It’s getting to the point where California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) challenges and lawsuits are part of the official San Francisco development process.
A neighborhood group in Laurel Heights filed suit against the city to try to upend a huge redevelopment of the UCSF campus, located at 3333 California, a project that will create hundreds of new homes (including 186 affordable homes for seniors), but that the Laurel Heights Improvement Association alleges violates state law.
The suit, filed in SF Superior Court at the beginning of January, claims that the redevelopment of the campus will result in “needless significant environmental impacts” and that some of the buildings to be demolished “retain integrity in all categories” of historical significance and should be preserved.
Established in 1950, the neighborhood association is a nonprofit that promotes the interests of Laurel Heights residents. The group complains that the planned construction will create pollution, noise, and traffic, as well as destroy trees at the site. The outfit also claims that the city’s Environmental Impact Report was insufficient.
The complaint does note that the association “fully supports” (italics in original) the creation of new affordable housing in the neighborhood, but objects to the methods.
The suit doesn’t come as a surprise; the association and other Laurel Heights groups long voiced ire about the new mixed-use development, criticizing some of the designs, the process, and the loss of existing buildings and greenery at the campus.
Doug Shoemaker, president of Mercy Housing, the developer behind the affordable housing element of the UCSF project, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the suit was “a shame” and said that the CEQA system is too easy to abuse.
The SF Board of Supervisors approved the redevelopment at 3333 California Street in November, despite neighborhood complaints about the removal of trees to make way for the new construction by developers Prado Group and SKS Partners.
The new development would include 35,000 square feet of offices and retail in addition to the planned 744 homes, all across 13 buildings and 10.27 acres, nearly half of which would be open space.
Prado Group bought the property from UCSF in 2014. The oldest buildings date to 1955, but UCSF didn’t move in until the 1980s. The university still uses the campus, but plans to move out entirely this year.
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