What is Sharp Park?

Sharp Park is a parcel of land located in Pacifica, California, and owned and operated by the City of San Francisco. San Francisco was given the property many years ago by a wealthy benefactor, who required that San Francisco operate the land as a “public park, or a public playground.” Historically, Sharp Park was a vibrant wildlife haven filled with flood-dampening wetlands and a rare backbarrier lagoon. But San Francisco made an unfortunate decision to dredge and fill the area for fourteen months and build a golf course on the property: a decision which has had negative consequences for San Francisco, the communities around the golf course, and the environment ever since.
Why restore Sharp Park?

Sharp Park represents one of the last great restoration opportunities on California’s coast.

Sharp Park Golf Course is a failing enterprise: it loses money annually, it kills endangered species, and it exacerbates flooding risks faced by surrounding communities. The status quo simply cannot hold.

San Francisco faces two choices at Sharp Park. Some are demanding that San Francisco privatize course management, fire the existing unionized workforce, dump tens-of-millions of dollars in private investment into course improvements, and create an elite golf course charging approximately $120 per round. This gambit would fail: today’s economic climate won’t provide that level of investment; there aren’t enough golfers in the Sharp Park market to make the gambit work; and regulatory agencies like the Coastal Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Department of Fish and Game are unlikely to permit such a use.

A Restoration Vision for Sharp Park

A better choice is to restore Sharp Park in partnership with the adjacent landowner, the National Park Service, and convert it into a beautiful community-centered model for outdoor recreation, natural flood control, environmental education, sustainable land use, and endangered species recovery. Sharp Park’s restoration, complete with a visitor and education center, accessible recreation trails, a group campground, and other recreation facilities will help revitalize Pacifica’s Palmetto Avenue and make the land more accessible to the surrounding community. Combined with on-going recovery efforts at the adjacent Mori Point, Sharp Park restoration will ensure that future generations will get a chance to see Twain’s frog and the most beautiful serpent in North America. Restoration will also mitigate the increased flood risks caused by global warming.
Does the National Park Service want to acquire Sharp Park?

Yes, the National Park Service has stated as recently as July 21, 2010, that it wants to acquire Sharp Park: but it does not want to manage a golf course.

If the golf course is closed, the National Park Service will partner with San Francisco and other agencies to seek funding to develop a long term plan for the site that would include habitat restoration, trail-based recreation, a compatible park use for the club house, and account for predicted climate change and sea level rise. The National Park Service would identify and evaluate a range of alternatives in consultation with the public and stakeholder agencies, complete necessary environmental compliance documents and permits, and then pursue funding to begin implementation of the preferred alternative.
What came first at Sharp Park: the golf course or the endangered species?

Some have argued that Sharp Park’s golf course and sea wall are the reason that the San Francisco garter snake and the California red-legged frog exist at Sharp Park. They say this is so because the golf course and sea wall somehow prevent Laguna Salada from becoming too saline for these animals to survive. This argument is demonstrably false.

The United States Geologic Survey created a map of Sharp Park and the surrounding areas in 1869, before any significant man-made changes occurred at Sharp Park. This map shows that freshwater vegetation fringed Sharp Park’s Laguna Salada: these vegetation types are indicative of salinity levels low-enough for amphibians and reptiles to thrive.

This map is corroborated by early photos taken at Sharp Park. These photos show Laguna Salada as dump trucks were filling-in some of the wetlands on the property, but it also shows that cattails fringed the lagoon: vegetation that cannot survive in saline environments, indicating that the area was suitable habitat for amphibians and reptiles.

The first sea wall construction at Sharp Park began in 1941, just a few years after a winter storm flooded the golf course in 1938. But in the mid-1940’s the first biological surveys of Sharp Park found that the San Francisco garter snake was abundant on the property, but being killed by golfers. It would not be possible for the snake population to be abundant at Sharp Park so soon after sea wall construction: unless the population was already thriving there before the sea wall and golf course were built.
Do Sharp Park Golf Course operations harm endangered species?

It is abundantly clear that the existing configuration, operation, and maintenance of the golf course is harming both the endangered San Francisco garter snake and the threatened California red-legged frog, and has been doing so since the golf course was constructed.

The earliest biological surveys of Sharp Park occurred in the mid-1940s. Dr. Wade Fox found a dead San Francisco garter snake at that time, and in his field journal noted that the snake was “probably killed by golfers—they probably die frequently in this manner.” Subsequent surveys for the snake found a population decline in the 1970s and 1980s, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the San Francisco garter snake shown below was killed by a lawn mower at Sharp Park in 2005.

California red-legged frogs have been killed on a nearly annual basis at Sharp Park since at least 1992. Every year when the winter rains come, California red-legged frogs breed, lay eggs, and attach them to aquatic vegetation at Sharp Park. But when management drains these waters to eliminate flooding on the golf course, egg masses like the one shown below are exposed to the air, dry out, and an entire generation of frogs can be lost.
Can golf and endangered species coexist at Sharp Park?

