SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco has stepped up efforts to put its best foot forward for APEC, including clearing homeless camps in neighborhoods surrounding the conference.

This activity has raised questions about where the homeless go and what is being done to get them the help they need.

Michael Hudson has been living near Market Street for several months. He says he just found out about the APEC conference.

ALSO READ: More stories from the APEC summit

“This is the third time they have kicked us out. And this time they didn’t allow us to put our tents back up,” Hudson said.

He said he lost many of his belongings during the last move.

“They threw everything in a big truck, took it and hauled it somewhere,” Hudson said. “They're supposed to keep it for us, and that's what was written on the paper they gave us. But when I asked, no one could find any of my things. They're just harassing us more and coming out and arresting people.”

ALSO READ: What you should know about APEC-related road closures and impacts on public transportation in San Francisco

The Coalition on Homelessness says more help should be available for unhoused people living in the APEC safe zone.

“We have been pushing for them to release more resources,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “What we've seen is that the main shelter that people can just walk up to and leave – on Dolores Street – doesn't allow people to sleep there. It only allows people who have been expelled from the APEC zone to sleep there.”

SFMTA APEC INFO: APEC Travel and Transit Information | Interactive map | Impact on Nob Hill | SoMa Impact

Friedenbach said her organization learned of the Dolores shelter plan on Wednesday.

“We would like to see the city add more beds and perhaps provide some hotel rooms or accommodations in a church. But we would increase capacity to offset the displacement that people are facing,” Friedenbach said.

KPIX reached out to the city for comment on these concerns and received an email that stated, in part, “The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing does not provide special housing for APEC.”

It was noted that some recently funded sites are already available, such as the Interfaith Winter Shelter. Around 300 additional beds will be available in three adult accommodations between November and December.

As for Hudson, he doesn't know where he'll sleep the rest of the week.

“I’ll drop my stuff off at the shelter down there, but I don’t sleep there,” he said. “It’s dirty and people cough on you everywhere.”

More from CBS News

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San Francisco Bay Area’s AC Transit orders an additional 20 fuel cell-electric buses from NFI’s New Flyer.

(TSX: NFI, OTC: NFYEF) NFI Group Inc. (“NFI” or the “Company”), a leading independent bus and coach manufacturer and a leader in electric mass mobility solutions, announced that the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District (“AC Transit”) has awarded NFI subsidiary New Flyer of America Inc. (“New Flyer”) an order for 20 zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell-electric 40-foot Xcelsior CHARGE H2 heavy-duty transit buses.

The purchase was made through California’s State Cooperative Procurement, which New Flyer was selected for as a top-scoring approved supplier in 2019.

Supported by Federal Transit Administration funds, the order follows AC Transit’s 2019 purchase of ten hydrogen fuel cell-electric and five battery-electric buses from NFI, and demonstrably advances AC Transit’s Clean Corridors Plan (a commitment to operate a 25% zero-emission fleet by 2023) and ultimately its implementation of the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) Innovative Clean Transit Regulation that requires all California agencies to transition to zero-emission bus fleets by 2040.

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Based in Oakland, AC Transit is one of the largest bus-only systems in America, serving Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the San Francisco Bay Area’s East Bay, delivering over 52 million rides annually.

Paul Soubry, President and Chief Executive Officer, NFI.

Since 1980, NFI has delivered over 740 buses to AC Transit, and we are pleased to continue expanding zero-emission mobility in the greater San Francisco Bay Area through this follow-on order.

“AC Transit is an innovative leader focused on delivering the best in urban mobility for its riders, and we look forward to supporting AC Transit on its continued journey to a fully zero-emission fleet.”

Chris Stoddart, President, New Flyer and MCI.

With more Xcelsior CHARGE H2 fuel cell buses in its fleet, AC Transit can count on proven range performance, cleaner transportation, reduced noise pollution, and elimination of greenhouse gases – with buses that produce only clean water vapor from the tailpipe.

