Saving Plants That Save Lives

From the perspective of seagulls, the front patch of green is a golf course, with Parkmerced just to the right.

Parkmerced was developed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. beginning in the 1940s to house returning veterans and the city’s blue-collar workers. The design intent embodied a suburban community esthetic, with wide streets and culs-de-sac for easy automobile navigation. Church designed interconnected courtyards and curving paths to give the place a park-like feel.

Today, Stellar Management of New York, co-owners of San Parkmerced with the Rockpoint Group, wants to add 5,700 homes to the 3,221 unit complex. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is the lead architecture firm. This conservatively estimated $1.2 billion project would be accomplished over 20 years. None of the new buildings would be higher than the existing 13-story buildings. This is an extremely ambitious plan, seeing that in 2003 a neighborhood group thwarted a plan to build only 300 apartments a few blocks north of Parkmerced. The tenants like the openness of the housing, which is not common elsewhere in the city.

The developer envisions taking the property off the power grid (employ wind turbines and other low-emission energy sources), cut water and vehicle usage, shuttle people to the rapid transit station (BART), offer pedestrian and bicycle paths, create parks, wetlands and even add an organic farm and retail units.
Sounds good, yes?

Aaron Goodman, a tenant, architect and vice president of the Parkmerced Residents’ Organization, told SFGate.com, “It’s a real disaster of a proposal.”
The Parkmerced plan is the city’s second-largest new residential project proposal. The largest is a plan for 8,500 to 10,000 units at Candlestick Point in southeast San Francisco. There is also a much talked about plan for 5,500 units for Treasure Island in S.F. Bay.

The Parkmerced plan is now before the San Francisco Planning Department. A multiple-year environmental impact review is likely.