Plan Potrero Hill SF

[Please share this email with your friends, neighbors, and members of your community organizations]

Dear Neighbors,

We at UCSF fe el that continuing community involvement is important as we plan for the new medical center for children, women, and cancer patients at Mission Bay . The hospital site is located just south of the existing UCSF research campus (bounded by Mariposa, 16th, 3rd, and the new Owens Street ).

The next meeting of the UCSF Hospital Replacement CAG Action Team* will be h el d:

Monday, March 31 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. UCSF Mission Bay Campus* Genentech Hall, Room N-114 600 16th Street

The March 31 agenda will focus on helicopter flight test results and helipad alternative sites analysis. Refreshments will be provided.

The purpose of the February 21 meeting was to update the community on site plan and exterior design. Changes to the Third Street side of the medical center were extremely well received, especially by neighbors who pressed UCSF for changes. Attendees felt that the Third Street side is now quite attractive and inviting to the community. See attached for a view of the energy center toward the north and also the pedestrian plaza entrance toward the south of the site on Third. Also in February, UCSF brought together key parties to discuss future bicycle routes in and around the hospital site: SF Bicycle Coalition, SF Bike Advisory Committee, MTA, Catellus, Redevelopment Agency, UCSF Community Advisory Group member Janet Carpinelli, Mission Creek Bikeway advocate Judy West, and the UCSF departments of Transportation and Campus Planning.

The purpose of the January 24 Scoping meeting was to provide an opportunity for the community to discuss with the campus the scope and content of the environmental information they expect to see included in the Draft EIR. This meeting was attended by 13 neighbors. Notification of the meeting was sent to all households and businesses in the 94107 and 94158 zip codes, a listserv of over 500 email addresses, and over 1200 people and organizations on the UCSF Mission Bay community database; in addition, an ad was placed in the Potrero View. The Initial Study includes a project description, potential environmental impacts, and proposed mitigation measures for any significant effects, and is available online at http://campusplanning.ucsf.edu/pdf/initialstudy.pdf . The Draft EIR is due out circa April 4; a public hearing on the Draft EIR will be held on April 22.

* The UCSF Mission Bay campus is accessible using the MUNI T-Third light rail line. If you drive, please park at NO COST in the SURFACE LOT (near the UCSF Police Station); this lot can be reached by taking 16th Street to 4th Street . Complimentary parking is not available in the garages. Please bring photo ID to show at building security desk.

For more information about the Mission Bay hospital design process, including information sheets and presentations from past meetings, please see www.community.ucsf.edu or contact Barbara Bagot-López, Associate Director of UCSF Community R el ations, at bblopez@cgr.ucsf.edu or 476-8318.

*FYI: Explanation of various UCSF- and Mission Bay-r el ated meetings and groups

• UCSF Community Advisory Group (CAG)—Formed in 1992, the CAG is comprised of representatives from a wide variety of San Francisco neighborhood, civic, ethnic, labor, and business groups who function as a sounding board, giving UCSF unvarnished views on issues including campus space needs and expansion opportunities.
• UCSF Hospital Replacement CAG Action Team—Subcommittee of the CAG, focused on Hospital Replacement project, which over the years has included the Mission Bay , Mount Zion , and Parnassus campus sites; currently focused on Mission Bay hospital.
• UCSF Mission Bay CAG Action Team—Subcommittee of the CAG, focused on Mission Bay campus-r el ated issues and projects; e.g., location of central utility plant on research campus; design of cancer research building.
• UCSF Mission Bay Community Task Force—Formed in March 2007, the purpose of this group is to provide UCSF and neighbors with the opportunity to have an honest dialogue about the desires and needs of the community and the future direction of UCSF in and around Mission Bay over the next five years.

Contact person for above UCSF groups is Barbara Bagot-López at bblopez@cgr.ucsf.edu.

• Mission Bay Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) —this committee is advisory to the San Francisco Redev el opment Agency regarding the Mission Bay redev el opment area, 303 acres of land including UCSF’s 58-acre campus. Contact person is Catherine Reilly at Catherine.Reilly@sfgov.org
• Port of San Francisco meetings and groups:

– Central Waterfront Advisory Group—Port property from Mission Creek to 24th Street ; CWAG meets generally on the 2nd Wednesday at 4 p.m.. Contact Person is Mark Paez mark.paez@sfport.com

– China Basin Seawall Lot 337—The Port is undertaking a public planning process for the 14-acre site south of China Basin Chann el that is currently used for Giants and commuter parking. Contact person is Diane Oshima at diane.oshima@sfport.com

– Pier 70 Master Plan —Pier 70 is a 65-acre Port-owned site, generally between 18^th and 22^nd Streets, east of Illinois Street . The Port is conducting a public planning process to dev el op a master plan for the entire 65-acre site. Contact person is David Beaupre at david.beaupre@sfport.com

By Steven J. Moss

A few years ago Babcock & Brown, an Australian financial company, floated the idea of constructing a 57-mile electricity transmission cable from the City of Pittsburg under the Bay to San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. Unlike most transmission lines, which can convey electricity in both directions, this would be a one-way cable, pumping direct current (DC) power to San Francisco. The cable would be “gently dropped” into a three to six foot trench on the Bay floor, “without harm to the eco-system.” It would then emerge into a non-emitting, if slightly noisy, facility in Dogpatch, where the DC power would be converted into alternating current before being distributed to the City’s homes and businesses. As part of the deal Babcock & Brown arranged to transfer ownership of the project to the City of Pittsburg, which is served by a small municipal utility.

