February 16th, 2021
Hidden away near the southeastern border of the great city of San
Francisco, tucked away in a dark, dusty corner between Highway 101 and
the water’s edge, lies Bayview-Hunters Point.
Workers, heading down the Interstate on their morning commute, pay the
neighborhood no mind. Tourists, riding cable cars up and down Powell
Street on the other side of the city, aren’t even aware it exists. The
district seems to elude attention, as though it sits off of the city’s
radar. Don’t be fooled, though—the city’s collective amnesia regarding
the neighborhood is a completely purposeful act that’s been going on for
decades. Hunters Point¹ is the old, forgotten, dirty dustbin of San Francisco, and a quick look at the city’s history shows us why.
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¹ -
"Bayview-Hunters Point" is the name of the agglomeration of the two
neighborhoods known as Hunters Point and the Bayview. Because both
neighborhoods are so closely linked, culturally and geographically, you
may assume that I'm using "Bayview" and "Hunters Point" to refer to the
same general area.
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That short video was the trailer to “Straight Outta Hunters Point,” an acclaimed independent hood life documentary from 2001, shot by longtime Hunters Point resident Kevin Epps (Wagner). Unfortunately, not much has really changed since then. At present, African-Americans make up a slight plurality of the neighborhood’s population while Asian and Latino residents follow close behind (Reich et al.). Hunters Point is poverty-stricken and crime-riddled, rife with gang violence, industrial pollution, and drug trafficking (FivePoint et al., Wagner). While there is a higher-than-average degree of home ownership in Hunters Point, the mean price-per-square foot is much lower here than in the rest of the city (FivePoint et al.; Dineen, “After Years”). In addition, 28.2% of Hunters Point residents live under or rather close to the poverty line, as compared to 21.2% of San Franciscans as a whole (US Census Bureau). The issues plaguing Hunters Point have been around since long before Epps was there to film them, and still persist to this day.
Precisely because of its troubled state, Hunters Point has been quite the attractive target for real estate developers searching for a deal with the city. San Francisco government wants to clean up and revitalize the area? Check. Lots of decaying urban space to redevelop, and many vacant lots to construct in? Check. Potential for the neighborhood to become important to the city in the near future due to development in nearby regions? Check, check, check (SF Planning Department, Bayview). The San Francisco Planning Department has had its eyes on Hunters Point for years, and so far, they’ve got a bit of progress to show for it. Developers have furnished a new SF MUNI extension down on Third Street and have transformed Pier 98 into Heron’s Head Park. According to the Planning Department, there’s still more to come: the southeast waterfront “is… poised for significant change in coming years” (SF Planning Department, Bayview). We’ll just have to hope they make good on that promise.
Of all the projects planned, the redevelopment of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is the most ambitious, bar none. Once upon a time, the shipyard was the centerpiece of the district—a bustling seaport managed by the United States Navy where hundreds of workers assembled and deployed ships. The shipyard is quite an outstanding and historically significant place, in many respects. When the Navy acquired it in 1940, it was home to the largest system of dry docks on the West Coast (Reich et al.). The U.S. Navy’s Radiological Defense Laboratory, which studied nuclear weapons and nuclear defense mechanisms, operated out of the shipyard from 1946 to 1969 (US NRC). And of course, no aerial photograph of San Francisco Bay is complete without Hunters Point’s old gantry crane, which towers above the vast blue sea and is visible from five counties (Hartlaub). Most notably, the components of one of the atomic bombs that brought a violent and fiery end to World War II’s Pacific Theater were pre-assembled at the shipyard and sent across the ocean aboard the USS Indianapolis (US NAVSEA). At present, however, the entire site is fenced off and boarded up. Rust, broken glass, and toxic dust are all that remain of the shipyard’s legacy.
It turns out that decades of intense shipbuilding, industrial-scale naval research, and radioactive testing all generate a ton of waste. Who knew? In 1974, the Navy decided to close the shipyard down and lease the land out for private use. However, in the following years, investigations found hazardous chemical and radiological contamination at the site of the former shipyard (US DON BRAC PMO, Former Naval Shipyard Hunters Point.). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency labeled the shipyard a “Superfund” site in 1989; basically, the EPA said that the area was so heavily contaminated it belonged on a special list, and needed some serious clean-up done immediately (US NRC). From then onwards, the Navy has been in charge of clean-up work while the EPA has been overseeing the work and ensuring lawful behavior from the Navy (US EPA). The 1990’s saw murmurings among San Franciscan citizens pertaining to a desire for redevelopment of the shipyard. Those talks evolved into conferences with the city, and in 1999, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commission approved of the idea and tasked the Lennar Corporation with the redevelopment of the shipyard (SF OCII, Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point). After rounds of voting and multiple revisions of the initial plan throughout the 2000’s, Lennar broke ground in 2006 and began hard construction in 2013 (US EPA; Dineen, “Lennar”). Work has been stepping along ever since.
