Plan would transform parkland
Candlestick Point proposal takes heat from Sierra Club

John Upton | San Francisco Examiner| June 3, 2009

Land deal: Some 40 inland acres of Candlestick Point would be given to The City for development in exchange for $40 million worth of work on the remaining park area. (Examiner file photo)

SAN FRANCISCO — As California lawmakers consider shuttering state parks, San Francisco officials are pledging that state-owned parkland and nearby shorelines in The City’s southeast will be restored into parks and native habitat.

But the plan has come under fire from environmental groups.

Waterfront parkland is a highlight of redevelopment plans for the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and Candlestick Point. Those redevelopment plans, which cover 750 acres, including 300 acres of parks and native habitat, new office buildings, stores, a potential new 49ers stadium and 10,500 homes, could take a decade or more to complete.

A nearly continuous stretch of waterfront parkland would extend north from the state park and ring the redevelopment area, plans show.

Under the restoration, some 40 inland acres of the neglected Candlestick Point Natural Recreation Area would be transferred to The City for development in exchange for $40 million worth of restoration work on the remaining park, according to Stephen Proud, a project manager for master developer Lennar Corp.

Some of the recreation area is currently used as a parking lot for adjacent Candlestick Park, which is slated to be demolished when the 49ers move either to Santa Clara or into a new stadium that’s planned elsewhere within the redevelopment project.

If the restoration plan moves forward, the parkland would eventually be developed into part of the proposed Candlestick South neighborhood — likened in development documents to San Francisco’s swanky Marina district — after being transferred to The City.

The existing state park, which extends across 122 acres, is grossly underutilized, said Michael Cohen, senior economic adviser to Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“A part of the development plan is to turn that into the Crissy Field of the south,” Cohen said.

Crissy Field is a series of marshes near the Marina district that were restored in recent years by the federal government.

However, the state legislation needed to facilitate the $40 million land deal, which was recently introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has been formally opposed by the Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club is against the sale of state parkland for development, according to John Rizzo, political chair of the nonprofit’s Bay Area chapter.

“The idea that, if we have a nice development going on, we can just build it on a state park is a bad precedent,” he said. “We’re never going to get back the state parkland.”

Additionally, Arc Ecology, an environmental consulting firm paid by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to serve as a communication bridge between developers, The City and residents, recently criticized the open-space and parkland plans in a 133-page report about the redevelopment project.

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