S.F. residents sue city over sinking streets
Residents of San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood, where streets are sinking and curbs and sidewalks cracking, are suing the city for repairs and damages, saying officials made the misguided decision to approve construction above fragile bay-fill.
The 303 acres between Interstate 280 and San Francisco Bay, now home to 6,000 residential units, were part of the bay before being filled with rock and dirt in the late 1800s. And when the city approved development in 1998 of the Mission Bay neighborhood, with homes, businesses, schools and a hospital, the suit said, city officials ignored the weakness of the underlying terrain.
“As the Mission Bay fill has settled over the years, from the load of the improvements and by environmental conditions, and continues to settle, into the clay and mud below, the infrastructure improvements have sunk and continue to sink,” said lawyers for the plaintiffs, owners of a condominium in the neighborhood.
The result, they said, has been “improper slopes at ... ramps and sidewalks, cracks in sidewalks with associated tripping hazards, re-configured drainage planes, and ... unsightly gaps around public utility poles and fire-hydrants, together with unsafe street curb dimensions that impose lifesafety risks to pedestrians.”
Building owners have often been held responsible for repairs to adjacent sidewalks. Asked about Mission Bay last fall, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Public Works told KPIX television that “the city is not going to be fixing sidewalks for private property.” But Daniel Rottinghaus, attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Tuesday the problem lies not in the sidewalks but in the location of the development.
“It arises from the fact that these roadways, parks, sidewalks were all built on bay-fill and the bay-fill is sinking,” he said. “The buildings are in bedrock and are not moving but the adjacent infrastructure is sinking,” more than 18 inches in some areas.
The suit was filed in Superior Court last month on behalf of owners of The Radiance, a 99unit condo with entrances at 330 Mission Bay Blvd. and 325 China Basin St. It seeks classaction status on behalf of all Mission Bay residents who have had to pay taxes or fees for neighborhood construction and repair work since October 2020 and seeks refunds of those payments, along with compensation for lost property value and related damage.
But Rottinghaus said the primary goal of the case is to get the city to change its construction and development practices in Mission Bay so that the streets, sidewalks and buildings can all stabilize.
Residents “can’t go out in the middle of the street and do coring samples to find out what’s going on underneath,” he said. “We’re just trying to get the city to take some responsibility for what’s occurring and get them out there.”
Jen Kwart, spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, said his office was reviewing the suit “and will respond in court.”