One of a series of articles on the history of the Balboa Reservoir.
As San Francisco city government currently works through the planning process for a housing project on the last remaining seventeen acres of the original Balboa Reservoir land, a review of the dramatic fate of the first housing plan for that land is in order…
This opposition to housing on the reservoir was largely fueled by support from advocates for City College’s future use of the land, who came from both inside and outside of the institution. The ballot referendums framed the issue as City College-versus-housing. In a show of support for the storied and esteemed college, the electorate picked the former; the City College coalition won. That victory ultimately led to an important result for the college’s future: in 1991 Mayor Art Agnos gave half of the reservoir property to the institution…
The empty basins
After evicting City College from the numerous WWII Navy-built structures on the 28-acre Balboa Reservoir site in December 1955–after ten years of college use–the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) demolished the buildings and had it excavated and paved as a two-basin reservoir in the late 1950s.[1]…(more)