In order to expedite the Navy’s process of turning tracts of land back over to the city, all involved parties agreed to split Hunters Point Naval Shipyard up into multiple parcels. The rationale behind the decision is simple enough: as soon as clean-up on one small parcel is done, the Navy can hand it to the city for immediate processing and development. Lennar also declared that it would split the project up into temporal phases. In Hunters Point Shipyard Phase I, Lennar would redevelop Parcels A-1 and A-2. After Phase I’s completion, Lennar would take on all other parcels at once in Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II (FivePoint et al.). At the time of writing, Phase I is complete; Parcels A-1 and A-2 are filled with townhomes, condominiums, and green space (US DON BRAC PMO, Parcel A). The much larger Phase II has yet to be initiated. Lennar intends to commence work on Phase II via FivePoint, Lennar’s Californian arm of operations. Work is slated to stretch onwards until 2028, maybe even beyond that (Robinson and Larson).
This redevelopment effort is immensely ambitious—and that’s putting it lightly. The San Francisco Business Times places the value of the project at eight billion dollars (Dineen, “Lennar”). The City Planning Department’s lofty primary goal is to:
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Realize
the full potential of the underutilized Hunters Point Shipyard by
creating a complete and thriving new neighborhood intimately connected
to the Bayview and the rest of the city, in a way that fully realizes
its shoreline location and acts as an economic catalyst for the rest of
the Bayview (SF Planning Department, Hunters Point Shipyard)
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However, what
good is a redevelopment project that doesn’t take the will of the people
into account? The humble citizens of Hunters Point have historically
had a rocky relationship with what they see as outside organizations
neglecting and exploiting their neighborhood. In 1997, the San Francisco
Southeast Sewage Plant, which hadn’t had detailed maintenance performed
on it in twenty years, overflowed and flooded the community with
sewage, prompting demands to the city for stricter oversight (SF Public
Utilities Commission). In 2007, the San Francisco Public Utilities
Commission voted to build four fossil-fuel-burning power plants right
outside the Bayview, despite protest from the community (Arce). In 2017,
concerns arose over what many citizens saw as a plot by private
developer Build Inc. and the city government to secretly obstruct plans
for a long-awaited community center and to build mixed-use housing at
the site where the community center was meant to go (Fracassa). And all
of that just barely scratches the surface of the long history of large
companies and government institutions saddling Hunters Point with
burdens and ignoring their objections. Each new decade has brought new
challenges to the neighborhood.
Now, redevelopment of Hunters Point Shipyard presents yet another dilemma for longtime residents. The worry of gentrification, of being priced out and pushed away from the neighborhood due to the sudden influx of luxury shipyard condominium dwellers, is widespread among the people (Selna, “Number”). It’s clear to the city and Lennar, too. At the San Francisco Statewide Direct Primary Election of 2008, famed neighborhood activist Espanola Jackson spoke on Proposition G, the measure that put the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment plan on everyone’s radar. Echoing the sentiments of the community, Jackson expressed worry about the wave of gentrification it would surely bring to Hunters Point (Reich et al.). 84-year-old Bayview resident Eva Smith told the SF Chronicle, “If you do redevelop, what will happen to the old people like me? Will you throw us out? And what will happen to our young people... What are you going to do, throw our offspring away?” (Vega). Though Lennar has promised to make housing affordable to people earning 80-100% of the city’s median income of $75,500, many, including Jackson, doubt that the developer’s definition of “affordable” will mean “affordable for Hunters Point residents” (Selna, “District”).
Even more immediately pressing than the threat of gentrification is the issue of the shipyard’s toxic land. The shipyard’s history of heavy industrial pollution and experimentation with radioactive materials has always been a point of contention for community members. As early as 2001, Hunters Pointers have been on edge about the asbestos, PCBs, and radionuclides present in the land under the shipyard, even as the Navy has attempted to reassure folks that everything was always fine (Martin). In 2014, it became apparent that absolutely nothing was fine. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit got its hands on an internal report at Tetra Tech, the consulting and engineering firm which the Navy contracted to handle decontamination of Parcels B through F, revealing that the Navy had noticed inconsistencies in Tetra Tech’s soil data as early as 2012. Around the same time, a group of four whistleblowers came forth with allegations that Tetra Tech straight-up lied in test results (Nguyen et al.). According to them, Tetra Tech told the Navy that potentially contaminated land was actually perfectly safe. Bert Bowers, a radiological safety consultant formerly with Tetra Tech in 2011, states: “They basically collected a false sample and analyzed it and put a report out that had false results” (Nguyen et al.). Everything snowballed downhill from there in the following years.
