Transbay Redevelopment Project Area

The Transbay Redevelopment Project Area, created in 2005, is approximately 40 acres in size and located south of San Francisco´s Financial District. The Project Area is roughly bounded by Mission Street in the north, Main Street in the east, Folsom Street in the south and Second Street in the west. The Project Area is currently composed of transportation-related infrastructure, a large number of vacant parcels, and commercial uses.

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CURRENT STATUS

The most significant feature of the Project Area, the existing Transbay Terminal and its ramps, comprises an underutilized and outmoded transportation facility with serious structural, health and safety deficiencies. The remainder of the Project Area is composed primarily of vacant and underutilized properties and older buildings, many of which are substantially deteriorated and/or unreinforced masonry buildings. All of these conditions constitute blight that the Redevelopment Plan must address.

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FUNDING

The project will be funded with the approximately $430 million in constant FY 2004/05 dollars that the Project Area is expected to generate in net tax increment over the life of the Redevelopment Plan, after the Agency meets its obligations to make payments to affected taxing entities.

Approximately $178 million of the net tax increment will be pledged to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) to help pay the cost of rebuilding the Transbay Terminal into a regional transit hub.

Approximately $206 million in additional funding for the new terminal will be generated by the sale of vacant parcels currently owned by the by the State of

The remaining cost of the new terminal will be paid through a combination of federal, state, regional, and local sources.

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The remaining tax increment generated in the Project Area will be used for Agency activities. Approximately $126 million, or 50 percent of the total tax increment allocated for Agency activities, will fund the Agency’s affordable housing program. By state law, 35 percent of all new housing units built in the Project Area must be affordable to very low- to moderate-income households. Another $126 million in net tax increment will be used for planning, site preparation and development, public facilities, infrastructure and utilities, circulation improvements, building rehabilitation, facade improvements, historic preservation, economic development and other non-housing projects and activities.

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BEYOND HOUSING

A major portion of the Agency’s non-housing program will be to facilitate development on the vacant publicly-owned parcels in the Project Area, which include parcels currently owned by the State of

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COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

The redevelopment plan adoption process for the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area involved community participation. This included a Transbay Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) composed of residents of adjacent areas, property owners, and representatives of community organizations. During 2003, the CAC and the community at large participated in a series of public workshops on the Design for Development. In 2004, the CAC worked with Agency staff on the Redevelopment Plan and the Development Controls and Design Guidelines for the Project Area.

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OPEN SPACE

Expected Growth and Open Space:

Approximately 3400 new residential units are expected to be built in the Redevelopment Area. When Rincon Hill (3675 units) and the residents of the new

Meeting Standards:

There are currently about 26 acres of accessible open space adjacent to this neighborhood (see Table 1). A generous evaluation of current open space provision yields 1 acre per 1000 residents. However, 165 acres will be required to meet the General Plan’s guideline of 5.5 acres per 1000 residents. Therefore, this increase in density requires the development of an additional 139 new acres of open space. To hit the national standard of 10 acres per 100 residents, it would require 274 additional acres.

Local Open Space Gap Analysis:

Figure 21 of the Recreation and Parks Gap Analysis included in the Eastern Neighborhoods EIR designates the area bordered in the west by Market, in the east by Bryant, in the south by 5^th, and in the north by Spear Street as a service area gap. The analysis also defines a significant sub-section of this area as an area of HIGH need. It is important to note that these gap analyses are conducted with existing open space needs and does not include projected density increases. They also do not take into account types of uses, access, and competition for use.

Open Space Requirements: [3]

Beyond the one proposed park, the only open space requirements in the redevelopment plans are for private open space – which includes one parcel per block. Each unit shall have access to the open space parcel from within the building. Residents should not have to exit the building and travel on the public sidewalk to reach the semi-private open space parcel within their block. These open space requirements can be met through any combination of private or shared open space for residential buildings including: front yards, individual porches, shared rooftop gardens, shared or private podium level decks, shared solariums, or additional landscaped areas contiguous with the open space parcel. Towers may include private rooms or community rooms designed as solariums for private or shared open space – and this area may be credited towards the open space requirement if such area is exposed to sun through clear glazing on not less than 50% of the perimeter.

Transbay Neighborhood Park:

Transbay Park is a 1.1 acre site within the Transbay project area designated for recreational open space. Surrounded by proposed mixed-use residential developments and adjacent to existing commercial uses and the Financial District, the anticipated site users will be the newly emerging neighborhood residents as well as office workers.

The team’s analysis of adjacent open space within the greater framework of parks, boulevards, mews and plazas surrounding the Transbay project area, combined with an understanding of the scale of this site relative to other urban parks, informed this park program. The scale of the site requires the development of a park that has an inherent capacity for multiple activities that are unprogrammed so that a “layering” of uses can occur. A program was developed to facilitate informal play and recreation framed within a creative and sculptural expression. Design and programming objectives include the integration of the adjacent alleys, Clementina and Tehama, and the living street linear parks, at Main and Beale Streets, providing expanded recreational real estate.

It is not clear whether or not the team’s analysis of adjacent open space informed the size of this park, or in other words, how they defined gaps and service areas. As previously mentioned, according to the Design for Development Report, “adjacent open space” includes: Yerba Buena Gardens, AT&T Park, Justin Herman Plaza, Ferry Building Plaza, and Rincon Park. It is doubtful that the team’s analysis included projected density.

Finally it is important to note that the main focus of the plan is on “alternatives to open space” such as: sidewalk furniture, streetscape, alleyways, solariums, and so on. These are not meant to compliment neighborhood open spaces, but seem to replace them.

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MORE INFO

Mike Grisso, Project Manager
San Francisco Redevelopment Agency
email: mike.grisso@sfgov.org
(415) 749-2510

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