By Calvin Welch, HANC Board, and past member of the Advisory Committee for the Future of UCSF Parnassus Heights (2019-2020)
The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood existed before the University of California, then known as the Affiliated Colleges, opened in the fall of 1898 on Parnassus Heights. By 1883, with the completion of the Haight Street Cable Car, some dozen blocks of homes had been developed in the neighborhood, with Haight Ashbury real estate being touted by speculators because of its location next to Golden Gate Park, the Chutes amusement park (on Haight St between Cole and Clayton) and the California League Baseball stadium at what is today Frederick and Stanyan streets.
It is important to understand that the continued existence of the neighborhood’s access to transit and housing has been an ongoing issue between the neighborhood and UCSF for much of its 120 year history on Mt. Sutro. And as the UC Regents ponder a new expansion plan for the campus, which will remove a forty -five year old agreement with the community to expand off the Parnassus campus, the neighborhood’s future is again to be decided by an unelected body advised by unaccountable campus administration.
UCSF, a state entity exempt from local zoning controls and possessing the power of eminent domain, exercised both with abandon as the two photos from its web site attest. Thousands of units of housing were condemned and demolished to make room for UCSF’s expansion from Willard to Fifth Ave, from Parnassus to Carl and Irving Streets. Thousands of more homes in the Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition were placed in peril with UCSF's constant lobbying for the Panhandle Freeway and an off ramp directly to campus to link with the UC center in Berkeley. Thousand s of autos congested Parnassus, Carl, Stanyan and Irving choking public transit lines as UCSF built its massive parking garage in the late 1950's. By 1975 the surrounding neighborhoods, led by HANC, drafted the "Mt. Sutro Community Master Plan." UCSF, facing a lawsuit from the community, agreed in large measure to implement the Master Plan. The agreement included returning over 100 units of housing to residential use in the Inner Sunset, agreeing to keep Mt. Sutro "open space" (another commitment now possibly in doubt), and agreeing to a growth cap of 3.55 m/s./f at the Parnassus campus, and seeking new development off Parnassus Heights resulting in the new UCSF campus, with TWO new hospitals at Mission Bay and the acquisition of the old Mt. Zion Hospital, in the Western Addition. In short, the community agreement has meant not only uncontested growth of UCSF but the availability of critical health care to otherwise medically underserved areas of the City.
Above: UCSF late 1930's; UCSF 1975 at time of the adoption of the Growth Cap (https://history.library.ucsf.edu/architecture.html)
The Institutional Expansion Element of the Mount Sutro Communities’ Master Plan can be downloaded from HANC’s website at https://www.hanc-sf.org/the-voice-and-docs/UCSF-Expansion/Communities-Master-Plan/ . A history and timeline of the space ceiling at Parnassus Heights can be downloaded at https://www.hanc-sf.org/the-voice-and-docs/UCSF-Expansion/Parnassus-Heights-Space-Ceiling-Timeline/ .
All of that is now at risk with the current UCSF administration proposing to break this historic agreement and go back to unlimited growth at the Parnassus campus. Community organizations have already "lawyered up" and a new round of law suits are on tap.
Joining me for the February meeting will be long time UCSF Community Advisory Committee Members Tes Welborn, former HANC President and current Board member, and Dennis Antenore, former San Francisco Planning Commissioner. We have invited former Mayor Art Agnos, the Sierra Club, San Francisco Chapter and representatives of the Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition, all opposed to the planned expansion of UCSF at Parnassus Heights.
The February 11th HANC meeting will provide information and insight on this critical issue simply not available anywhere else. Please join us.