A coalition led by developer Lennar Corp. took a first step Tuesday toward asking San Francisco voters to approve new zoning for a remake of Candlestick Point and adjacent Hunters Point Shipyard into a new neighborhood that could feature thousands of homes, retail shops, industry, parks and, potentially, a new 49ers stadium.
The proposed ballot initiative, submitted by a group calling itself the African American Community Revitalization Coalition, would repeal measures passed by city voters in 1997 that approved $100 million in public financing and land-use rule changes to allow a new 49ers stadium and shopping mall at Candlestick.
The new proposal - which would reach the June 2008 ballot following a signature drive - calls on the city to contribute public land and to subsidize portions of the project by tapping a city affordable-housing construction fund and by issuing bonds backed by future property tax revenue from the site.
Billed as the "Bayview Jobs, Parks and Housing Initiative," the measure is backed by the Newsom administration and by District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell and other Bayview-Hunters Point community leaders. It will be framed as an economic and social development initiative for a section of the city that for decades hasn't had a stake in the region's growth and swelling prosperity.
"Our community and our neighborhoods have waited far too long for the same benefits and opportunities that many other San Franciscans enjoy," the Rev. Arelious Walker of the True Hope Church of God in Christ said in a written statement issued by the campaign team that is being formed to pass the measure.
"This is a chance for all of us to move forward together. It is truly an exciting and hopeful time," Walker said.
The run-down, crime-plagued Alice Griffith apartments owned by the money-strapped San Francisco Housing Authority would be rebuilt for current residents. An unspecified share of the projected 8,500 to 10,000 new apartments and townhouses would be rented and sold at below-market rates.
The development plan also is billed as a means to encourage the San Francisco 49ers to abandon plans to move their team to a new stadium the team hopes to build in Santa Clara - but noticeably absent from the coalition to pass the measure is the 49ers organization.
Lisa Lang, the team's spokeswoman, said that she had not seen the proposed ballot measure, but that the 49ers still believe Santa Clara is the right location for the team.
"The 49ers think Santa Clara is the best opportunity for a new stadium because all of the infrastructure is already built - freeways, roads and public transportation," Lang said.
She said that Santa Clara was continuing to work on a feasibility plan for a new stadium and that the issue would not go to voters there until the study is complete.
Under the San Francisco development plan, the new stadium would be constructed at Hunters Point Shipyard, where Lennar Corp. already holds a contract with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency for the right to redevelop the 500-acre former shipyard, which closed in 1974 and is now a Superfund site.
In 2003, the commission approved plans for building 1,500 condos and townhouses on a 63-acre hilltop parcel at the shipyard. That land has been leveled and graded, and builders are in the process of laying the foundation for putting in electrical, gas and water lines. Lennar hopes the homes will be in place by the end of next year.
Other shipyard parcels are only in the preliminary planning stages. Some might feature light industry, and others could include parks.
Though the discussions that led to the drafting of the proposed ballot initiative were prompted in large part by the 49ers' November 2006 announcement that they would seek to leave San Francisco for the South Bay, the plan's chief backers say the remaking of Candlestick and Hunters Point Shipyard is by no means contingent on the team staying in the city of its birth.
"We are moving forward with this innovative plan with or without the 49ers," said Newsom spokesman Nate Ballard.
In addition to 8,500 to 10,000 homes, the plan calls for 300 acres of new parkland and sports fields, 700,000 square feet of retail stores and 2 million square feet of office space.