June 2008

Proposed District 10 Land Swap Raises Concerns

By Deia de Brito

 When the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation was preparing Proposition A – a $185 million bond for park maintenance and acquisition – Tony Kelly, an Open Space Task Force member and president of the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association, was asked to be on the bond’s working group.  While evaluating the bond before it was placed on last February’s ballot, Kelly stumbled across a three year-old proposed deal that blew his mind:  half of City-owned Channel Street in Potrero Hill would be turned over to Norcal Waste Systems, Inc., a privately-held company that manages all waste and recycling in San Francisco, in exchange for an acre of Little Hollywood Park in Visitation Valley.
Under the land swap, Norcal, which currently rents a small portion of its Little Hollywood Park property to the City for a dollar a year, would transfer the whole park to San Francisco in exchange for Channel Street, Showplace Square’s largest remaining piece of undeveloped public land.  The Channel Street property is adjacent to Norcal’s Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling facility on Seventh and Berry streets.  But the exchange – which would cost Norcal nothing – might cost the waterfront neighborhood its open space and yield the private company big bucks.

Running parallel to the Mission Creek wetland, for years Channel Street has been viewed by the Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC), Open Space Task Force and other community groups as the perfect place for a park.   “The neighborhood made us aware of its potential as part of the Blue Greenway Project,” said Isabel Wade, NPC’s president.  The Blue Greenway consists of a 13-mile corridor along San Francisco’s southeastern waterfront, extending from China Basin to Candlestick Point, in which green infrastructure and public art would be installed, providing recreation and connecting open spaces through trails and bike paths.

“There could be a great park there,” said Wade. “And we found an institution that’s willing to be involved.”  The California College of the Arts has said it would pay for park maintenance, relieving the Parks and Recreation Department from what has been a constant struggle to maintain sufficient gardening staff, especially at smaller parks.
With the area’s growing population a new park is not a utopian ideal but a necessity. “Open space helps the health of the neighborhood,” said Kelly.  According to Corinne Woods, a member of Mission Creek Conservancy and a 20-plus year Mission Creek houseboat resident, life on the channel used to be peaceful before Mission Bay development gave rise to condominiums in every direction, with concomitant traffic and pollution.  The area now hosts 3,000 new housing units, with another 6,000 more expected over the next few years.

According to the San Francisco Department of Planning, four acres of open space is required to meet open space needs given expected population density in the Showplace Square neighborhood.  “The City is trying to put thousands more people into this area. In 20 years, the Potrero population is going to triple,” Kelly said. 
According to Woods, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is in the process of developing a $10 million plan to upgrade Mission Creek’s pump station so that it can handle sewage overflow.  Every winter a mixture of rainwater and waste flows into the channel, carrying a foul stench past the twenty houseboats and new condominiums lining the water. “Part of the solution could be not only making a park on Channel Street, but using part of it as a storm water treatment facility,” Woods said. “The City is under pressure to reduce storm water. It’s an opportunity.”

The six-year-old Eastern Neighborhood Community Planning and Rezoning process is expected to call for a doubling in housing density, and bring more jobs from the commercial sector into an area with a history of heavy industry.  “Old industrial land has been developed without much planning and we’ve ended up with major conflict between industrial, residential, and commercial uses,” said Woods. “The Department of Recreation and Parks and the Department of Real Estate have not been coordinating with this Eastern Neighborhood planning process.”

Kelly, who’s been involved in local land use issues for years, was dumbstruck when he looked at the most recent rezoning draft, which was released two months ago.  Channel Street was included within a specially marked Special Use District (SUD), under which development can occur outside of zoning laws.  The Department of Real Estate had conducted an assessment of Channel Street and valued the land as industrial; but as a SUD the land would be significantly more valuable. 

“At a Land Use Commission meeting at the Board of Supervisors, the Department of Planning said they didn’t know what was going to be built in the SUD area,” Kelly explained. “They said they didn’t know Channel Street was being valued as SUD in the new zoning map.” According to Kelly, when the Real Estate Department asked the Planning Department about Norcal’s proposed land swap, they responded that it was a gift to Norcal to raise the value of their land.