FivePoint sued the Navy for “grossly negligent oversight” of the cleanup process. Tetra Tech sued the Navy and the EPA for “arbitrarily [deciding] that all investigation and remediation” had to be done. Early buyers at the finished development on Parcel A filed a class-action lawsuit against Tetra Tech and Lennar (Dineen, “After”). Two high-ranking Tetra Tech supervisors wound up in prison for falsifying soil samples (Dineen, “In Hunters Point”). The Navy conducted an investigation into the decontamination data, concluding that about 30% of the sites under Tetra Tech’s watch looked suspicious. The EPA ran their own investigation and came to a much more troubling conclusion, finding the soil test results on 97% of Tetra Tech’s sites unreliable (Verge Science). The United States Department of Justice itself got involved in 2019, suing Tetra Tech for defrauding the government (Fagone and Dizikes, “US Sues”). Understandably, current residents of Hunters Point are worried and angry about all this. To them, this is yet another instance of a corporation or government entity letting them down. Resident Leotis Martin minced no words for the SF Chronicle, saying:
Now, redevelopment of Hunters Point Shipyard presents yet another dilemma for longtime residents. The worry of gentrification, of being priced out and pushed away from the neighborhood due to the sudden influx of luxury shipyard condominium dwellers, is widespread among the people (Selna, “Number”). It’s clear to the city and Lennar, too. At the San Francisco Statewide Direct Primary Election of 2008, famed neighborhood activist Espanola Jackson spoke on Proposition G, the measure that put the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment plan on everyone’s radar. Echoing the sentiments of the community, Jackson expressed worry about the wave of gentrification it would surely bring to Hunters Point (Reich et al.). 84-year-old Bayview resident Eva Smith told the SF Chronicle, “If you do redevelop, what will happen to the old people like me? Will you throw us out? And what will happen to our young people... What are you going to do, throw our offspring away?” (Vega). Though Lennar has promised to make housing affordable to people earning 80-100% of the city’s median income of $75,500, many, including Jackson, doubt that the developer’s definition of “affordable” will mean “affordable for Hunters Point residents” (Selna, “District”).
Even more immediately pressing than the threat of gentrification is the issue of the shipyard’s toxic land. The shipyard’s history of heavy industrial pollution and experimentation with radioactive materials has always been a point of contention for community members. As early as 2001, Hunters Pointers have been on edge about the asbestos, PCBs, and radionuclides present in the land under the shipyard, even as the Navy has attempted to reassure folks that everything was always fine (Martin). In 2014, it became apparent that absolutely nothing was fine. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit got its hands on an internal report at Tetra Tech, the consulting and engineering firm which the Navy contracted to handle decontamination of Parcels B through F, revealing that the Navy had noticed inconsistencies in Tetra Tech’s soil data as early as 2012. Around the same time, a group of four whistleblowers came forth with allegations that Tetra Tech straight-up lied in test results (Nguyen et al.). According to them, Tetra Tech told the Navy that potentially contaminated land was actually perfectly safe. Bert Bowers, a radiological safety consultant formerly with Tetra Tech in 2011, states: “They basically collected a false sample and analyzed it and put a report out that had false results” (Nguyen et al.). Everything snowballed downhill from there in the following years.
FivePoint sued the Navy for “grossly negligent oversight” of the cleanup process. Tetra Tech sued the Navy and the EPA for “arbitrarily [deciding] that all investigation and remediation” had to be done. Early buyers at the finished development on Parcel A filed a class-action lawsuit against Tetra Tech and Lennar (Dineen, “After”). Two high-ranking Tetra Tech supervisors wound up in prison for falsifying soil samples (Dineen, “In Hunters Point”). The Navy conducted an investigation into the decontamination data, concluding that about 30% of the sites under Tetra Tech’s watch looked suspicious. The EPA ran their own investigation and came to a much more troubling conclusion, finding the soil test results on 97% of Tetra Tech’s sites unreliable (Verge Science). The United States Department of Justice itself got involved in 2019, suing Tetra Tech for defrauding the government (Fagone and Dizikes, “US Sues”). Understandably, current residents of Hunters Point are worried and angry about all this. To them, this is yet another instance of a corporation or government entity letting them down. Resident Leotis Martin minced no words for the SF Chronicle, saying:
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The
Navy should have cleaned up their own damn yard in the first place. We
need someone to watch over whoever is going to clean up now. Because we
don’t trust you all. You all have been lying to us for years. Every time
you open up your mouth, it’s wrong. ... Our people are dying. Why
should we trust you? (Dineen, “Bayview Residents”)
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Forty
thousand citizens of Bayview-Hunters Point filed their own class-action
suit against Tetra Tech in 2018 (Dineen, “SF Residents Sue”). San
Francisco Tenth District Supervisor Malia Cohen explained the
community’s worries this way:
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I
have expectant families contacting my office about giving birth and
raising children on what is widely perceived to be toxic land. Some want
to know how they might get out of their leases. And this is not new…
For years, I have heard very real fears from the community and very
little appropriate response from the Navy, or any other federal agency
about their work… This has been a decades-long cleanup process and
there’s still no end in sight. Public trust has been completely eroded
by a terribly opaque process. (SF Land Use and Transportation Committee)
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Ironically, even the community’s act of speaking up about issues has
become an issue itself. The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Restoration
Advisory Board, or RAB, was a small group established by the Navy in
1993 that held public forums where citizens could ask questions, receive
answers, and chime in on the redevelopment process. The board, made up
of volunteer community members, met almost every single month for 15
years (Smiley, Dillon). Then, in 2008, the Navy suspended the board
indefinitely, stating that the atmosphere at board meetings had become
“too political” as of late (Dillon). Now, the Navy presents progress on
restoration via short, generic, one-sided slideshow sessions. Few people
at these new meetings are neighborhood residents (Smiley, Dillon). If
the community stays quiet, they are ignored, even trampled on; if they
raise a ruckus, they are forced to be quiet. It feels like there’s
almost no way to win for the residents of Hunters Point. Almost.
