Despite the short-term uncertainty brought on by the economic impacts of the pandemic, San Francisco is expected to grow as our neighborhoods and economy draw new residents. In 2021, the population was 815,201, a 7.5% drop from 2019 but up 4.9% from 2000. Plan Bay Area, developed by the Association of Bay Area Governments, projects San Francisco will grow by over 300,000 people, nearly 190,000 housing units, and 300,000 jobs by 2040. As the city’s density increases, having sufficient infrastructure to support all residents in all neighborhoods becomes more challenging but also more important. 

The majority of the new developments are in the more industrial eastern areas of the city that are not only vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding, and liquefaction, but offer fewer services and infrastructure to support the increases in population. To address these issues and ensure that current residents aren’t displaced, San Francisco is moving forward with several major planned developments. Central SoMa, Market Octavia, Mission Bay, Treasure Island, Candlestick Point, and Hunters Point Shipyards are just a few of the high-growth areas changing the face of San Francisco and growing the tax base that supports City services. Many of these developments and projects have distinctive funding mechanisms, including dedicated development fees and developer agreements that target improvements in areas of especially high growth. These projects seek to create well-planned, safe places to live, travel, work, and play.

Overview

This chapter includes capital projects from departments, agencies, and programs whose primary objectives are to improve San Francisco’s wide-ranging economic base and plan for its future growth.

Port of San Francisco

The Port of San Francisco is responsible for the 7.5 miles of San Francisco waterfront adjacent to San Francisco Bay. The Port manages, maintains, develops, markets, and leases all of the property in this area. The Port’s operating portfolio is composed of approximately 580 ground, commercial, retail, office, industrial, and maritime leases, including leases of many internationally recognized landmarks such as Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Ferry Building, and Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. 

Port lands must be used consistently with public trust principles for the benefit of all California citizens, to further navigation and maritime commerce, fisheries, public access and recreation, environmental restoration, and commercial activities that attract the public to the waterfront. Urban waterfront developments, including the new Southern Bayfront neighborhood developments proposed in the Mission Rock, Orton, and Brookfield Properties (formerly Forest City Realty Trust) projects, require detailed coordination, review, and approval of many government agencies. The Port has also secured State legislation to allow non-trust uses of specified Port lands and created special financing districts to support waterfront improvements. Such advances were made possible by developing a common understanding with partner agencies of project objectives and requirements to restore historic structures and improve the waterfront for maritime and public use and enjoyment. 

Caring for the Port’s many aging, historic structures while staying true to its public trust mission is a challenge. The Port’s need for capital investments has historically outpaced available funding, leaving a substantial backlog and requiring strategic decisions about how to best manage the Port’s aging assets. The Port has confronted this challenge with dedicated funds, pursuit of new external sources, and strategic prioritization.

Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure

The Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII) is the successor agency to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, which was dissolved in 2012 by order of the California Supreme Court. OCII is authorized to continue to implement the Major Approved Development Projects, which include the Mission Bay North and South Redevelopment Project Areas (Mission Bay), the Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Project Area and Zone 1 of the Bayview Redevelopment Project Area (Shipyard/Candlestick Point), and the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area (Transbay). 

The Mission Bay development covers 303 acres of land between the San Francisco Bay and Interstate-280. The development program for Mission Bay includes market-rate and affordable housing, new commercial space, a new UCSF research campus and medical center, neighborhood-serving retail space, a 250-room hotel, new public open space, and myriad community facilities. 

The Shipyard/Candlestick Point is comprised of nearly 780 acres of abandoned and underutilized land along San Francisco’s southeastern Bayfront. These long-abandoned waterfront lands will be transformed into areas for jobs, parks, and housing. The development will feature up to 12,100 homes, of which nearly one-third will be affordable, nearly 900,000 square feet of neighborhood retail, three million square feet of commercial space, and 26 acres of parks and open space. 

The Transbay development includes the new Salesforce Transit Center and ten acres of former freeway parcels, which OCII and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) are developing into a new, mixed-use neighborhood surrounding a state-of-the-art, multi-modal transit station. The TJPA is responsible for constructing, owning and operating the new Transit Center, and OCII is responsible for the development of the surrounding neighborhood. At full build-out, these publicly-owned parcels will be transformed into approximately 3,300 new housing units, including nearly 1,400 affordable units, three million square feet of new commercial development, and 3.6 acres of parks and open space. 

Treasure Island Development Authority

Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island are in San Francisco Bay, about halfway between the San Francisco mainland and Oakland. Treasure Island contains approximately 404 acres of land, and Yerba Buena Island, approximately 150 acres. In early 2003, the Treasure Island Development Authority (TIDA) and the Treasure Island Community Development, LLC (TICD) entered into an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement and began work on a Development Plan for the Islands. 

The Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island Development Project will create a new San Francisco neighborhood consisting of up to 8,000 new residential housing units, as well as new commercial and retail space. The Project will also feature new hotel accommodations and 300 acres of parks and public open space, including shoreline access and cultural uses. Transportation amenities being built for the project will enhance mobility on the Islands as well as link the Islands to San Francisco. These amenities will include new and upgraded streets and public byways; bicycle, transit, and pedestrian facilities; landside and waterside facilities for the existing Treasure Island Sailing Center; an expanded marina; and a new Ferry Terminal.

HOPE SF

HOPE SF is an anti-poverty initiative that works to revitalize San Francisco’s largest and most distressed public housing sites as mixed-income developments. The HOPE SF public housing sites are Hunters View, Alice Griffith, Potrero Terrace and Annex, and Sunnydale and Velasco. All of these projects are former San Francisco Housing Authority sites, now being converted to private management. The real estate and infrastructure component of HOPE SF requires the complete demolition and rebuilding of the four sites along with the creation of new streets, parks and open spaces, and community space that will physically reconnect these sites to their surrounding neighborhoods. These projects also replace and generate new affordable housing units, which is discussed in further detail in the Affordable Housing chapter. 

Planning Department-Neighborhood Development

The San Francisco Planning Department helps support an environmentally, culturally, equitably and economically livable city for all residents. As San Francisco’s economy continues to expand, the City has adopted specific Area Plans to channel new development and to provide a framework for adding housing and jobs that move San Francisco forward. These Plan Areas are Balboa Park, Eastern Neighborhoods, SoMa, Market Octavia, Rincon Hill, and Transit Center. New infrastructure projects planned in these areas include improvements to transportation networks, streetscape enhancements to create inviting pedestrian corridors, new open spaces, and other quality of life improvements.