The National Park Service has stated that proposals to retain an 18-hole golf course at Sharp Park relegate endangered species to the portions of the property most likely to be negatively impacted by climate change and sea level rise. To protect and recover endangered species on the property requires that we restore habitat above this inundation zone. Currently, those areas are entirely occupied by golf links.
Does Sharp Park Golf Course lose money?

Sharp Park has lost between $30,000 and $300,000 each year for the past seven fiscal years. San Francisco’s other golf courses suffer for it, because they must subsidize Sharp Park’s losses, robbing other courses of needed maintenance.

But that isn’t all it costs San Francisco to operate Sharp Park: Sharp Park also draws down the capital fund, the open space fund, and general fund. In 2007, the Recreation and Parks Department concluded that these expenses will not be offset by revenue from Sharp Park, collectively resulting in millions of dollars in losses by 2013.

Pacifica earns no direct revenue from Sharp Park at all, and none of the studies conducted to date have shown any indirect revenues from Sharp Park flowing to Pacifica’s city coffers or the surrounding communities.
Will significant new capital expenditures be required to keep Sharp Park Golf Course operating?

Yes. The status quo at Sharp Park cannot be maintained: the golf course loses too much money, it causes too much environmental damage, and it imposes too much risk on the surrounding communities each year when the golf course floods.

To fix these problems while retaining an 18-hole golf course on the property will require massive capital expenditures: money that San Francisco doesn’t have and shouldn’t spend to subsidize golf in San Mateo County when the City is cutting basic neighborhood and community services for the City’s disadvantaged communities.

At minimum, the following capital expenditures will be required to retain an 18-hole golf course at Sharp Park:
- $12-14 million in course improvements (PROS Consulting, 2008 Estimate)
- $32 million in sea wall repair and construction (Bob Batallio, Philip Williams & Associates Environmental Hydrology, 2009 Estimate)
- $4-8 million in environmental permitting costs (Average Costs for Habitat Conservation Planning Permits)
- $8.8 million in water supply construction (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, 2009 Estimate)
Could Sharp Park Golf Course earn money if it was managed differently?

No, Sharp Park Golf Course cannot earn money under different management regimes. The only management regime that holds any promise of profitability is to privatize the golf course, bust the labor union working at Sharp Park, invest tens-of-millions of dollars into course improvements, and charge $120 per round of golf and up to play the course. This business regime would fail: today’s economic climate won’t provide that level of investment; there aren’t enough golfers in the Sharp Park market to make the regime work; and regulatory agencies like the Coastal Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Department of Fish and Game wouldn’t permit this use.
Is Sharp Park Golf Course an historic site?

No, Sharp Park Golf Course is not an historic golf course. Allister MacKenzie, a well-known landscape architect, made his greatest design mistake at Sharp Park, a mistake that remains a pock-mark on his otherwise admirable resume.

In order to create enough dry land to build a golf course, Sharp Park was dredged and filled for fourteen months. However, even this act of hubris could not eliminate the naturally wet conditions at Sharp Park: the golf course’s ceremonial opening day was delayed twice because there was too much water on the course, and the golf course has suffered from flooding ever since.

MacKenzie’s original design has also been irreversibly destroyed by storms and poor course management: seven beach-side holes were destroyed by a massive coastal flood; another hole was destroyed when Highway 1 was constructed; and annual flooding combined with millions of dollars in deferred maintenance has destroyed what remained of MacKenzie’s signature design. In his book “Missing Links,” Golf historian Daniel Wexler therefore concluded that the MacKenzie design has “washed into oblivion” and “no appreciable trace of [MacKenzie’s] strategy remains in play.” If Sharp Park’s original design was restored today it would suffer the same fate, because rising sea levels and increased storm intensity caused by climate change would destroy the course design once more.

There are 26 golf courses on the national register of historic places. Not a one is a MacKenzie-designed course. The City of Sacramento recently redesigned its MacKenzie-designed course because MacKenzie’s original design didn’t meet the modern demands of today’s game. Perhaps some day a MacKenzie-designed course will become an historic landmark, but if that day comes, the course so designated most certainly will not be Sharp Park.
Don’t Pacificans want to keep the golf course?

Many Pacificans support restoring Sharp Park, and nearly all Pacificans oppose plans to turn Sharp Park into a privatized, elite golf course. However, some Pacificans who wish to develop the former Pacifica Quarry on the South side of Mori Point support retaining Sharp Park Golf Course. These pro-development Pacificans intend to use the Quarry’s proximity to the golf course to attract a developer, who can then market her development with a golf amenity. Pacificans have voted down this development project every time it has gone to the polls.

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