It should now be devastatingly obvious just how much negligence and disrespect the people of Hunters Point have had to bear over the decades. The redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard is merely our latest, greatest example of powerful groups mistreating a marginalized community. It’s already raised a multitude of concerns, and because of its immense scale and projected redevelopment timeframe, I get the feeling that it’s not done causing trouble for Hunters Point’s residents. Our problem here is clear: the entities involved in land redevelopment at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard are doing a horrendous job listening to the people of the neighborhood. All that’s left is the eight billion dollar question: how do we change that?
Twelve miles away, in the great city of Oakland, stands a gigantic amphitheater-shaped chunk of barren hillside that was once known as the Leona Quarry.
It should now be devastatingly obvious just how much negligence and disrespect the people of Hunters Point have had to bear over the decades. The redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard is merely our latest, greatest example of powerful groups mistreating a marginalized community. It’s already raised a multitude of concerns, and because of its immense scale and projected redevelopment timeframe, I get the feeling that it’s not done causing trouble for Hunters Point’s residents. Our problem here is clear: the entities involved in land redevelopment at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard are doing a horrendous job listening to the people of the neighborhood. All that’s left is the eight billion dollar question: how do we change that?
Twelve miles away, in the great city of Oakland, stands a gigantic amphitheater-shaped chunk of barren hillside that was once known as the Leona Quarry.
Since 1904, the
quarry provided rhyolite for crushed rock to be used in construction
projects all over the city. You can find traces of Leona Quarry rhyolite
everywhere, from platforms at BART stations to piers at the Port of
Oakland (Elliott). This quarry shut down forever in 2003 after decades
of plummeting demand for crushed rock (Alden, “The Changing
Identities”). For a while, the future of the former quarry was
uncertain. It was just a massive, empty, rocky mountain face, difficult
to manage and difficult to build on. Redeveloping and repurposing the
land sounded like a good idea, but it would’ve been incredibly hard to
pull off. What in the world was the city going to do?
At present, the Leona Quarry looks a whole lot different than it once⁰ did. At the base of the quarry, the Monte Vista Villas complex¹ sits comfortably next to a calm stretch of the MacArthur² Freeway. The construction³ of townhouse units by Discovery Homes continues on Skyview⁴ Drive, the road that runs up highest and deepest into the quarry. The whole area is beautiful, placid, and clean. Picnic tables and outdoor exercise equipment are evenly spaced out throughout the area. A steep trail⁵, accessible only by foot, leads uphill alongside the quarry. Further above, the top of the ridge⁶ is lined with single-family homes overlooking the East Bay. The redevelopment of the quarry went down quite well, considering the challenges that the developers faced. And I’m not alone in that opinion. Neighbors living in the area and residents of the subdivision are satisfied, if the lack of protest in comparison to the residents of Hunters Point means anything.
⁰⁻⁶ - see gallery below.
At present, the Leona Quarry looks a whole lot different than it once⁰ did. At the base of the quarry, the Monte Vista Villas complex¹ sits comfortably next to a calm stretch of the MacArthur² Freeway. The construction³ of townhouse units by Discovery Homes continues on Skyview⁴ Drive, the road that runs up highest and deepest into the quarry. The whole area is beautiful, placid, and clean. Picnic tables and outdoor exercise equipment are evenly spaced out throughout the area. A steep trail⁵, accessible only by foot, leads uphill alongside the quarry. Further above, the top of the ridge⁶ is lined with single-family homes overlooking the East Bay. The redevelopment of the quarry went down quite well, considering the challenges that the developers faced. And I’m not alone in that opinion. Neighbors living in the area and residents of the subdivision are satisfied, if the lack of protest in comparison to the residents of Hunters Point means anything.