NFI is a leader in zero-emission mobility, with electric vehicles operating (or on order) in more than 80 cities in four countries. NFI offers the widest range of zero-emission battery and fuel cell electric buses and coaches, and the Company’s vehicles have completed over 40 million EV service miles.

NFI supports growing North American cities with scalable, clean, and sustainable mobility solutions through a four-pillar approach that includes buses and coaches, technology, infrastructure, and workforce development. It also operates the VIC, the first and only innovation lab of its kind dedicated to advancing bus and coach technology and providing workforce development.

Since opening late 2017, the VIC has hosted over 300 interactive events, welcoming 3,000 industry professionals for EV and infrastructure training.

San Francisco Bay Area’s AC Transit orders an additional 20 fuel cell-electric buses from NFI’s New Flyer, WINNIPEG, Manitoba, June 14, 2021

The post San Francisco Bay Space’s AC Transit Orders an Extra 20 gasoline Cell-Electrical Buses from NFI’s New Flyer appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The drought has Californians feeling the pressure to conserve water, but some century-old pipes may be thwarting these efforts. The government’s bank account is also running dry trying to fix it.

Leaking water pipes lose an estimated ten percent of the bay’s potable water every year.

Many of the system’s pipes have aged well beyond their expected retirement, causing an average of three breaks every day in the entire Bay Area and tens of millions of gallons of water lost. Local water companies have beefed up their proactive replacement efforts, but with 5000 thousand miles of pipes from the north bay to San Jose, it’s tough to keep up.

Old City, Old Pipes

San Francisco has many historical buildings- and that means historical pipes. Out of the 1,200 miles of pipe running under its streets, about 20 percent of that is over a century old.

JB Alegiani’s 120-year-old San Francisco house had a leak earlier this month from the water main that dates back to 1883. He didn’t have full water pressure for several days while crews fixed it.

“Here in San Francisco, we definitely have an aging infrastructure,” Alegiani said. “And now that we have a drought and it’s the new normal, we’re going to have to really change our policies as to how we look at water.”

According to the city’s public utilities company (PUC), leaks like that at Alegiani’s house cause the loss of 3 to 8 million gallons of San Francisco water every day. That’s a rate of 4 to 8 percent of the 70 million gallons of water San Franciscans use each day.

NBC Bay Area followed a repair crew for a day as they fixed leak after leak.

At one point, crews dug out a broken cast-iron water main first installed in 1863- pipe first put in the ground during the Civil War.

“Some of those pipes are in pretty good shape, but a lot of them are brittle,” said Katie Miller, who oversees water distribution at San Francisco PUC.

Miller says the PUC replaces 15 miles of pipes each year at a cost of $40 million. Miller says this rate will have to get more aggressive soon.

“If we don’t invest, it will cost us a lot more in the long run,” Miller said. “Even though we have 100 to 120 breaks a year, it’s far lower than a lot of other cities.”

Gallery: Historical Bay Area Pipes Still in Use

Materials Matter

Across the bay, East Bay Municipal Utilities District oversees the delivery of water to 1.3 million customers in 28 different cities. The system has 4,200 miles of pipe, more than three times the amount in San Francisco. Last year alone, East Bay MUD had 800 breaks.

“One of our goals is to keep that leak rate stable,” Xavier Irias, Director of Engineering and Construction, told the Investigative Unit. “With an aging population of pipe, that means we really need to keep on the pipeline replacement.”

The pipes are made with different materials, depending when they were installed.

According to Irias, the oldest pipes in the system are made of cast-iron and were installed in the 1800s. Now, some 150 years later, they cause the most leaks of any type in East Bay MUD’s system.

“Half of the leaks are cast-iron even though it is only about one third of the total population of pipes. That’s partly just because it’s older. It’s prone to corrosion,” Irias said.

However, the newer pipes have problems too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the East Bay switched to asbestos cement.

