Who's Behind It: Would-be Pier 70 developer Forest City.
Who Stands to Benefit: Would-be Pier 70 developer Forest City.
Remember Prop. B last November? It was the fight over 8 Washington Street, aka the "Wall on the Waterfront." While ostensibly just a procedural matter over a single parcel of land, it nonetheless became a(nother) proxy battle for the soul of San Francisco.
This year, we have Prop. F. It proposes to relax height restrictions from 40 to 90 feet on 28 acres of Pier 70 (a 69-acre site in the Dogpatch currently owned by the Port of San Francisco) and get the city to "encourage" private redevelopment (i.e. rubber-stamp it when the time comes). The pending design looks to add up to 2,000 housing units (of which 30 percent will be affordable), up to 2 million square feet of mixed commercial space, and bayfront parks on a derelict former shipyard that's now closed to the public, while protecting the neighborhood's character as a base for artists and light manufacturers. It's forward-thinking enough to include a seawall against a rising bay.
If F appears superficially similar to B, it isn't pitting rich developers against ordinary San Franciscans. (Or rather, there's no shouting match between one set of rich people talking an anti-gentrification game versus another set of rich people that isn't).
In fact, Prop. F reveals ours to be one big happy City Family. The major newspapers, the Sierra Club, labor, housing activists, the neighborhood association, and elected officials at all levels support it. Former Mayor Art Agnos (a vocal opponent of B, as well as of the proposed Warriors stadium) strongly backs F, telling SFGate.com, "It's the best project I have seen in my 50 years in the city. It has no opposition from the right, the left, or the middle." Former supervisors Quentin Kopp and Aaron Peskin agree.
What little opposition there is seems haunted by the specter of an ever-more-populous San Francisco, something that's happening anyway. Did B become a flashpoint simply because a controversy-starved ballot needed a villain? Or because 8 Washington is downtown while Pier 70 is peripheral? Developer and obvious beneficiary Forest City has prudently kept a low profile, earning love with the occasional "Yes on F" barbecue. Assuming the project goes forward without revision, it might actually square the ultimate circle: development that pleases everybody.
There's one more hurdle if F passes, however. The State Lands Commission has filed suit, claiming city voters don't have the right to determine on waterfront height limits — which was the crux of another Prop. B, approved by voters in June. So the love-fest may be the early stages of a mobilization campaign. Right now, what sits at Pier 70 is AutoReturn's long-term lot, which might be described as the Tow Yard Beyond Thunderdome. Anything would be an improvement over that.
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