⁰⁻⁶ - see gallery below.
How
in the world does the Leona Quarry relate to the redevelopment of
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard? Well, the redevelopment of the quarry
provides a valuable lesson on what works and what doesn’t when it comes
to successful, clean, safe, neighborhood-pleasing land redevelopment. I
acknowledge that it’s not exactly a one-to-one comparison. There were
certainly plenty of differences between the projects at the Leona Quarry
and Hunters Point Shipyard. For example, the Leona Quarry is a big hunk
of rock; Hunters Point Shipyard is an industrial wasteland. The Leona
Quarry is located in Oakland’s lower Berkeley Hills; the shipyard is in
Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco. The main challenges at the quarry
were of an environmental and geological nature; at the shipyard, it’s
all about waste cleanup, public relations, and housing concerns.
However, all of these are just issues that a property developer must
take into account and overcome. It’s what they sign up for when they
agree to work on a redevelopment project. No matter who the developer
is, we expect success at the end of the day, no matter where the project
is or what the conditions are. There is but one critical, simple
difference that makes a huge impact in the disparate outcomes of our two
redevelopment projects. The
redevelopers of the Leona Quarry had to listen to the people. The
redevelopers of Hunters Point Shipyard did not listen to the people, and
to this day, continue not to listen.
Plans to redevelop the quarry had actually begun several years before it shut down. Gallagher & Burk, owner of the quarry in 1998, intended to build a 22-acre shopping site with a big-box retailer on the land (Walker). However, residents of the nearby area voiced their disagreement and destroyed that plan in 1999 (“Quarry Mall Proposal”). That year, Gallagher turned the quarry over to the DeSilva Group and the H.T. Harvey company, and they began moving forward to get the site reworked. With continued feedback from the community, H.T. Harvey lightly touched up the upper slopes by mildly terracing the land, planting native Californian shrubs and sprouts, weeding out invasive species, and creating a foot trail leading up the hill (Elliott). In 2003, a group of neighbors sued DeSilva over geological and hydrological safety concerns. They earned several concessions, including more conservative geological safety measures, bus and shuttle stops, and a larger green space up on the quarry (Elliott). After receiving funding from quarry homeowners’ tax dollars, the city formed the Leona Quarry Geological Hazard Abatement District, or Leona Quarry GHAD, in 2005. To this day, the GHAD manages the retaining walls, aqueducts, terraces, and native plants up in the quarry, ensuring the safety of the site below (Alden, “GHADs”). By all accounts, redevelopment work has proceeded smoothly since then.
See what I mean? At the Leona Quarry, the people living in the surrounding area were able to organize and fight to make their voices heard. If they had an issue with the way the land redevelopment was going, they’d take it up with DeSilva. We witnessed how they filed lawsuits, burned money, and used their collective voice to bring about the outcomes that would satisfy them. It’s not exactly the same with Lennar and Hunters Point Shipyard, for many reasons. The residents of Hunters Point are poorer, younger, and hit disproportionately harder by health issues. They don’t have as much political weight to swing around. The district is secluded in the southeast corner of the city, and for decades, has been the city’s go-to site for pollutant-heavy industry (Rechtschaffen). And I believe the Navy and Lennar both know this. They know that the people can’t fight back as hard. That’s why they can afford to play fast and loose in Hunters Point and lower their standards. And that’s disgusting.
