Condo Project Irks Hill Dwellers
Residents want to stop major development project – and they've done it before
Gerry Crowley was at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Saturday, petitioning passersby to “help save our waterfront” – or, in other words, to stop a luxury condo development planned near the San Francisco Piers.
Crowley said she would have started tabling there the week before, but the 75-year-old North Beach grandmother threw out her back trying to lift the table into her car.
“This week I made sure to bring this little card table,” she said with a laugh.
It may not seem threatening, but the petition drive could mean trouble for Simon Snellgrove, who wants to build 170 condos at 8 Washington, on a small triangle of land near the Ferry Building. Snellgrove has a long history in downtown San Francisco. He was involved in building the Embarcadero Center and redoing Piers 1.5, 3 and 5.
Crowley and her powerful neighborhood group, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, just finished helping to kill plans for a 400-foot corkscrew-shaped condo tower further up Washington Street at 555. “We've been watchdogs on North Beach, Telegraph Hill and the waterfront since 1954,” said Crowley. “I have two granddaughters and I want to leave them something that's beautiful, that hasn't been blighted by a big eight-story condo project.”
Snellgrove's development team, called Pacific Waterfront Partners, says that 8 Washington is nothing like the building that had been planned for 555 Washington.
“Our project is entirely different,” said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for the developer. “It's much smaller in scale; it involves transforming a blighted corner across from the Ferry Building.”
Nearby neighbors are irked over the project, not least because it would knock down their Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club. They're called the Friends of Golden Gateway and they've been fighting the development for years – and now the Telegraph Hill Dwellers are adding their support.
Andrew Segal, the would-be developer of 555 Washington, said he's not surprised that the Telegraph Hill Dwellers are once again opposing a big project.
“They have a long history of pretty vigorous involvement in land use issues in the northeast part of the city,” said Segal. Whether or not Snellgrove's project meets the same fate as his own “depends on how active the opposition becomes,” he said.
It was active during the fight over 555 Washington. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers' most recognizable face – former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin – was seen often at City Hall, before the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reject the project's environmental impact report in April. Peskin and other opponents argued that the corkscrew would exceed zoned height limits and cast shadows on local parks, also a violation.
Snellgrove's project doesn't appear to have the same issues with height limits. But Crowley contends that there is even more neighborhood opposition to this project.
“I think maybe we have even greater, more widespread grass roots movement. Neighborhoods all over the city are upset about this,” she said.
The condo project would include a rebuilt tennis club – as well as a public parking lot underneath. The developers have been circulating their own petition at the farmers market, asking people to support more public parking in the area.
Johnston said another thing that sets his project apart from 555 Washington is that it has included a vigorous public process. Supervisor David Chiu initiated a study of the future of development on the Northeast Embaracadero – and has held meetings for the public to weigh in. That process will wrap up in the coming weeks with recommendations from the planning department, Johnston said. More final plans for the project will emerge then.
“Before opposing a project, it would be worthwhile to see the outcome of this process,” he said. “I think it's premature to oppose anything on the basis of height and exact design because we're not sure what those would be.”
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