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Treasure Island: ambitious plan for development


April 17, 2011

Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNHE1IJT3A.DTL

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On Thursday, the City Planning Commission will be asked to give its final approval to both the environmental impact report for the project and the development itself, with a final hearing before the Board of Supervisors looming.

After five years of studies and negotiations, proponents still confront questions about two basic issues: transportation and seismic safety.

-- As a low-lying artificial island set between two major faults, geologists say that in its present state, Treasure Island's sandy soil could liquefy in a major earthquake and be threatened by rising sea levels.

-- Despite a plan that subsidizes ferry service and commuter buses, studies project that more than half of island residents will travel to and from work by automobile - a major strain on the Bay Bridge, which already is at capacity during commute hours.
A fresh question involves financing: the project was conceived as a redevelopment area, but Gov. Jerry Brown's move to scuttle the statewide system pushed developers and city officials this month to come up with a districtwide fee to pay for infrastructure improvements. This is a more costly approach, so the plan now includes 400 fewer units of affordable housing than were agreed to in 2006, a change sure to be debated in hearings ahead.

Other details have changed since the concept was introduced in 2005. The maximum number of housing units in the plan increased by 30 percent, even as several tower heights were lowered for aesthetic - and political - reasons. The ferry terminal was shifted to the south, leaving one-third of the residents outside the oft-touted 10-minute walk to ferry service.

The current plan also trims some of the project's more aggressive environmental strategies. In the original plan, for instance, construction of a central utility plant was described as a "key component" to reduce the island's energy use. The current documents say only that development "may include" a central plant.

If the $1.5 billion project is approved, developers anticipate two years of site work before construction of the first townhouses facing Yerba Buena Island. The initial phase also would include a small grocery within a 1938 airplane hangar, one of three buildings that remain from the World's Fair. The project, which also includes roughly 200 housing units on Yerba Buena Island and a hilltop park, is expected to take at least 15 years to complete.

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