Critical Sharp Park Legislation Hearing!

On Monday, November 19, at 1:00 p.m. in San Francisco’s City Hall Room 250, the Board of Supervisors will vote to remove a plan to redevelop Sharp Park Golf Course from the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan, so that these two different projects with very different purposes can stand or fall on their own merits.

We need you to be there to support this resolution: attend the hearing and tell the supervisors to vote YES on the resolution!

Background.

Sharp Park is a wetland owned by San Francisco but located in San Mateo County. The City drains Sharp Park year-round so people can play golf on the land. The golf course loses money, harms two endangered species, and puts the surrounding community at risk when the course floods. The Wild Equity Institute is working to build a better public park at Sharp Park, a park that saves San Francisco money, protects the environment, sustainably adapts to sea level rise and climate change, and provides recreational opportunities that everyone can enjoy.

A restoration vision for Sharp Park.

The Promise.

In 2005, San Francisco submitted its Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan for environmental review. The Plan included some modest restoration activities at Sharp Park, but left the golf course in tact. At the time, Wild Equity staff and others requested that the City consider a more ambitious restoration opportunity: closing the golf course and creating a new National Park at Sharp Park. San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department responded in writing, stating ‘should changes to the Sharp Park Golf Course be proposed, they would undergo a separate regulatory review, including CEQA environmental review.’

A Promise Broken.

But in 2011, the Recreation and Park Department went back on its written word. It jammed a multi‐million dollar golf course redevelopment plan into a chapter of the environmental review document for the Natural Areas Program: a completely different project with completely different purposes. Adding injury to this insult, they refused to consider any restoration alternatives to its golf course redevelopment plan for Sharp Park, claiming that the golf course was an ‘historic landmark,’ even though the City’s own Historic Preservation Commission disagreed with this conclusion.

The Solution.

Now the Supervisors are considering a resolution that would undo this duplicitous act by the Recreation and Park Department: a resolution that orders the Department to separate out its plan to redevelop the golf course and put that plan through “a separate regulatory review, including CEQA environmental review,” as the Department promised the public from the start.

What You Can Do.

Please attend this critical hearing and tell the Supervisors to vote YES on the resolution. Meet us at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, at the Land Use Committee, Room 250, 1:00 pm. RSVP using the form above right away!

Talking Points.

• I support the resolution to segregate out the Sharp Park Golf Course redevelopment plan from the Natural Areas Program Management Plan Environmental Impact Report, and I ask the Supervisors to support this resolution too.
• The Recreation and Park Department must make good on its commitment to conduct separate reviews of these two different projects, and that is what this resolution makes the Department to do.
• The resolution orders the Department to stay true to its word by removing the Sharp Park Golf Course project from the Natural Areas Plan and allowing these two different projects to be considered by the public and policymakers through their own environmental review processes.
• The resolution was introduced in July of this year, and no comments in opposition have been submitted by the Department to date. Now is the time to finally put the Department back on track with these projects.
• The resolution does not change the status quo at Sharp Park Golf Course and does not plan for or modify any land activity at Sharp Park. This is a procedural resolution to ensure the Department make good on its word to the public and policymakers.
• This resolution does not attempt to control the future of Sharp Park Golf Course in any way, and therefore a vote supporting the resolution does not mean the Supervisor is taking a position on Sharp Park’s future.
• The resolution does not affect the City’s discretion to propose alternatives or select a preferred alternative for either project in any way.