Getty Images

“The cast-iron, while it may be breaking, it’s older, but the [asbestos cement] doesn’t seem to last nearly as long as cast-iron,” Irias told the Investigative Unit. “We do anticipate those leak rates are going to go up with time and actually that’s what we’ve seen in the last few years as we started taking a really close look at [asbestos cement].”

San Jose’s pipe system is younger but still prone to leaks. The area’s largest provider, San Jose Water Company, had 182 breaks last year. On average, the broken pipes were 55-years-old.

New Technology

East Bay MUD has a team of six leak investigators whose only job is to proactively uncover leaks using new technology. The teams use sound-sensitive machines to precisely detect where unseen leaks start underground in order to replace them sooner and minimize water loss.

Irias says the drought seems to be causing even more leaks that can be hard to detect. He says a drought can cause the earth to contract and that can cause abnormal stress on the water delivery pipes.

“As that soil dries, it shrinks. So if there was a pipe, that maybe without the drought, would have failed in the next couple of years, the drought just gives it that extra nudge and it breaks early,” he said.

The sound-sensitive technology can help discover those leaks deep underground.

East Bay MUD currently replaces about 10 miles of pipe per year, up from seven miles per year several years ago. But officials admit they need to start replacing 40 miles per year just to keep up. It costs about $2.4 million a mile to replace water deliver pipes.

Replace Sooner, Pay Less Later

Post-doctorate researchers at UC Berkeley’s Water Resource Center, Jennifer Stokes and Tommy Hendrickson, have been looking for ways to make water systems more energy efficient.

They found that cities can save more money in the long run if they spend on pipe replacement sooner.

“If you were able to maintain lower leak rates, it was going to be more cost effective to dramatically increase your pipe replacement rate than to keep up with these 100-200 a year replacement levels we see across California,” Dr. Hendrickson said. “Eventually somebody is going to have it pay for it.”

“Some of these infrastructure systems are massive,” said Dr. Jennifer Stokes. “It takes a long time to put them in place, and if we go into it without a lot of planning we could find ourselves in a really tough situation in 10 or 20 or 30 years.”

Increasing the replacement rates in cities across the country could cost as much as a trillion dollars in taxes and higher water rates.

“If we don’t start that investment process now we could be in big trouble,” said Dr. Hendrickson.

California congressman, Jared Huffman, is proposing legislation this year to force congress to spend more money on this problem now.

“We’re going to have to try to get to get ahead of this,” said Congressman Huffman, who represents Marin County and serves on the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “If we don’t update and modernize that infrastructure, we’re going to see massive failures.”

The post Bay Space’s 150-Yr-Outdated Water Pipe Drawback – NBC Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The drought has Californians feeling the pressure to conserve water, but some century-old pipes may be thwarting these efforts. The government’s bank account is also running dry trying to fix it.

Leaking water pipes lose an estimated ten percent of the bay’s potable water every year.

Many of the system’s pipes have aged well beyond their expected retirement, causing an average of three breaks every day in the entire Bay Area and tens of millions of gallons of water lost. Local water companies have beefed up their proactive replacement efforts, but with 5000 thousand miles of pipes from the north bay to San Jose, it’s tough to keep up.

Old City, Old Pipes

San Francisco has many historical buildings- and that means historical pipes. Out of the 1,200 miles of pipe running under its streets, about 20 percent of that is over a century old.

JB Alegiani’s 120-year-old San Francisco house had a leak earlier this month from the water main that dates back to 1883. He didn’t have full water pressure for several days while crews fixed it.

“Here in San Francisco, we definitely have an aging infrastructure,” Alegiani said. “And now that we have a drought and it’s the new normal, we’re going to have to really change our policies as to how we look at water.”

According to the city’s public utilities company (PUC), leaks like that at Alegiani’s house cause the loss of 3 to 8 million gallons of San Francisco water every day. That’s a rate of 4 to 8 percent of the 70 million gallons of water San Franciscans use each day.

NBC Bay Area followed a repair crew for a day as they fixed leak after leak.

At one point, crews dug out a broken cast-iron water main first installed in 1863- pipe first put in the ground during the Civil War.

