Muni's Presidio Yard

In response to Mayor Ed Lee’s last State of the City address, and perhaps a certain Civil Grand Jury Report, an inter-agency working group has initiated the Public Sites Portfolio project, “to help San Francisco address some of its most pressing issues such as housing, transportation, and neighborhood sustainability…through the re-utilization of selected City-owned properties.”

Now soliciting feedback on the overall approach for evaluating and prioritizing potential portfolio sites, the group is also inviting members of the public to make recommendations for sites it should include in the portfolio, an invitation which we’ll extend as well.

Note that the transfer of surplus properties owned by the City’s General Fund departments are governed by The Surplus City Property Ordinance, which dictates the uses of such property, and as such, the Public Sites Portfolio project will begin with “sites owned by enterprise agencies (non-General Fund departments) such as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC),” and of which a couple quickly come to mind.

The first screening of portfolio sites will take place later this fall, with the goal of identifying a first batch of pilot sites this winter and issuing the first round of bids for said sites in 2015.

20 thoughts on “Project To Prioritize Public Sites For Redevelopment Is Underway”
    1. Keep in mind the yard itself is zoned for development up to 40-feet in height while the parcel upon which Muni’s two-story administrative and maintenance building sits on the southern end of the site, along Geary Boulevard and across from a Target and Trader Joe’s, is zoned for up to 160-feet in height.

      There’s more than enough height for the 5.4-acre Presidio Yard site to be redeveloped with a mix of commercial, retail and housing above a new yard. And it’s an idea that’s been floated before.

    2. The LRV yard at Balboa Park is also zoned for up to 160 ft, yet Muni has said that it would be infeasible to relocate it. That’s the kind of height that the CCSF parking lot/reservoir should have been zoned for.

  1. Prioritize redeveloping Potrero Terrace and Gardens! Best weather and views in the entire Bay area! The current density is that of Mayberry (not enough density). The current structures are run down, termite infested, and ugly. This site is just begging to be redeveloped. What are you waiting for Housing authority?

      1. Actually the site says the EIR will finally be complete at the end of next month. So if that happens, a realistic timeline can be set: the 90-day comment period, BOS approval, etc etc. One can hope something will start happening late next winter at this point.

      1. Upper Douglass where it use to be a ball field and it is now a dog park or Lower Douglass that is a playground and tennis court?

    1. This effort is not looking at Rec and Park space, which is protected by the voters from ever being developed. Parks is parks people!

  2. What about the tragedy of the old Potrero Hill police station at 3rd and 20th. It sits there rotting away and could be the centerpiece of Dogpatch.

  3. What about the massive surface parking lots in the projects thoughout the western addition? Complete anomaly given the housing crunch. Underground parking and build high density market rate throughout. NYC doing same in lower east side projects.

  4. Publicly owned property is not a panacea or perhaps even a palliative. We have been through this exercise a number of times with little or nothing to show for it. Every potential parcel has considerations – future uses, neighbors objections, hazardous materials etc. Eventually a few parcels become available. The MUNI Geary bus yard could accommodate housing if a deck was built above it. However, the four stores of housing on top of the deck would be controversial. I would say it would take ten years to pull that off.

    At the moment, land is not as important as the subsidies to build affordable house. There are parcels in the Mission set aside for 200 units of affordable housing but no funds to build them

  5. I agree with those who are including redeveloping the housing projects into more density, more inclusive housing for everyone who lives there now and the new arrivals from wide economic backgrounds. Right now, they feel very disconnected from the rest of the city. I think that there has to be a way to keep the current residents in the area and build more integrated blocks and neighborhoods while increasing and improving the stock of public, BMR housing, and housing for higher income earners.

  6. I think it’d be a good idea, given housing costs, to build a large dormitory-like structure to house government workers to help attract school teachers and other much-needed workers for the benefit of the public.

  7. You support large, dormitory-like structures for the middle class to benefit the SF public. Just come out and say it: projects. Sure, that’s really going to attract school teachers, families, etc.

    1. It may not seem palatable to you, but this is what they do in the rest of the world.
      In a normal large city, most average people (including famillies) live in large apartment blocks that were built to prevent sprawl and to mitigate the negative effects of having a large urban population.
      Unfortunately, it seems to have been ingrained into American culture that each and every schoolteacher, firefighter, and Joe the Plumber should be living in a detached 4000 sq ft single-family house with a big lawn, a white picket fence, and plenty of parking for their 2.5 cars, and that somehow we’ll fit all of this into a dense and expensive city like San Francisco.
      Welcome to the 21st century. So sorry that the reality of a large and increasingly urban population doesn’t mesh with your idea of an ideal living situation.

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