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Old Posted Nov 11, 2005, 3:34 PM
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Newnan_Eric Newnan_Eric is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Newnan, GA
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It sounds as though they’ve taken into consideration a lot of the concepts put forward by UC-Berkley students in their design. There was an article in the Chronicle in June that discussed this. I have attached it below.

I’m glad that the student’s ideas are gaining traction. It validates what they are doing in their classwork. It reminds me of the biggest new thing we’ve got going on in Atlanta – the Beltline. This idea started from a Architecture graduate student’s thesis.

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If a green utopia on Treasure Island sounds far-fetched, dreamers have a plan

By John King - San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, June 2, 2005

Right now, San Francisco has a rare chance to do something that's historic and audacious: create the world's first green urban neighborhood on our very own Treasure Island.

Instead of a windswept former naval base with poor access to the Bay Bridge, 403 human-made acres could be a community where 20,000 people live mostly automobile-free lives. Energy would be generated by windmills; shops and parks would be within walking distance. Downtown San Francisco would be a 10-minute ferry ride away.

Far-fetched? Absolutely, and a long shot as well. There's a developer in place, but there also are state regulations and well-intentioned constraints at every turn.

But if ever there were a time to dream, it's this week, when San Francisco plays host to the World Environment Conference, and the notion of green cities is high on the agenda. On Treasure Island, environmentalism and urbanism could fuse as never before -- a vibrant community that creates its own energy, treats its own waste and has a transit system so convenient that cars are superfluous.

And before you blanch at the thought of 20,000 or more people living where 1,400 now reside, consider this: Environmental activists are the ones pushing us all to think big.

"There's the opportunity and the necessity to develop Treasure Island in a way that exemplifies the idea of sustainable development," says Eve Bach of Arc Ecology, a San Francisco environmental group. "To support the kinds of services you need on an island requires a lot of people."

That's a far cry from the plan that has evolved in procedural fits and starts over the past decade.

The current scenario calls for 2,600 housing units in four new neighborhoods, with 200 more tucked into the wooded natural hills of Yerba Buena Island to the south. There'd be attached homes modeled on traditional San Francisco neighborhoods, modest towers near a new ferry terminal on the island's southeastern cove, even an "eco-village" with community gardens looking toward Berkeley.

As for open space, start with a 350-foot-wide park facing San Francisco and a 250-foot-wide counterpart looking toward the East Bay. Add ball fields as part of a recreational strip in the middle of the island. The finale: Treasure Island's northern 72 acres would be a "nature park" with ponds and wetlands to help treat the island's storm water as well as provide natural habitat.

Plus -- to pay for the above -- there'd be hotels and conference space and boutique shopping near the cove.

"Here's an incredible opportunity to present something of respite to the Bay Area -- parks and wetlands -- but also a place of vitality and life," says Karen Alschuler, a principal at SMWM, the planning firm working for Treasure Island Community Development, the developer selected by the city to convert the former naval base.

Give Alschuler and her team credit: It's a good plan as far as it goes, especially the efforts to make the open space a functioning part of the larger environment.

But it's not the stuff dreams are made of.

That's because every line of every drawing is shaded by pragmatic and political considerations. The cap on housing comes from a citizen advisory group that concluded work in 1996, the year before the U.S. Navy closed its base. The wide bands of parkland along the shore are a dictate of the State Lands Commission, which controls what is done on filled land along the bay.

There's also a chunk in the middle of the island that's off-limits to any change at all because it houses the Job Corps Center, a federal program that trains at-risk youth in fields such as restaurant work and the building trades.

Navigating all this favors endurance, not imagination. Developers study the checklist -- such as a legal agreement with the Board of Supervisors that could come this fall -- and steer clear of anything bold that might raise a red flag to potential opponents.

But sometimes bold is what's called for -- perhaps right here and perhaps right now.

What could be is glimpsed in a set of visions crafted by urban design students last semester at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. Professor Elizabeth Macdonald led six teams through a study of Treasure Island, and then had them draw up plans for a community shaped by "ecologically responsible approaches to transportation, energy, water and waste disposal issues."

