By Aldo Toledo : sfchronicle – excerpt
A plan to relocate 200 boat slips and expand a boat harbor in the Marina has been effectively scrapped after San Francisco supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to block the Recreation and Park Department from controlling the site.
The controversial plan, which would have relocated the harbor in front of Marina Green and obstructed views there, has been a hot topic among Marina residents, many of whom showed up en masse to protest against it.
Despite the intense public pushback, the Recreation and Park Commission voted unanimously to advance plans for the project in October with an amendment that staff must first conduct a study to determine how much the department can reduce the number of slips in the West Harbor while ensuring the project is still financially feasible. It did not adopt a final design…
The project plan approved by the Rec and Park Commission would have used the PG&E funds to clean up Gashouse Cove and expand the West Harbor. A report by the Budget and Legislative Analyst says that if the remediation project does not proceed as planned, operating revenue for the department would fall short of expenditures by more than $1 million per year, which would require a general fund subsidy.
Supervisor Ahsha Safaí pointed to the city’s successful effort to raise funds for the remediation of China Basin on the southern waterfront as an example of one way the city can preserve the Marina yacht harbors and do the environmental work that’s needed.
Supervisors now want Rec and Park to go back to the drawing board and preserve as much of the existing harbor as possible, arguing it’s a key part of the ecosystem of water sports in San Francisco, including swimming, sailing and rowing.
Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Connie Chan, along with Safaí, cosponsored legislation that would prohibit Rec and Park from using city funds to design, plan, review or implement a project that “would extend the eastern boundary of the West Harbor Marina by more than approximately 150 feet from its current location.”…(more)