“Some of those pipes are in pretty good shape, but a lot of them are brittle,” said Katie Miller, who oversees water distribution at San Francisco PUC.

Miller says the PUC replaces 15 miles of pipes each year at a cost of $40 million. Miller says this rate will have to get more aggressive soon.

“If we don’t invest, it will cost us a lot more in the long run,” Miller said. “Even though we have 100 to 120 breaks a year, it’s far lower than a lot of other cities.”

SFMTA Photo Archive | sfmta.com/photo

Market Street between 1st & Sansome streets after earthquake. Trench work.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

San Bruno Avenue streetcar, Dwight Street to 5th and Market via Bryant Street and San Bruno Avenue. Board of Public Works

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Dwight Street to 5th and Market via Bryant Street and San Bruno Avenue. Board of Public Works

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Earthquake damage to street. Marina district. Water Department crew working to repair water main damage.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Crew working to repair water main damage after an earthquake.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Yerba Buena Island: Installation of two 12″ pipe connections. One pipe belongs to SFWD. Second pipe belongs to East Bay Mud. 09/16/2010.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Water seller in San Francisco, 1855.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

After the Earthquake and Fire, City Distribution Division. Howard & 6th Streets. 5/18/1906.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

After the Earthquake and Fire, City Distribution Division, City Pipe System. 26th Street & Sanchez Street. 6/6/1906

Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

After the Earthquake and Fire. City Pipe System. Valencia Street between 18th and 19th streets.

Materials Matter

Across the bay, East Bay Municipal Utilities District oversees the delivery of water to 1.3 million customers in 28 different cities. The system has 4,200 miles of pipe, more than three times the amount in San Francisco. Last year alone, East Bay MUD had 800 breaks.

“One of our goals is to keep that leak rate stable,” Xavier Irias, Director of Engineering and Construction, told the Investigative Unit. “With an aging population of pipe, that means we really need to keep on the pipeline replacement.”

The pipes are made with different materials, depending when they were installed.

According to Irias, the oldest pipes in the system are made of cast-iron and were installed in the 1800s. Now, some 150 years later, they cause the most leaks of any type in East Bay MUD’s system.

“Half of the leaks are cast-iron even though it is only about one third of the total population of pipes. That’s partly just because it’s older. It’s prone to corrosion,” Irias said.

However, the newer pipes have problems too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the East Bay switched to asbestos cement.

“The cast-iron, while it may be breaking, it’s older, but the [asbestos cement] doesn’t seem to last nearly as long as cast-iron,” Irias told the Investigative Unit. “We do anticipate those leak rates are going to go up with time and actually that’s what we’ve seen in the last few years as we started taking a really close look at [asbestos cement].”

San Jose’s pipe system is younger but still prone to leaks. The area’s largest provider, San Jose Water Company, had 182 breaks last year. On average, the broken pipes were 55-years-old.

New Technology

East Bay MUD has a team of six leak investigators whose only job is to proactively uncover leaks using new technology. The teams use sound-sensitive machines to precisely detect where unseen leaks start underground in order to replace them sooner and minimize water loss.

Irias says the drought seems to be causing even more leaks that can be hard to detect. He says a drought can cause the earth to contract and that can cause abnormal stress on the water delivery pipes.

“As that soil dries, it shrinks. So if there was a pipe, that maybe without the drought, would have failed in the next couple of years, the drought just gives it that extra nudge and it breaks early,” he said.

The sound-sensitive technology can help discover those leaks deep underground.

East Bay MUD currently replaces about 10 miles of pipe per year, up from seven miles per year several years ago. But officials admit they need to start replacing 40 miles per year just to keep up. It costs about $2.4 million a mile to replace water deliver pipes.

Replace Sooner, Pay Less Later

Post-doctorate researchers at UC Berkeley’s Water Resource Center, Jennifer Stokes and Tommy Hendrickson, have been looking for ways to make water systems more energy efficient.

They found that cities can save more money in the long run if they spend on pipe replacement sooner.

