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Supervisors hear marathon appeal of CPMC long-range plan; parties agree to two-week talks
Summary
After a day-long hearing on the California Pacific Medical Center long-range development plan EIR — focused on traffic, housing and the future of St. Luke’s Hospital — planning staff defended the document while opponents said key analyses were incomplete. CPMC offered two weeks of negotiations; board continued the appeal to July 31.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on July 24 held an extended hearing on an appeal of the Planning Commission’s certification of the final environmental impact report (EIR) for the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) long-range development plan (LRDP), a multi-campus proposal that would build a new Cathedral Hill campus while rebuilding other CPMC facilities and a smaller replacement hospital at St. Luke’s.
Appellants — a coalition led by neighborhood groups and labor and patient-advocacy organizations — asked the board to withhold certification, saying the EIR understates traffic and transit impacts, lacks a credible housing/job nexus study, fails to analyze a feasible “3A-plus” alternative (a larger St. Luke’s and smaller Cathedral Hill) and omits a focused emergency-vehicle delay study. Planning staff and CPMC attorneys pushed back, saying the EIR is detailed, uses conservative (worst-case) assumptions, and complies with CEQA.
Why it matters: CPMC’s LRDP is a multibillion-dollar, privately financed proposal that backers say will produce earthquake-safe hospitals, thousands of construction and permanent jobs and neighborhood improvements. Opponents say the current EIR and project description do not show that the plan will preserve emergency access or the long-term viability of St. Luke’s, and they want alternatives analyzed more fully before the council approves related development agreements.
What the hearing covered: Appellants’ experts said an unusual modeling choice — an adjustment to the “peak hour factor” used in traffic analysis — produced counterintuitive results (in some intersections the model predicts slightly less delay with project traffic). Appellants and several supervisors said the use of older 2006 Muni ridership data for baseline transit assumptions required correction; planning staff said they re-checked results with more recent data and the conclusions did not change. Appellants also pressed that alternative 3A (and variations) should have been analyzed at the same level of detail as the proposed LRDP.
Planning department: Planning staff described the EIR process as three years of technical work and public input. The department said it examined a reasonable range of alternatives, included conservative assumptions (for example, maximum employee counts and immediate occupancy), and performed follow-up analyses (including a sensitivity check using later transit counts) where commenters requested clarification.
CPMC and public testimony: CPMC representatives defended the EIR and emphasized the seismic-safety need for modernized hospitals. CPMC and many business, labor and neighborhood speakers urged supervisors to allow the project to move forward; health-care workers and neighborhood groups urged stronger commitments for a viable St. Luke’s and more robust housing and traffic mitigations. Dozens of residents, nurses, physicians and small-business owners testified in both support of and opposition to the project.
Board action: After hours of testimony, CPMC’s counsel offered to open a focused, two‑week negotiation period with the mayor’s office and the board. Supervisor Campos moved — and the board agreed without objection — to continue the appeal hearing two weeks to July 31 to permit additional negotiations and technical follow-up. The continuance does not certify the EIR; it postpones the board vote and preserves all parties’ rights.
What’s next: The appeal will be back on the Board of Supervisors agenda on July 31. The continuance creates a short window for CPMC, the mayor’s office, the planning department and community stakeholders to negotiate clarifying commitments, exchange requested technical information and consider whether supplemental analysis or agreement language can address the principal concerns raised in the hearing.
Ending: Supervisors stressed they remain committed both to ensuring earthquake-safe hospitals and to protecting access, community benefits and neighborhood livability — and said they will review any further material produced before they take a final vote.
