By Calvin Welch, HANC Board

Since the HANC General Membership meeting on UCSF’s massive 2 million square foot expansion plan for its Parnassus campus, three community groups have filed separate law suits opposing the proposed project.  While all three cite the significant environmental impacts of the projects, each advances different concerns. In the name of full disclosure, HANC is the fiscal agent of one of the organization suing UCSF, San Franciscans for Balanced and Livable Communities (SFBLC) ,whose members include current HANC Board members Tes Welborn and the author of this article, as well as former Planning Commisoner Dennis Antenore .  The two other groups filing law suits are the Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition (PNC) made up of residents literally next door to the UCSF Parnassus campus and the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium (YBNC), a group from the South of Market.

The suits of SFBLC and YBNC are based upon the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  The PNC raises the additional question of the legality of the Regents ending the 1976 "permanent" space ceiling of 3.55 m/s/f  ("space cap") passed by the Regents. The author is also a named litigant along with the PNC in the action.

Massive Impact on Neighborhood

The SFBLC laswsuit centers on the huge regional hospital authorized by the Regents and its massive impacts on Golden Gate Park and Muni, and on the City’s inability to meet the housing demand of workers generated by the new facility. The YBNC suit takes aim at the EIR's failure to address legally required alternatives to the plan, namely locating the hospital in the medically underserved eastern portion of the City.  The PNC suit makes two points. First, it claims that the EIR fails to analyze toxics and other impacts of construction on the immediate neighborhood adjacent to the campus. It also argues that the 1976 Regents’ resolution creating a growth cap at the Parnassus campus was in fact  "permanent" and used by UCSF in court cases and policy statements over the years to justify its growth at Laurel Heights and later Mission Bay.  Moreover, the commitment to a permanent growth cap was relied upon by a community group to drop its CEQA lawsuit against the dental school expansion on the Parnassus campus in 1976.

As of this writing dates have yet to be set for trial on the lawsuits, all three of which were filed in Alameda County, the headquarters of the UC Regents.