Hunters Point workshop: developer reports $14.6M in community expenditures, community calls for clearer reporting

The Successor Agency held a workshop on Oct. 18 to review the first- and second-quarter 2016 community benefits report for the Hunters Point Shipyard Phase 1 and Candlestick Point Phase 2 projects. Developer representatives and OCII staff presented highlights of direct expenditures, workforce participation and community programs, and more than a dozen community members and nonprofit partners offered public comment calling for clearer, more comprehensive reporting and deeper outreach in Bayview Hunters Point.

LaShawn Walker, speaking for the developer, said direct expenditures from project inception through the end of Q2 2016 total roughly $14.6 million, including about $1.96 million in job-training expenditures and about $845,000 in contractor assistance. Walker described mentorship and protégé programs that mentors said had helped local firms win work and build bonding capacity, noted a mobilization loan fund seeded at $250,000 with $283,000 loaned to date, and described a community-ambassador program funded at about $1 million. She acknowledged areas staff flagged as partial compliance and said the developer has submitted an accelerated spending plan to cure a prior-year job-training shortfall the agency identified ($460,000 shortfall noted by staff).

OCII assistant project manager Kashika McKinney provided program context and compliance details: the combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects will include thousands of units, parks and commercial space; the agency reported overall SBE participation of 51.4% with 15.2% from Bayview Hunters Point SBEs and workforce participation of 39.3% with 23% of hours performed by Bayview Hunters Point residents. McKinney flagged partial-compliance items such as the developer’s failure to include contract language (yet) requiring contractors to purchase at least 20% of project-related supplies from Bayview Hunters Point area small businesses; she said the developer is working with staff and conducting a supplier-capacity assessment.

During public comment, community representatives and program partners described concrete benefits and remaining gaps. Speakers from Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, the Third Street Youth Center & Clinic, the Garden Project, local businesses and the Citizens Advisory Committee praised mentorship and training programs, gave participant counts (for example, Third Street Youth Clinic’s Health Corps program said it served 63 youth in the past year and placed many into college or training), and requested a consolidated, community-facing report that: (a) lists program dollars and recipients, (b) shows recipients’ geographic or Zip-code distribution, (c) explains plans to address identified shortfalls and (d) improves outreach (including door-to-door notification and Samoan translation for some mailings). The Citizens Advisory Committee chair said the staff report “falls far short” of what stakeholders know and asked the commission to convene a full workshop or summit in Bayview that includes the Implementation Committee and the San Francisco Foundation, which holds CCBA funds.

Commissioners praised community gains but repeatedly asked staff and developer to provide more granular expenditure and program-tracking data for the October update, to clarify responsibilities among stakeholders and to schedule a Bayview-based workshop. Staff and the developer said they have more detailed reports available for OCII staff and that they would provide additional information to commissioners and consider formatting changes to make the next quarterly update more comprehensive. OCII said the developer submitted a plan to accelerate job-training spending so the previously identified shortfall can be addressed by 2018.

Because item 5E was a workshop (not an action item), the commission did not vote on program compliance; commissioners instructed staff and the developer to follow up with the requested additional reporting and community engagement.