This trend of cutting corners is nothing new. According to journalist Jules Suzdaltsev, Lennar’s tactics include buying up sketchy land for cheap and developing in neighborhoods where they know people won’t have the money and political clout to challenge them. To Lennar, it’s no issue if the land is unsafe. Turning a profit is all that matters (Suzdaltsev). Back in 2008, Florida residents of a Lennar-developed subdivision found 126 rockets and bombs, some of them live, buried in the ground near the homes where their children slept. Lennar redeveloped the land, which used to be a World War II bombing range, into a neighborhood with thousands of homes. Lennar and the Florida Army Corps blame each other for the situation, of course (Phillips and Zarrella). See any parallels to Hunters Point Shipyard yet? As Joshua Arce writes in Race, Poverty, & the Environment about the 2007 Bayview power plant decision, “Fossil fuel power plants have historically taken the path of least resistance - situating in and around low-income communities of color least able to resist politically” (Arce). I’d suggest that the same is true of any unwanted industry or development that finds its way to Hunters Point because the organizations in charge have lowered their standards for the area. In “Race, Waste, and Space: Brownfield Redevelopment and Environmental Justice at the Hunters Point Shipyard,” Lindsey Dillon sums it up quite neatly for us:
Plans to redevelop the quarry had actually begun several years before it shut down. Gallagher & Burk, owner of the quarry in 1998, intended to build a 22-acre shopping site with a big-box retailer on the land (Walker). However, residents of the nearby area voiced their disagreement and destroyed that plan in 1999 (“Quarry Mall Proposal”). That year, Gallagher turned the quarry over to the DeSilva Group and the H.T. Harvey company, and they began moving forward to get the site reworked. With continued feedback from the community, H.T. Harvey lightly touched up the upper slopes by mildly terracing the land, planting native Californian shrubs and sprouts, weeding out invasive species, and creating a foot trail leading up the hill (Elliott). In 2003, a group of neighbors sued DeSilva over geological and hydrological safety concerns. They earned several concessions, including more conservative geological safety measures, bus and shuttle stops, and a larger green space up on the quarry (Elliott). After receiving funding from quarry homeowners’ tax dollars, the city formed the Leona Quarry Geological Hazard Abatement District, or Leona Quarry GHAD, in 2005. To this day, the GHAD manages the retaining walls, aqueducts, terraces, and native plants up in the quarry, ensuring the safety of the site below (Alden, “GHADs”). By all accounts, redevelopment work has proceeded smoothly since then.
See what I mean? At the Leona Quarry, the people living in the surrounding area were able to organize and fight to make their voices heard. If they had an issue with the way the land redevelopment was going, they’d take it up with DeSilva. We witnessed how they filed lawsuits, burned money, and used their collective voice to bring about the outcomes that would satisfy them. It’s not exactly the same with Lennar and Hunters Point Shipyard, for many reasons. The residents of Hunters Point are poorer, younger, and hit disproportionately harder by health issues. They don’t have as much political weight to swing around. The district is secluded in the southeast corner of the city, and for decades, has been the city’s go-to site for pollutant-heavy industry (Rechtschaffen). And I believe the Navy and Lennar both know this. They know that the people can’t fight back as hard. That’s why they can afford to play fast and loose in Hunters Point and lower their standards. And that’s disgusting.
This trend of cutting corners is nothing new. According to journalist Jules Suzdaltsev, Lennar’s tactics include buying up sketchy land for cheap and developing in neighborhoods where they know people won’t have the money and political clout to challenge them. To Lennar, it’s no issue if the land is unsafe. Turning a profit is all that matters (Suzdaltsev). Back in 2008, Florida residents of a Lennar-developed subdivision found 126 rockets and bombs, some of them live, buried in the ground near the homes where their children slept. Lennar redeveloped the land, which used to be a World War II bombing range, into a neighborhood with thousands of homes. Lennar and the Florida Army Corps blame each other for the situation, of course (Phillips and Zarrella). See any parallels to Hunters Point Shipyard yet? As Joshua Arce writes in Race, Poverty, & the Environment about the 2007 Bayview power plant decision, “Fossil fuel power plants have historically taken the path of least resistance - situating in and around low-income communities of color least able to resist politically” (Arce). I’d suggest that the same is true of any unwanted industry or development that finds its way to Hunters Point because the organizations in charge have lowered their standards for the area. In “Race, Waste, and Space: Brownfield Redevelopment and Environmental Justice at the Hunters Point Shipyard,” Lindsey Dillon sums it up quite neatly for us:
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The
ways Bayview-Hunters Point became racially demarcated is inseparable
from its growing landscape of urban waste and wasting… Industrial
production has always required a space for waste disposal… That
Bayview-Hunters Point served this purpose for San Francisco during the
twentieth century cannot be separated from the fact that it was also a
neighborhood inhabited primarily by racial minorities. (Dillon)
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In
short, Hunters Point has always been a target for exploitation. This is
in large part due to the fact that the neighborhood finds it more
difficult to resist outside interference. And that’s what I believe
drives government and corporate entities to behave with a lower standard
of responsibility around these parts.
And after all of that, I believe we’ve arrived at our solution. If the Hunters Point community lacks the means to resist corporate greed and government neglect on their own, we ought to legislate the means for them. I feel that it’s absolutely necessary that new laws be enacted that would compel real estate developers to listen more closely to the people of a neighborhood. Leave them beholden to the people they’re developing for. Bind their word. Hold them to their promises using the law. This way, even if the citizens of the neighborhood don’t have the financial means to put up a strong resistance of their own, they will still have fangs to bare when a developer or agency steps out of line. The biggest reason the redevelopment of the Leona Quarry was a success was because the DeSilva group had to listen to the residents living in the surrounding area or face legal consequences. That’s evidence of the power of the people. The people of Hunters Point deserve the same power.
