Neighbors charge UCSF Breaking Housing Promises

By Carol Dimmick

A plan by the University of California at San Francisco, which proposes to tear down three homes and one flat it owns in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue to build housing for students and faculty, has neighbors crying foul.

Neighbors say a plan by UCSF to demolish the buildings and replace them with apartments that are out of scale with the neighborhood will exacerbate an already difficult parking situation and violate a decades-old agreement the university made with neighbors to preserve residential housing stock.

"In the early 1970s the university proposed demolishing houses on Fifth and Fourth avenues for the dental building. We fought to save those houses along Fifth Avenue," said John Bardis, a former supervisor and long-time community activist. "The university agreed at the local level to limit the size of the campus when they built the dental school."

Twenty five years after an agreement was reached to spare the homes, UCSF wants to replace three Tudor-style homes built in the early 1900s with three-story, two-flat apartments and replace a small two-flat apartment building with four, three-bedroom apartments.

Neighbors, who learned of the plan at a June 6 meeting, are angry with the university for abandoning a promise to preserve the properties. They say UCSF allowed the homes to fall into disrepair and now, when housing is at a premium, are using the high cost of repairs as an excuse to tear them down and build new apartments.

"The cost of maintaining the buildings isn't too high if they factor in the fact that they never put a dime into the property all those years," said Pinky Kushner, a neighbor and vice president of the Inner Sunset Parkside Neighbors. "The neighborhood represents a sophisticated level of architecture. Those houses should be spared the axe of development."

Opponents of the plan point to a resolution adopted by the UC Regents in 1976 they say shows the intent was to preserve the homes as part of the city's residential housing stock.

The 1976 resolution, in part, reads: "... the 34 houses on Third, Fifth and Parnassus Avenues and on Irving and Kirkham streets be rehabilitated as required and leased for residential purposes, with priority given to university students, faculty and staff."

Lori Yamauchi, assistant vice chancellor of campus planning at UCSF, agrees that the spirit of the resolution is aimed at preserving residential housing stock, but she points out that nothing in the resolution prevents the university from tearing the houses down. Yamauchi says the current housing crisis is crippling the university's ability to attract talented faculty and post-doctoral students.

"Our goal is to provide affordable housing for students and faculty. We can't retain people because of the housing crisis. Our ability to attract good students and faculty has been eroded by our inability to prove affordable housing to our people," Yamauchi said.

According to Yamauchi, UCSF has spent considerable money analyzing a variety of options, including selling the homes on Fifth Avenue to faculty, but decided it would not be a cost-effective solution.

"Where would the money come from to buy the house back from the faculty member when they leave? We don't have an answer at this point, but we are continuing to explore all options," Yamauchi said.

UCSF's Master Housing Plan To Bring Changes to Parnassus Heights Neighborhood

The Fifth Avenue project is one small component of UCSF's Housing Master Plan. At the heart of the plan is a 6,000-unit, high-rise housing complex to be built at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus. But because the demand for immediate, affordable housing for faculty and students has reached a crisis, administrators recently determined there was a need for up to 600 beds by the fall of 2004.

Most of that need will be met by fast-tracking a portion of the Mission Bay project, but because other components of the plan will deplete current housing stock in the Parnassus Heights neighborhood, administrators are scrambling to come up with ways to make up the deficit.

One portion of the Housing Master Plan that is currently on the fast track would leave 65 students now living in the Parnassus Heights neighborhood without housing. According to Yamauchi, UCSF plans to sell an apartment building it owns at 3135 Turk St. in the Richmond District in the near future because of a high acquisition cost and associated debt service and high operating expenses.

A second priority of the plan that has administrators scrambling to find homes for students in the neighborhood concerns the rebuilding of part of the Aldea San Miguel Family Housing Complex at the south end of the campus. Five apartment buildings will be torn down in the near future and rebuilt. Although the buildings will be replaced, the project will leave an additional 65 students without housing.

Other components of UCSF's Housing Master Plan that will effect the Parnassus Heights neighborhood include:

· 374 Parnassus Ave., an office building will be demolished and replaced with a five-story apartment building;

· 145 Irving St. and 1308-10 Third Ave., a building on Third Avenue will be torn down and combined with a vacant lot on Irving Street to make room for a three- or four-story apartment building;

· 735 Parnassus Ave., a home will be demolished and replaced with two, three-story flats for faculty purchase.

UCSF Working With Neighbors to Find a Solution

Yamauchi says the June 6 meeting for neighbors was the first of a series of discussions the university intends to hold with neighbors. She says the university is still looking for funding for the controversial Fifth Avenue project and has no designs for new buildings.

According to Yamauchi, UCSF has decided to go through an environmental review process for the Parnassus Heights projects, even though it is exempt by law from the process, because of the high level of community interest.

"We don't have to do an environment review, but we plan to have some kind of environmental document because of the level of public interest. We will work with the neighbors on the project," Yamauchi said.

Laurel Heights Neighbors Block UC Expansion in Early '90s

Neighborhood groups have successfully derailed development plans in the past at one of California's most powerful institutions.

In the early 1990s, a series of lawsuits filed by the Laurel Heights Improvement Association against UCSF is a case study of how a small group of neighbors was able to force the university to abandon its plan to expand its Laurel Heights campus.

When neighbors found out that university officials planned to turn an empty building at 3333 California St. it bought in 1985 for $55 million into a state-of-the-art research laboratory and teaching facility, they filed three lawsuits.

At the time, neighbors complained that the plan was flawed because the university failed to consider environmental concerns and did not prepare adequate environmental reports. Neighbors told the court they were afraid of everything from cancer-causing emissions to increased traffic.

While two of the lawsuits were ultimately dismissed, they were successful in one suit when a state court blocked the project from continuing until the university recirculated an EIR for public comment. The plan was abandoned in 1992.