OCII approves long-range property management plan, urges City to include community input

The Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure on Tuesday approved Resolution 53-2013, a long-range property management plan that sets out how successor-agency properties will be transferred, sold or retained under state redevelopment dissolution law. The commission added language urging the City and County of San Francisco to take community concerns into account and directed staff to develop a formal collaboration process to ensure public input before final disposition decisions.

The plan, presented by Tracy Reynolds, manager of OCII’s Real Estate and Development Services Division, groups properties into four disposition categories: transfer to the city for governmental purposes; transfer to satisfy enforceable obligations; sale at fair market value; and retention until development obligations are met. Reynolds told the commission the successor agency has distributed about $11,000,000 in unrestricted assets to taxing entities and is on a schedule to submit the plan to the State Department of Finance before the state deadline.

Public comment at the hearing focused on a handful of high-profile assets: Yerba Buena Gardens, park parcels in Mission Bay, Transbay site parcels and the Fillmore Heritage Center and its associated garage. Christine Harris, chair of the Jazz Heritage Center, asked the commission to preserve the Jazz Heritage Center and help it become self-sustaining. "Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater," Harris said, urging protections for the small cultural institution.

Several community speakers and neighborhood groups urged that proceeds from any sale be reinvested in the affected communities and that transfers not accelerate displacement. Organizers representing the Yerba Buena Alliance presented five principles they asked be reflected in the disposition and future governance of the gardens.

Commissioners debated whether the resolution itself was the right place to spell out community-engagement requirements. Ultimately the commission adopted a two-part approach: (1) include a resolved clause strongly urging the city to consider community concerns (specifically naming Yerba Buena, Fillmore and the Shipyard/Hunters Point as illustrative examples), and (2) direct staff to design a practical collaboration process that can be applied to future transfers.

The commission approved the amended resolution by roll call vote, 5-0. The plan will go next to the successor agency’s Oversight Board and then to the State Department of Finance for review under state dissolution procedures. The commission emphasized that the plan is a disposition framework and does not determine how the city will operate properties after transfer; those details would be subject to later city processes and, where appropriate, separate approvals.

What’s next: the Oversight Board will consider the plan and the commission’s recommendation; after that OCII will submit the plan to DOF and follow up on the staff directive to develop a consistent community-collaboration model for individual dispositions.