Strength for the community and harsher consequences for breaching the public will are exactly what the residents of Hunters Point are looking for. Just one look through the recording of the San Francisco Land Use and Transportation Committee’s May 2018 hearing on the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment issue tells you all you need to know. Here’s Leticia Arce from Causa Justa, an Oakland and San Francisco social justice group:
And after all of that, I believe we’ve arrived at our solution. If the Hunters Point community lacks the means to resist corporate greed and government neglect on their own, we ought to legislate the means for them. I feel that it’s absolutely necessary that new laws be enacted that would compel real estate developers to listen more closely to the people of a neighborhood. Leave them beholden to the people they’re developing for. Bind their word. Hold them to their promises using the law. This way, even if the citizens of the neighborhood don’t have the financial means to put up a strong resistance of their own, they will still have fangs to bare when a developer or agency steps out of line. The biggest reason the redevelopment of the Leona Quarry was a success was because the DeSilva group had to listen to the residents living in the surrounding area or face legal consequences. That’s evidence of the power of the people. The people of Hunters Point deserve the same power.
Strength for the community and harsher consequences for breaching the public will are exactly what the residents of Hunters Point are looking for. Just one look through the recording of the San Francisco Land Use and Transportation Committee’s May 2018 hearing on the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment issue tells you all you need to know. Here’s Leticia Arce from Causa Justa, an Oakland and San Francisco social justice group:
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We
demand justice for all impacted families in the neighborhood of
Bayview-Hunters Point, accountability from Tetra Tech, the developers,
the health department, and everyone involved in the criminal poisoning
of our communities, and immediate halt to any other development of the
Hunters Point Shipyard. (SF Land Use and Transportation Committee)
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Bradley Angel of Greenaction:
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I
want to bring… to your attention why we need real community oversight;
like, REAL community oversight.… We don't trust the government.
From City Hall, from OCII, to San Francisco Department of Public Health,
to state and federal agencies, they all met starting a year and a half
ago behind closed doors in this building with no minutes being taken,
with Lennar, the mega developer, and that's what's going on: a mad rush
to build rich people's homes and a cover up of the truth. (SF Land Use
and Transportation Committee)
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Steve Teal, who recently moved to Bayview-Hunters Point:
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Shamann Walton, San Francisco Board of Education member:
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Many
more citizens echoed a lack of trust in the government. Others asked
for the reinstatement of the RAB. I could go on and on listing quotes,
but surely you must understand by now. The residents of Hunters Point
know damn well what they want. They want justice. They want
accountability. They want to be heard. The community deserves policy
that will give their voice a sharp edge with which to make demands and
have them followed. Only then will we see any progress in the tireless
fight for fairness. Here’s one more quote from Marie Harrison:
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You
cannot represent us if you cannot speak to us, and we went to every
meeting. I know you know it. Some of you guys will remember me from a
long time ago, and you'll say, ‘God, did you ever stop?’ No. ‘Will you
ever stop?’ No. Do I want to stop? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm tired, but I want
to be made whole, and I want to be made whole while my family, my
friends, my neighbors, many of them are still living.… You [must] also
understand why I don't plan on backing away from any one of the
supervisors. I don't care what district you're in, you're going to be
made to know that you are equally as responsible because we have told
you the truth. (SF Land Use and Transportation Committee)
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Strengthening the community’s voice would also bring about beneficial
change in other ways. The residents of Bayview-Hunters Point have almost
no faith in the government because they’ve been let down time and time
again. While people are passionate about policy and issues, they find it
difficult to keep believing in a government that fails to do right by
them. According to Reverend George Lee of Shilo Full Gospel Church, “the
people [of Hunters Point] just gave up. No one [in government]’s done
anything for the betterment of this community” (Yollin). That year, less
than 30% of Bayview-Hunters Point residents voted in the November 4
general elections—some of the lowest civic participation rates in the
entire city (Yollin). Remember Kevin Epps, filmmaker from the first
paragraph? When asked about who really represents the citizens of
Hunters Point, he remarked, “Our district supervisor represent us, but
not really, you know? Cuz when someone talks in politics, that’s not the
community speaking, that’s different. And that’s important, we need to
fight the way things is going” (Suzdaltsev). And if you’ll think back a
minute, San Francisco voters citywide
approved of the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment project in 2008
and “urged the City, the Agency and all other governmental agencies with
jurisdiction to proceed expeditiously with the Project” (SF Planning
Department, Hunters Point Shipyard).
Even if residents of the neighborhood had issues with it, they didn’t
get the final say on it—voters from outside the neighborhood did. That
should strike you as ridiculous. No wonder the people of Hunters Point
harbor a distrust of companies and government institutions alike.
