What's up with TI?

[jse]

Yesterday was a great day at TI. I got there late - around 4:30, right when the ebb started - and I got the last parking space available. I had to walk the length of 3 housing units to the boat launch area. I couldn't even see my car from where I rigged, in front of the unit directly off the launch. This is a good thing, I think. It was great to see so many sails on the water. Some of the locals were watching all the action from the rocks.

Now I'm wondering - when was the last time I saw a truck parked in the old parking area? I thought that was closed down because it was to be used as a staging area for the cleanup. I can't remember this year, or even last year seeing a truck parked there. So why don't we get it back????

I couldn't help wondering if the locals are getting tired of our invasion of their street every day. Sooner or later someone is going to complain and we're outta there.

I'm just a bit worried. Mac? Anyone?

Steve[/b]

[mac]

Steve, interesting question, and a 2-part answer. I must admit, I haven't launched at TI in 2 years, but I sail up there on Formula gear almost every day, so I can see what is going on.

In the short term (and I don't know how long that lasts), the Navy is still owner of the parking lot, and has no carrying costs. So they want to hold onto the parking lot because it might reduce their remediation costs. The City could try to lease the land, but wants the remediation done, so won't push. While the land is under Navy control and in clean-up mode, there is very little any State agency can do. When I ran down the law governing clean-up when this started, it says, in essence, they have to try to accommodate other interests such as recreation, but they don't have to try very hard. Congress gave clean-up the priority. Sigh.

The interim use picture is actually much better. Thanks to Peter Thorner's hard work and street credibility, we got the site designated for recreation in the BCDC Bay Plan, which means the City's plans must comply. Given the difficulty of bringing a project to construction in San Francisco, the City and the developer have negotiated with SFBA in good faith, and I think our relationship is pretty good. The current EIR doesn't include much detail about recreation--the focus and the difficulty of the housing market right now is driving their efforts. But the background design documents incorporate our understanding--a new upwind launch, and downwind retrieval at the current cove. It looks like sufficient parking, and if designed right, would be a suitable venue for a PWA professional slalom event. They seem to be interested in that possibility.

So the issue boils down to interim access. SFBA appreciates the City's effort, and support by the Navy, to finesse this. Currently we are not inteferred with, but not invited, to sail. The City was careful to make sure that they satisfied their attorney's concerns about liability, but also engaged us in a cooperative mode. It seems to have worked out pretty well. We will comment on the EIR that interim access will be important to us, since the build-out period is likely to be 15 years--after the housing market recovers enough to start construction. So we won't see improvements for quite a while. The Navy was coopertive in this accommodation.

Since design on the eventual public access matters, and the site is not user friendly for kiters, we will ask for a design process that gives us input. Stay tuned on that.

In essence, both windsurfers and residents are on borrowed time. But we have expectations of eventual access, and they don't have reasonable expectations of there being residential uses. Right now they are in Navy residential units that will be demolished. There is a settlement on the Public Trust lands that has the north side of the park in a 300 acre or so park. Residential uses are not allowed on Public Trust lands, and thus are only allowed as interim uses. The residents, all renters, are mad about that, and are commenting on the EIR that they should be given affordable units in the new development. I don't know that they are endearing themselves to the City with this line of reasoning, so I don't know that they can necessarily get us kicked out--as long as we behave nicely.

We will be discussing this at the SFBA Board meeting Thursday night the 2nd of September, so anyone interested can PM me and I'll give yout the details. We are always looking for more help!

Jim McGrath
VP, SFBA

[kipps]

Thanks Mac for the comprehensive reply. You answered just about every question i had.

I appreciate your being on top of the situation and your continued involvement!

[esteban]

Hey Mac,

was sailing out there yesterday and someone told me that there was radioactive material at that site which was one of the reasons it was still closed...any knowledge of that? What materials were the pollutants needing to be remediated?
Thanks

[mac]

The hazmat work for TI identifed a large number of contaminated spots, including landfills. One of the contaminants in at least one of the landfills was radium--which was used for Navy watches and instruments for illumination. Pretty low level, not much of a big deal. But not something you really want to wear on your wrist either.

[jse]

[kevinkan]

Yes, it is extremely important that we police ourselves. We occasionally get people who've never windsurfed at TI before, and they often don't know all the rules.

I'd also like to add to the list:

-don't park in the Visitor spots in front of occupied units.. even though we are technically visitors, we should reserve these for the tenants... i'm sure some of these tenants have more than one car and imagine if they came home from work and found all their parking spots filled up by windsurfers

-overflow parking can be found just north on Bayside Drive. (can anybody confirm this... I haven't been up there lately)