental review process. At four of the sites, work hasn’t begun. Two are under construction. The final three have newly built condominiums, and at least one of those is occupied.

The city considered exempting the three other projects — including a condo development on the site of a vacant auto repair garage at 1776 Green St. in Cow Hollow, despite the presence of high levels of cancercausing benzene in the soil and groundwater. The city abandoned that plan in February after neighbors hired a lawyer to fight it.

Then, following inquiries about the exemptions from The Chronicle in early March, before the coronavirus shut down the economy, the Planning Department said it will stop giving categorical exemptions to projects on the Cortese list.

“The Planning Department is revising its approach to projects on these sites,” spokeswoman Gina Simi said.

Simi said the city relied on state guidance in granting some of the exemptions. Despite repeated requests from The Chronicle to see the guidance, however, Simi has not provided it.

An attorney with the State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees the largest part of the Cortese list with regional water boards, said he was unaware of any such guidance issued by the agency.

Although the city exempted a number of Cortese list sites from state review, Simi defended the quality of the cleanups carried out by the city. San Francisco decontaminates polluted properties to state and regional standards under a local ordinance carried out by the Public Health Department, regardless of whether a project receives an exemption from the state’s environmental review process, she said.

“We strongly disagree with the false assertion that the city’s local process is not as rigorous or as transparent as what is required under (state law), that it doesn’t consider public comment or concerns, and that we intend to circumvent the state’s environmental law,” Simi said. “The city’s environmental review procedures are meticulous.”

But several environmental lawyers told The Chronicle that the California Environmental Quality Act allows far more scrutiny of development on toxic sites than the city’s process alone. Under state law, the public can require safer measures be taken to reduce significant impacts on the environment and health, and can more easily sue if they are not. They said the city flouted state law and, in doing so, deprived the public of the ability to vet developments.

“The city made a huge mistake and has been blatantly violating state law for years, thereby potentially placing an untold number of city residents at risk of exposure to highly toxic chemicals,” said Richard Drury, an environmental lawyer representing neighbors of the vacant auto repair garage on Green Street.

How San Francisco handles contaminated properties has become critical in the effort to build new homes in a city that desperately needs more housing. Developers, discouraged by the city’s lengthy approval process and bans on apartments in large swaths of San Francisco, have turned to polluted land, including former garages and gas stations where toxic substances in underground tanks have leaked into the soil and groundwater.

The city and developers are motivated, as with any project, to get these properties developed as soon as possible — and exemptions from the state law can speed the process by reducing procedural hurdles, legal hangups and costs.

San Francisco has more than 2,000 leaky underground storage tank sites on the Cortese list, named for former

The mixeduse residential development at 2255 Taraval St. was granted an exemption.

Photos by Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle A sign at 986 South Van Ness Ave., a Cortese list site where an exemption was considered.