Building a Chinatown Campus
March 23, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO — After community meetings last fall, City College of San Francisco is drafting an environmental impact report on its proposed Chinatown campus. The initial concept of a 17-story campus, proposed at a parking lot on Kearny and Washington streets, has triggered a debate about the design and plans for the campus.
One group, led by attorney Douglas Chan, retired educator Albert Cheng and office supply retailer Clifford Waldeck support a campus, but are calling for an alternative to the 17-story building as has the Hilton Hotel Financial District.
Friends of Educational Opportunities in Chinatown support a campus. The group has questioned the neighboring Hilton Hotel Financial District’s motives, while demanding they “butt out” of the debate.
— AsianWeek Staff Report
Below, we present arguments on both sides of the issue.
Realizing the 30-Year Dream
City College of San Francisco has worked for over 30 years with the Chinatown Community to realize the dream of a permanent home for the Chinatown/NorthBeach campus. The voters of San Francisco have supported this dream with their overwhelming support of our 1997, 2001 and 2005 Local Bond initiatives. The state has also demonstrated its support by matching our local effort with state funding at the level of $48 million bringing the total commitment of the project to approximately $122 million.
With the commitment of the state in hand, we have finally been able to begin substantial planning for the project. We have come up with a very preliminary design, but most importantly have been engaging in a formal open Environmental Impact Review (EIR) analysis. We have hosted several public meetings at which time more than 300 people have provided ideas and suggestions on what the EIR study should consider. In early April, we will be hosting a brainstorming session with community leaders and will solicit their ideas on what the new campus design should look like in order to represent a good fit for the neighborhood.
We expect that the draft of the EIR will be completed by the end of April and will be widely distributed throughout the community. This will be followed by several public meetings that will generate further community input. After revisions are made to reflect this input, it is expected that the Board of Trustees will again host a series of public meetings culminating in final acceptance of the EIR. Construction is anticipated to begin in early to mid-2008.
A new consolidated campus will finally provide the community with a much-deserved, quality learning environment. The facility will offer adequate classrooms and lab spaces allowing the faculty, staff and students working in concert with the local community an opportunity to continue current programs, and expand and improve the program of offerings, including credit courses, job training programs and student support services. A college-owned facility means that we have freedom to schedule classes and programs that meet evolving community needs as well as adapt campus spaces to meet growing academic needs.
Throughout the last several years and most recently — months, we have tried to be open to any and all suggestions for the new campus. Finding a site for the campus has been a struggle, but we believe, as do many others, that the current site plan (Washington and Kearny) is perfect, very accessible to current and future students and will be a real asset to the neighborhood.
City College has pledged to do all it can to bring the plans for the campus to fruition, and in the process give the community the opportunity to have continuing input into all phases of its development. That is a promise that was made when we went to the voters and worked for their support. That is a promise that we will keep.
Dr. Philip R. Day, Jr. is chancellor and Joanne Low is dean of Chinatown/NorthBeach campus for City College of San Francisco.
Edifice Complex: The Case Against City College’s Skyscraper
The Chinese community in the Chinatown-North Beach area needs a new City College campus, but it does not deserve a massive office building, blotting out the sky over San Francisco’s most historic quarter.
City College administrators have proposed building a high-rise in low-rise Chinatown, the tallest academic building of any college on the West Coast. Supervisor Aaron Peskin recently referred to the so-called Chinatown campus as a “17-story, 238-foot glass monstrosity,” which will shadow Portsmouth Square, the city’s most intensely utilized park, and spoil what little park space exists in Chinatown.
Practically no ground-level open space is planned for the expected 6,000 students, and the vertical complex will only make Portsmouth Square more crowded.
The college administration and its cronies have attempted to link broad community support for City College’s ESL and other worthy programs for immigrants with support for this high-rise. But the community has been presented with a false choice. The core instructional needs of City College students and staff do not require an outrageous violation of the city’s Chinatown plan to accommodate this a monument to the egos of the college administration.
For years, I supported the longstanding call for a permanent community college campus. I joined other community leaders who understood the educational needs of the community and secured the first instructional center at Filbert and Jones streets over 30 years ago, and I later assisted City College with other key facilities.
Unfortunately, the proposed 238-foot skyscraper actually presents a threat to the dream of a permanent campus.
Its gross violation of San Francisco’s planning and zoning codes, which reserve the Chinatown business district for low-rise buildings and prohibit new buildings that shadow parks, will likely tie up approvals for the monster building in land-use limbo for years.
Additional community objections about the traffic/Muni impacts and the failure to create any onsite-parking for 7,000+ students and staff are inevitable.
This is not the first time the City College gang-who-couldn’t-shoot-straight has gone off half-cocked. Previous efforts to erect a campus by evicting Colombo Building tenants were derailed by renter activists and historic preservationists, while City College bureaucrats were also forced to backtrack in the face of opposition from Mission neighbors.
When City College goes “back to the drawing board,” as suggested by Supervisor Peskin, it should consider this modest game plan:
Consult with the community, students and faculty by holding a series of meetings on student needs and potential sites.
Evaluate building two low-rise facilities (i.e., a true “campus”) at this site and on a nearly adjacent parcel owned by the college.
Study adding satellite academic buildings in underserved neighborhoods including the Sunset and Richmond to augment a smaller Chinatown campus. Only 10 percent of students who attend the current Chinatown campus actually live in Chinatown.
Stop the obfuscation. This re-evaluation and dialogue needs to start today, rather than wastewasting more taxpayer money that could be better spent on improving education.
Ham-fisted planning and arrogance hashave a price. City College already faces $40 million in cost overruns to build this vanity project, more than $200 per square foot in construction costs over the cost of building luxury commercial high-rises.
No, the issue is not about the opposition of any one business. In fact, over 400 merchants, civic organizations, community leaders and neighbors have joined in questioning the high-rise plans and proposing more practical solutions. They include representatives of the Chinatown Merchants Association, North Beach Merchant Association, Chinatown Tenants Association, Chinese Historical Society, Chinese Culture Center, Chinatown Community Development Association, Telegraph Hill Dwellers and San Francisco Tomorrow.
We don’t need City College to hire lobbyists at taxpayers’ expense to circulate silly petitions. The college administration should back down from foisting this outrageous proposal on the community with its “take it or leave it” attitude. A permanent Chinatown campus is long overdue; City College’s attitude should get out of the way.
Doug Chan is an attorney and former police commissioner.
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