Current and former San Francisco officials today called for voters to reject two measures on the November ballot that would allow a condominium project to move forward along the city’s waterfront.
With Propositions B and C, San Francisco voters will decide the fate of the 8 Washington project, a proposed 134-unit condo complex located just north of the Ferry Building in the city’s Financial District.
The project was approved by the city’s Board of Supervisors last year but opponents gathered tens of thousands of signatures to put the plans on hold and place a referendum on the ballot in the form of Proposition C.
The 8 Washington project’s proponents have also placed a separate competing initiative on the ballot in the form of Proposition B.
Board of Supervisors president David Chiu, former Mayor Art Agnos and others gathered near the site of the proposed development this morning to call on San Franciscans to vote “no” on both measures, calling it a “wall on the waterfront.”
Agnos said the city tore down the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway and has been working to make the waterfront more accessible and appealing to the public.
“It belongs to all of San Francisco” but “is being sold to the highest bidder” in the form of condos costing about $5 million each, Agnos said.
Chiu said the development would also be built on top of the city’s largest sewer line, which handles 20 million gallons of sewage daily.
Chiu said if something went wrong on the project that caused a sewage spill, “it really could jeopardize the neighborhood and create a major liability for the city.”
Organizers of the Yes on B campaign say the 8 Washington site is currently an asphalt lot and private club blocked off by a 1,735-foot-long fence and that the project would create 30,000 square feet of new public open space in the area.
Campaign spokesman David Beltran said the 8 Washington opponents were just putting out misleading information and scare tactics “geared to distract from the fact that there’s vast public benefit from the project.”
More information from opponents of the project is available online at www.nowallonthewaterfront.com while the Yes on B proponents have more information at www.openupthewaterfront.org.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