According to Janet Carpinelli, who chairs the nonprofit Green Trust, once Channel Street is transferred to private ownership it will be more difficult for the City to obtain open space in Showplace Square.  “We know that you never buy private property for open space. You work with what the City already owns.”  But under current proposals the 100-foot by 628-foot gravel strip is slated for use as a parking lot for Norcal’s trucks.  “This happened without any public notification. Norcal is pushing for it to be done as soon as possible,” said Carpinelli.  “There’s a lot of pressure from Norcal,” confirmed Wade. “If it’s converted to Norcal there’s nothing that will stop them from developing and selling it.”
The City, which has owned a small piece of Little Hollywood Park since 1976, has been negotiating with Norcal to acquire the rest of the park for public use for many years. A 2007 Recreation and Parks Department report describes the park’s deteriorating playing surfaces, picnic areas, a crumbling asphalt pathway, and a “children’s play area that does not comply with current safety guidelines”.  Renovation plans are tied to City-ownership of the park.

Many community members feel that it’s unfair for the City to pit one neighborhood against another. “The City should own Little Hollywood. But they shouldn’t use Channel Street to pay for it,” Kelly said.   “None of us think Norcal should blackmail the City,” Woods agreed.
Wade explained that the Park and Recreation Department views the proposed land swap as a way to expand an existing park, while avoiding the need to maintain a new smaller park. “It’s not long-term, effective thinking,” she said.  According to Wade, the Open Space Fund, which was created 30 years ago to finance park acquisition, has been diverted to operating costs and other projects.  But the million dollars a year in property taxes that go to the Recreation and Park Department for acquiring open spaces have become a “slush fund”, paying for expenses other than park acquisition, such as the renovation of Harding Golf Course for a tournament.

Rose Dennis of the Recreation and Park Department said the department supported the proposed exchange because of an ongoing need for open space acquisition. Christine Falvey of the Department of Public Works – the agency responsible for Channel Street maintenance —said that the land swap seemed like a win-win situation. “Little Hollywood park will become an open space. The area around Channel Street is very industrial and it’s not linking neighborhoods together. It’s a dirt street. It doesn’t serve any purpose.”
According to Kelly, District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell’s office hasn’t taken a clear position on the swap, but has suggested that Hooper Street – at the end of Mission Creek, between Seventh and 16th streets—be used to fulfill Showplace Square’s open space requirement. But both Woods and Kelly point out that Hooper Street is only half the size of Channel Street and too narrow for use as a park.  And Hooper and Channel combined would only create two acres, leaving another required two acres of open space unmet.  Supervisor Maxwell was unavailable for comment.

Norcal continues to make the case that it would only own half of Channel Street, while the City would own the other half.  But Wade sees that division as problematic. “If the other half of the land is blocked and you can’t get through, there’s no use.”

According to Norcal representative Robert Reed, “The Planning Department is on board with this.  This width will allow essential services to be provided, e.g. fire, and still be a public access, i.e., a 50 foot wide street, deemed adequate by the Planning Department.  Channel Street is not an existing street. Rather it is a gravel parcel, a sliver of undeveloped property....”  Wade counters that paper streets, alleys, and dead ends have great potential for use as open space, with upwards of 400 acres represented by these kinds of land parcels. “It took the open space fund 30 years to pull together 100 acres.”

Woods remembers when a group of businesses put up a fence around Channel Street several years ago to keep out vagrants and stop vandalism.  “Now there are tons of new units with no open space and no private space.  The City has not put out any money and it’s not suggesting any alternatives. And Norcal is parking for free right now inside a fenced-in Channel Street,” said Carpinelli.  According to Reed Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling keeps its collection trucks and containers on property they own on Berry and Seventh streets, and that the trucks parked on Channel Street may be from a storage company next door.

“I am told the Planning Department has supported the exchange and the Real Estate Department drafted language for the transfer to go forward,” Reed stated. “I am told a contract has been drawn up and we have signed it. Therefore we have done what we need to do…the ball is in their court.” Planning Department representatives said they didn’t know the details of the proposed deal, and that all questions should be directed to the Department of Park and Recreation or to Supervisor Maxwell’s office.

According to Dennis, the swap has not yet been finalized; over the next several weeks the department will work with Supervisor Maxwell’s office to clarify an agreement. “In the meantime, we are following Supervisor Maxwell’s lead,” Dennis said.  Land swaps must ultimately be approved by both the Recreation and Parks Commission and the Board of Supervisors. 

In a letter to Larry Martin, Recreation and Park Commission president, the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association stated: “Norcal can well afford to buy land from a private source if they need to move and expand. And Norcal should continue to let Vis Valley use as a park the land that Norcal apparently does not need.  The City should not turn public space into private space when the City has no money to purchase new public open space.”   According to Wade, “This land swap is a failure of the public imagination and civic commitment to parks.”

To voice your opinion contact Supervisor Sophie Maxwell’s office:  554.7670.