“If you were able to maintain lower leak rates, it was going to be more cost effective to dramatically increase your pipe replacement rate than to keep up with these 100-200 a year replacement levels we see across California,” Dr. Hendrickson said. “Eventually somebody is going to have it pay for it.”

“Some of these infrastructure systems are massive,” said Dr. Jennifer Stokes. “It takes a long time to put them in place, and if we go into it without a lot of planning we could find ourselves in a really tough situation in 10 or 20 or 30 years.”

Increasing the replacement rates in cities across the country could cost as much as a trillion dollars in taxes and higher water rates.

“If we don’t start that investment process now we could be in big trouble,” said Dr. Hendrickson.

California congressman, Jared Huffman, is proposing legislation this year to force congress to spend more money on this problem now.

“We’re going to have to try to get to get ahead of this,” said Congressman Huffman, who represents Marin County and serves on the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “If we don’t update and modernize that infrastructure, we’re going to see massive failures.”

The post Bay Space’s 150-12 months-Outdated Water Pipe Drawback – NBC Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Some of the most high-profile urban areas in the U.S. gained population on Tuesday. But it’s not because of a sudden flood of moving trucks into Atlanta, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Rather, the U.S. Census Bureau corrected errors made in the population and housing counts of urban areas that were officially released in December, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.

The Atlanta urban area had its population adjusted to 5.1 million residents from 4.9 million residents. An additional 100,853 residents living in more than 37,000 homes had been mistakenly assigned to the Gainesville, Georgia, urban area.

The population of the New Orleans urban area grew to 963,212 residents from 914,531. The additional 48,681 residents had been mistakenly assigned to the Laplace-Lutcher-Gramercy, Louisiana, urban area, which was supposed to be deleted following a merger with the New Orleans urban area.

The San Francisco-Oakland urban area’s population was corrected to 3.5 million residents from 3.2 million. The addition of nearly a quarter million residents, as well as more than 100,000 homes, came from the San Rafael-Novato, California, urban area, which had been counted separately by accident when it actually should have been deleted and merged with the San Francisco-Oakland urban area.

After every once-a-decade census, the Census Bureau publishes a list of urban areas and their population and housing counts. The most recent one was released in December.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

The post Atlanta, New Orleans, San Francisco areas achieve individuals after correction of errors appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco has been stepping up efforts to put its best face forward for APEC, including the clearing out of homeless encampments in the neighborhoods surrounding the conference.

That activity has raised questions about where the unhoused are going and what’s being done to get them the help they need.

Michael Hudson has been living near Market Street for the past few months. He says he just found out about the APEC conference.

ALSO READ: More stories on the APEC Summit

“This the third time they kicked us out. And this time they wouldn’t let us put our tents back up,” said Hudson.

He said in the process of the latest move, he lost many of his belongings.

“They threw it all on a big a– box truck then they took it and hauled it off somewhere,” said Hudson. “They are supposed to keep it for us, and it said it on the paper they gave us. But when I asked about it, no one could find any of my stuff. All they doing is harassing us more often and coming out, arresting people.”

ALSO READ: What to know about APEC-related San Francisco street closures and transit impacts

The Coalition on Homelessness says more assistance should be available for unhoused individuals living in the security zone for APEC. 

“We been pushing to have them open up more resources,” said Executive Director Coalition on Homelessness Jennifer Friedenbach. “What we have seen is that the main shelter that people can just walk up and go — at Dolores Street — they are not letting people sleep there. They are only letting folks referred out of the APEC zone to sleep there.”

SFMTA APEC INFO: APEC Travel and Transit Info | Interactive Map | Nob Hill Impacts | SoMa Impacts

Friedenbach said her organization got word about the Dolores shelter plan on Wednesday. 

“We would like to see the city add some more beds and maybe give some hotel rooms or shelter in a church. But add capacity to offset the displacement folks are facing,” said Friedenbach.

KPIX reached out the city for comment about these concerns and received an email that said in part, “The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is not opening any special shelter capacity for APEC.” 