"There's timeliness -- decisions are being made that will be set in stone," Macdonald says. "Treasure Island offers a great opportunity to really create a showcase."

While the student plans differ in specifics, certain themes are as pervasive as the island's stiff afternoon winds.

Some feature lines of windmills to capture those gusts and put them to use. Most move the ferry terminal so that it faces downtown San Francisco; visibility is priceless. Street surfaces are designed to filter runoff into the ground, not into sewers.

More dramatically, the housing units don't include parking. Cars are kept off most of the island, allowing for narrow streets used by bicycles and the island's own shuttle system.

And here's the grand counterintuitive leap: The student schemes call for a population much larger than the 7,000 residents now envisioned. Not to give the developer a windfall, but to make everything else work.

Ferries and shuttles, for instance. Developers promise to make them convenient, but it's hard to build frequent service around day-trippers and a small population scattered across the island.

Or what about a place to shop? The official plan calls for a cluster of shops and residents in what it dubs Ferry Plaza Village. But that's at the southeast end of the island away from most of the residents -- and the development team concedes that the approved population isn't large enough to attract neighborhood-focused retailers.

"Once you start thinking about a car-free island, you start thinking about types of places that are needed so people don't need to leave -- a serious grocery store, for instance," Macdonald says.

Push the imagination further. If Treasure Island has the systems in place to handle its own energy, its own water and its own waste, suddenly a job corps there makes sense. Corps members could learn to operate the green infrastructure -- a possible ticket to more lucrative jobs than, say, learning how to prepare salads.

One official who has seen the student work is Mark Palmer, green building coordinator for the city's Department of the Environment. He's intrigued.

"The island really does need to have a density to support all the lifestyle features we'd like," Palmer says. "I hope we have an opportunity to reopen the density and population discussion, because it deserves another look. "

Yes, all this has a utopian glow. It can also be sniped at from a dozen directions. Won't the ferries cause pollution? Won't the windmills kill birds? Why not make the whole island a park?

Even this starry-eyed columnist is skeptical that an auto-free island could exist. It's hard to imagine thousands of households comfortable with the notion that a car is something you rent every month or two for a getaway to Big Sur.

But one thing I know for certain: The only credible way to ask people to give up automotive convenience is to surround them with everything they want.

Such as a good supermarket. Movie theaters. More than one restaurant to choose from when you don't feel like cooking after a day at work. All knit together so tightly that it's an enticing alternative to any big-city neighborhood you can name.

Arc Ecology's Bach, for instance, outlines a scenario where neighborhood life revolves around the link to the mainland.

"Imagine if the ferry terminal became the place to pick up mail, like the post office in Carmel," Bach says. "The place where you buy groceries, where you locate the drop-in childcare, where there's space for community activities ... you can build in all of these things."

Indeed you can. All you have to do is dream.


A plan crafted by UC Berkeley students shows a cluster of windmills on the island. Illustration by Justin Doull, Aditi Rao and Jeff Williams


A Treasure Island Community Development plan shows a central greensward, with a view of San Francisco. Illustration by Chris Grubbs courtesy of SMWM


Chronicle Graphic based on an illustration done by Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture.

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An island of treasures

Redevelopment plans for Treasure Island include 2,600 housing units, extensive open space, preservation of several former naval buildings and a visitor-oriented commercial district with hotels along the island's southern shore. While details of the plan are likely to be revised further at a community workshop on June 14, below is the current version.


Eco-village: 475 housing units, including lofts, would be designed on so- called green building principles around a central garden.

Westside Park: This low-rise neighborhood would contain 607 townhouses and flats in what developers call a "typical San Francisco fabric."

Cityside: These 646 units line up to face spectacular views of San Francisco, with the possibility of one or two mid-rise towers.

Clipper Cove: Another 646 units would be clustered near the proposed ferry terminal and might include the island's tallest buildings.

Ferry Landing Village: This area could include hotels, a conference center, and shopping areas similar to Fourth Street in Berkeley, along with a 400-slip marina.

North shore: This large open space would include wetlands that double as part of the island's water reclamation system.

Source: Treasure Island Community Development, LLC.

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If a green utopia on Treasure Island sounds far-fetched, dreamers have a plan
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