January 2, 2007

Community Advisory Groups Work to Manage University of California, San Francisco's Campus Expansion

By Julie Mitchell

         While many San Franciscans look forward to the economic and scientific benefits likely to emerge from the University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Mission Bay campus, some nearby residents are alarmed at the university’s rapid acquisition and development of properties well outside the original campus boundaries. Neighborhood sensitivity to the growing campus is particularly high because, as a state-run institution, UCSF is exempt from local planning laws, which would normally serve to help protect existing communities for the adverse consequences of new construction. Increased traffic and difficulty parking are just a couple of the issues facing the neighborhood as UCSF continues to expand.  
         According to Dogpatch resident Janet Carpinelli, “UCSF has already encroached into the Dogpatch neighborhood. It bought 654 Minnesota Street across from Esprit Park and is apparently closing a deal for the old Copenhagen Furniture store at Third and 18th streets, even though at a Dogpatch [Neighborhood Association] meeting in October, UCSF representatives claimed that they were ‘looking’ at the building. Apparently a donor is actually buying the building…. An additional problem is the proposed UCSF hospital just south of the campus. That is causing even more pressure for expansion into the community.”
            A dozen and a half years ago similar, if smaller in scope, concerns plagued Pacific Heights residents after UCSF opened its Laurel Heights campus, a 465,000-square-foot building that sits on 10.9 acres of land that was once part of the historic Laurel Hill Cemetery. The university originally wanted to house biomedical laboratories for its School of Pharmacy at the site, but the community strenuously objected. After an eight-year legal battle UCSF changed its plans; today various academic and university administrative groups – including the community relations office, human resources, and the Medical Effective Research Center for Diverse Populations – are housed at the Laurel Heights campus.
         The university’s first Community Advisory Group (CAG) played a key role in guiding UCSF’s relationship with the communities in which it’s located. Formed in 1992, the CAG is composed of San Franciscans who are interested in influencing UCSF’s land use policies. The most tangible evidence of the CAG’s impact was the UC Board of Regents’ adoption – with overwhelming community support – of the 1996 UCSF Long Range Development Plan. The planguides UCSF’s land development practices and its overall goals are to meet UCSF’s future space needs through reducing the use of the Parnassus Heights campus; expanding to other areas, particularly Mission Bay; and consolidating academic and administrative offices currently located throughout the City.
         The CAG’s members work in conjunction with UCSF planners to assess campus space needs and identify expansion opportunities. The CAG has five sub-committees, called CAG Action Teams: Community Partnerships, Hospital Replacement, Mission Bay, Mount Zion, and Parnassus. The CAG’s members are appointed by the UCSF Chancellor for varying lengths of time; UCSF works to maintain a diversity of interests and representatives from each of the affected neighborhoods.
            Sunset District native and president of the Inner Sunset Merchants Association Craig Dawson has been a member of the UCSF, Parnassus CAG Action Team since 1992. Dawson believes that effective watchdog groups are essential to ensuring that the communities surrounding campuses are effectively served by the university. “It takes a certain amount of public pressure from the people, including our presence at university meetings, for our voice to be heard,” says Dawson.
Dawson has worked to change UCSF’s expansion plans in the Parnassus neighborhood. He sites the space ceiling agreed upon by the community and the university more than 10 years ago as an example of how the neighborhood and UCSF worked together to hammer out a compromise. As part of the 1996 Long Range Development Plan, UCSF identified a total space limit of approximately 3.34 million gross square feet at the Parnassus campus. To remain within this ceiling the university repairs and replaces outmoded buildings to extend their life or to make them more efficient. And available building sites are carefully evaluated for their “fit,” and modified as needed.
For example, UCSF recently collapsed two of its existed buildings located at Irving Street and Third Avenue into a single, more usable, site for student housing, in part as a result of public concerns that UCSF maintain the existing residential scale, density, and character of the Parnassus Heights neighborhood. The university also hopes that the building’s tenants, as well as nearby residents, will take advantage of the CarShare program, which has placed several vehicles at UCSF’s public parking garage next door, as a means of lowering the number of additional cars in the neighborhood, which is already tight on parking. Likewise, the university agreed to renovate some houses on Fifth Avenue rather than demolish and rebuild them at slightly higher densities, thereby reducing traffic, parking and noise impacts.
            “The university bought the building at Third and Irving during a phase of expansion,” says Dawson, “and the fact that they’re transforming it into housing for residents is something that the CAG wanted to see. Although UCSF has gone over the original space ceiling, they have acted in good faith, communicating with us at every turn. Our role is to look out for the public, making sure community concerns and issues are not being ignored.”       
         Dawson notes that during the past two years, when both the DeYoung Museum and Academy of Sciences were closed or located outside Golden Gate Park, the Sunset district has relied on UCSF to attract people to the area and support local merchants. “It’s important to look at the big picture,” he says. “We lost two of the Sunset’s biggest draws; if it hadn’t been for UCSF we would have had a dire situation.”
Still Dogpatch residents are wary of the university, which, if past history is any guide, will continually push to expand its footprint. And, in contrast to other USCF campuses, Mission Bay’s 43 acres, donated jointly by Catellus Development Corporation and the City and County of San Francisco, is ringed on three sides by six million square feet zoned for a flexible range of uses – from labs and offices to multimedia and manufacturing – enabling almost any kind of non-residential use. Because the land that surrounds Mission Bay is zoned so broadly, buildings can be developed as market demand shifts, making it much more difficult for community groups to keep tabs on UCSF or other development. As Dogpatch resident Carpinelli says, “We, as a neighborhood, will have to be vigilant and proactive in drawing up guidelines that we feel are acceptable.”
John Elberling, a nonprofit housing developer in the South of Market area, and a current Mission Bay resident, is hopeful that over time the community will develop into an attractive place to live. “Given 20 or 30 years, surely the district will develop into something like a traditional neighborhood. You’ve got to give it time.