It noted it does already have some recently funded locations available, such as the Interfaith Winter Shelter. Some 300 additional beds should be available between November and December at three adult shelters. 

 As for Hudson, he’s not sure where he will sleep the rest of the week. 

“I’ll drop my stuff at the shelter down there, but I ain’t sleeping there,” he said. “It’s dirty and people be coughing all over you.”

More from CBS News

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Fish and Wildlife Closes Nearshore Groundfish Fishery in Mendocino, San Francisco and Central Management Areas

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced that as of 12:01 a.m. Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, the 50-fathom Rockfish Conservation Area (RCA) boundary line for the Mendocino Groundfish Management Area (GMA) (Cape Mendocino to Point Arena), San Francisco GMA (Point Arena to Pigeon Point) and Central GMA (Pigeon Point to Point Conception), will take effect.

In these GMAs, recreational boat-based groundfish fishing will be ‘offshore only’ and allowed only seaward (away from land) of the 50-fathom boundary line, defined by straight lines connecting waypoints (50 CFR Part 660, Subpart G). Shelf rockfish, slope rockfish and lingcod may be taken seaward of the 50-fathom boundary line, while it will be unlawful to take or possess nearshore rockfish as defined in Title 14, Section 1.91(a)(1), cabezon or greenlings at any depth. In the Southern GMA from Pt. Conception to the U.S.-Mexico border, these same ‘offshore only’ rules will take effect as originally planned on Sept. 16.

During the ‘offshore only’ fishery, fishing gear shall not be deployed shoreward of the 50-fathom RCA boundary line when shelf rockfish, slope rockfish or lingcod are possessed onboard the vessel, however vessels may transit shoreward of the 50-fathom RCA boundary line with these species in possession if no gear is deployed. Additionally, vessels fishing in the adjacent Southern GMA and transiting back to the Central GMA must adhere to the ‘offshore only’ provisions effective in the Central GMA and shall not return with nearshore species aboard. These changes do not apply to shore-based anglers or divers.

CDFW is carefully monitoring the harvest of quillback rockfish from both the recreational and commercial fisheries throughout the state and has taken a series of steps in an effort to reduce quillback rockfish mortality. On Aug. 7, retention of quillback rockfish was prohibited statewide, followed by closure of the recreational nearshore fishery in the Northern GMA, on Aug. 21. Newly available recreational data from the Mendocino, San Francisco and Central GMAs for the second week of August showed double the estimated recreational take and indicated the 2023 quillback rockfish harvest limit specified in federal regulations has been exceeded. This additional in-season action authorized by Title 14, Section 27.20 (e) to adjust the fishing depth is necessary to prevent further overage.

CDFW urges anglers to use best fishing practices to reduce impacts to quillback rockfish and other prohibited groundfish species. These include reducing mortality when releasing fish by utilizing a descending device (PDF) and relocating to different fishing grounds or switching targets if quillback rockfish or other prohibited species are encountered. CDFW recommends reviewing the Summary of Recreational Groundfish Fishing Regulations page before each trip to ensure anglers are up to date on the most recent groundfish regulations, including a complete list of authorized species.

For details regarding the quillback population estimates and how these changes were developed, please see CDFW’s Quillback Rockfish In-Season Informational Briefing (PDF). For information on all groundfish regulations visit CDFW’s Marine Region Groundfish page.

Pursuant to California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 27.20(e), when federal harvest limits are exceeded or projected to be exceeded, CDFW has authority to make in-season changes, including adjustments to bag and sub-bag limits, seasons and depths.