Forcing a land redeveloper to listen to the people of the neighborhood
they were working in would, hopefully, restore their faith in the law
and empower them further.
There is already evidence of a similar strategy, known as a community benefits agreement, being applied at Hunters Point. Community benefits agreements are “legally binding agreements between developers and private community organizations” that allow land developers to expedite their approval process and get along with work more smoothly in exchange for concessions and rights for local residents (Reich et al.). Typically, residents in this community organization bargain with developers for concessions that would ostensibly benefit the neighborhood when the development is complete. When a deal is made, the agreement is signed. At Hunters Point Shipyard, this has taken the form of an agreement between Lennar and the San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Organizing Project, and San Francisco Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which demanded affordable housing, workforce development, union recognition, a living wage, and the filling of new entry-level jobs with people from within the community (Reich et al.). I’m of the opinion that this is a step in the right direction, but that stricter, harsher rules need to be laid down. It all sounds like a lot of concessions from Lennar and a lot of progress, but we don’t know if Lennar is actually going to follow through on this agreement. We won’t know until Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II is done. While it is supposedly “legally binding,” there’s always room for companies and federal departments to cheat people, cut corners, and slip through loopholes and technicalities. That should be obvious by now. Can’t blame me for being cynical. The law needs to come down harder on corporations and agencies that do the people wrong, on the people’s terms.
Before I conclude, I need to wrap everything up by mentioning what I believe to be the foundational issue at the heart of the matter; the real root cause of all of our troubles here in Hunters Point. The constant disrespect, neglect, and exploitation of the people of the neighborhood is a superficial manifestation of a deeper problem—systemic racism. Like a disease, we can cover up the symptoms and achieve some peace and quiet that way. But unless we rid the body of the pathogen entirely, we will never be healthy. As long as systemic racism runs through America’s veins, we can be certain that the story of Hunters Point Shipyard will continue, perhaps in another form, in another city, involving another set of companies and governing bodies. There is only one cure, and that is the lawful annihilation of systemic racism. The solution I’ve proposed here is merely a stepping stone towards this end, a part of a larger solution to be built up to. It won’t fix all our problems, but it will at least help secure something for the residents of Hunters Point today. Systemic racism and other related (but still important) problems surrounding Hunters Point, such as environmental justice, corporate greed, government corruption, ecologically-minded land usage, gang and drug activity and culture, and housing law are all urgent topics, but are not mine to speak on at the moment. Topics for another student in another quarter, perhaps.
There is already evidence of a similar strategy, known as a community benefits agreement, being applied at Hunters Point. Community benefits agreements are “legally binding agreements between developers and private community organizations” that allow land developers to expedite their approval process and get along with work more smoothly in exchange for concessions and rights for local residents (Reich et al.). Typically, residents in this community organization bargain with developers for concessions that would ostensibly benefit the neighborhood when the development is complete. When a deal is made, the agreement is signed. At Hunters Point Shipyard, this has taken the form of an agreement between Lennar and the San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Organizing Project, and San Francisco Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which demanded affordable housing, workforce development, union recognition, a living wage, and the filling of new entry-level jobs with people from within the community (Reich et al.). I’m of the opinion that this is a step in the right direction, but that stricter, harsher rules need to be laid down. It all sounds like a lot of concessions from Lennar and a lot of progress, but we don’t know if Lennar is actually going to follow through on this agreement. We won’t know until Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II is done. While it is supposedly “legally binding,” there’s always room for companies and federal departments to cheat people, cut corners, and slip through loopholes and technicalities. That should be obvious by now. Can’t blame me for being cynical. The law needs to come down harder on corporations and agencies that do the people wrong, on the people’s terms.
Before I conclude, I need to wrap everything up by mentioning what I believe to be the foundational issue at the heart of the matter; the real root cause of all of our troubles here in Hunters Point. The constant disrespect, neglect, and exploitation of the people of the neighborhood is a superficial manifestation of a deeper problem—systemic racism. Like a disease, we can cover up the symptoms and achieve some peace and quiet that way. But unless we rid the body of the pathogen entirely, we will never be healthy. As long as systemic racism runs through America’s veins, we can be certain that the story of Hunters Point Shipyard will continue, perhaps in another form, in another city, involving another set of companies and governing bodies. There is only one cure, and that is the lawful annihilation of systemic racism. The solution I’ve proposed here is merely a stepping stone towards this end, a part of a larger solution to be built up to. It won’t fix all our problems, but it will at least help secure something for the residents of Hunters Point today. Systemic racism and other related (but still important) problems surrounding Hunters Point, such as environmental justice, corporate greed, government corruption, ecologically-minded land usage, gang and drug activity and culture, and housing law are all urgent topics, but are not mine to speak on at the moment. Topics for another student in another quarter, perhaps.