It was a clever idea. At the time, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) Hunters Point Plant was widely considered to be “dead plant walking,” but had not yet been shut-down. Likewise, under severe community pressure, City officials, including prominently Mayor Gavin Newsom, had committed to closing Mirant’s Potrero Power Plant, which in recent years has produced more polluting and greenhouse gas emissions than the Hunters Point Plant ever did. Along with the installation of 150 megawatts (MW) of City-owned power, also to be located in the Dogpatch neighborhood, the “Transbay Cable” (TBC) would supply the City with the power it needed to insure closure of both plants.

What’s more, because the transmission line would ultimately be owned by a municipal utility, it escaped California Public Utility Commission jurisdiction, thereby removing an expensive and risky regulatory process. All Babcock & Brown had to do to obtain the government’s go ahead would be to finalize an environmental impact report – that would be certified by the City of Pittsburg – receive low level scrutiny from the States Land Commission and, potentially more seriously, from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and make a deal with the San Francisco Port Authority for leases and rights of ways.

For their troubles, Babcock & Brown would be guaranteed full payback, plus profit, on their $300 million+ investment. PG&E ratepayers – you and I – would pay all project costs regardless of whether the transmission line was fully, partially, or used at all. A large chunk of change, no doubt, but pennies a month spread across millions of customers. Capitalistic self-interest harnessed to painlessly solve a pressing public problem.

Unfortunately, the facts got in the way of this otherwise lovely story. The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the nonprofit agency responsible for insuring that the state avoids electricity outages, endorsed the plant as a needed asset to ensure electric system reliability. But it did so by ignoring a number of considerations most of us would find pretty compelling. First, Cal-ISO, which had already committed to removing its reliability-must-run contract from the Potrero Power Plant once the City’s “peakers” were operational, found that the TBC would have little impact on the need for the Potrero Power Plant. Said different, TBC would not ensure closure of the Potrero Plant; and the Hunters Point Power Plant was shuttered last Spring.

Second, Cal-ISO found that the TBC’s benefits – principally in the form of additional reliability – would never exceed its costs. In a previous day this would be called buying a “white elephant.” In even older times it might be considered potlatch: the burning of valuable goods to please the gods, in this case, of electric reliability. Today, when outages can cause governors to be terminated, it’s called purchasing an adequate amount of insurance against (political) black-outs.

Third, Cal-ISO found that San Francisco will likely have plenty of power until at least 2012, and even then any emerging gap would be related to our reliability “cushion;” we’d have enough electricity, we’d just start eating into our reserves. Under status quo conditions the City’s demand might not exceed available supplies until 2018. Under most circumstances, this would be good news, allowing regulators to take the time to make the right decision. After all, energy technology is constantly improving; five years from now Apple might offer a solar generator bundled into its iPod. But rather than waiting and seeing, Cal-ISO abruptly decided to put its money on the TBC horse.

Fourth, Cal-ISO chose to ignore the potential ability of small-scale power sources and energy management approaches to meet San Francisco’s energy needs. Despite the constant public chatter about, and huge investment in, solar, wind, energy conservation, demand management, and, more recently, tidal and food-to-waste generation, Cal-ISO took these potential assets as seriously as a five-year looks at yesterday’s toy. Absent a serious examination, we’ll never know whether or not environmentally-attractive “distributed generation” and better energy management could cure what might ail us in the future at a lower financial and environmental cost than the TBC.

A high-cost white elephant; which would be built in complete disregard for potential alternative, lower financial and environmental cost alternatives; which we don’t need yet; but that we’d all have to pay for. Oh, and that would take up to five acres of valuable space at the Central Waterfront. That’s why I don’t like the TBC.

Ultimately, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will have to approve any Port agreements with Babcock & Brown. Before they do the project should be subjected to higher-quality policy analysis and be given a better public hearing than it has so far. San Francisco succeeded, after years of effort, in closing the Hunters Point Plant. Let’s continue to shape a sustainable energy future by firmly closing the Potrero Power Plant, and moving forward with green power sources. Then, if we need another extension cord, they’ll always be someone around to sell it to us.

Check out the PDF of this article:
Why I Don’t Like the Transbay Cable Project