###

Media contacts:
James Phillips, CDFW Marine Region, (707) 576-2893
Jordan Traverso, CDFW Communications, (916) 212-7352

The post CDFW Information | Fish and Wildlife Closes Nearshore Groundfish Fishery in Mendocino, San Francisco and Central Administration Areas appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

By VERONICA ROCHA,
DIRECTOR , ARCH + BEAM and JEANNIE
KIM, ASSOCIATE, SHEPPARD
MULLIN

Headlines decrying San Francisco’s recovery
as among the worst in the nation aren’t hard to find. Retail
and hotels being abandoned.A landmark office building sold at
74% of its early 2020 valuation. CRE defaults and impending
maturity dates raising alarm. Regional bank failures lead to
reverberations. The list goes on with local, national, and
even international media focused on the city as an apparent canary
in the coal mine, providing insights into a range of issues
challenging multiple major metropolitan areas around the country in
the aftermath of the global pandemic and in the face of what some
have deemed a “slowcession.”

Current National Trends in Commercial Real Estate

While the media may predict doom and gloom for commercial and
financial districts that once generated not just profits but
vibrant environments for San Francisco and other major metropolitan
cities, economists have different views. Many believe that between
the strength of the American dollar, consumer spending patterns, a
growing labor market, and an uptick in hiring, the U.S. economy
remains quite resilient. In fact, the U.S. economy grew by 2%
during the first quarter of 2023. Though some might argue this
reflects a sluggish economy, the figure indicates that the U.S. has
avoided a recession through the start of 2023. By the summer, the
Federal Reserve has temporarily paused its aggressive series of
interest rate hikes, but the national and global economies are not
yet in the clear. In reality, domestic inflation, which is
decreasing slowly, must be further tamed.

Turning to national CRE trends, of the five major CRE asset
types, industrial real property demand remained strong throughout
the pandemic, with vacancy rates topping at about 6%. Similarly,
demand for multifamily CRE has been high, with vacancies as low as
4%. But the market for office buildings has been struggling in the
wake of the pandemic and continues to be clouded by uncertainty
regarding longer-term utility and tenant demand with almost $1.4
trillion of commercial office mortgages set to mature in 2023 and
2024.

San Francisco & the Greater Bay Area

In the years leading up to the pandemic, the San Francisco Bay
Area boasted one of the strongest economies in the world. With a
pre-pandemic city population peak of 883,600 residents, housing
prices that surpassed much of the world’s major metropolitan
regions, thriving labor markets, and substantial economic activity,
the Bay Area certainly made its mark. Since the pandemic, though,
many are commenting on the Bay Area’s recovery as it goes
through a normal period of course correction, even as other
national and global economies are performing similarly after an
unprecedented disruption to a historically long period of growth
and expansion. As remote work and reduced business travel have
become the norm, everyone from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to
small business owners who once relied on the bustling foot traffic
in business and financial districts is trying to adapt.

With office work responsible for 72% of San Francisco’s
gross domestic product,1the elimination of more than
650,000 jobs since 2020 has had a profound impact on the regional
office market. By January 2023, the region had recovered these job
losses and briefly exceeded pre-pandemic levels, only to experience
layoffs in the tech sector that lowered the employment levels to
0.3% below pre-pandemic levels. Even with the tech sector layoffs,
which many deem an inevitable correction from rapid, pre-pandemic
growth, job growth in so-called knowledge industries (including
R&D, technology, and legal, among others) remained positive at
a 2.8% growth rate. Service, leisure, and hospitality sectors have
been slower to recover notwithstanding demand for workers.

Earlier this spring, San Francisco Mayor London Breed
and City Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced legislation aimed at
addressing underutilized office space and the lack of affordable
housing options by allowing commercially zoned properties to apply
for conversion to residential or mixed-use projects.

Additionally, unlike other major metropolitan areas in the U.S.,
46% of San Francisco residents worked from home or remotely in
2021, compared to only 21% of Californians and 18% of American
office workers. These numbers indicate that due to the high levels
of remote-eligible jobs and industries that call the Bay Area home,
fully remote and hybrid environments are not likely to go away
soon, making the region more susceptible to the longer-lasting
effects of remote work. This is reflected in the continuing
decrease in demand for commercial office space in the region
despite gains in job growth. Major metropolitan cities and regions
around the country are not immune to the ongoing struggles of
office CRE, but the epidemic has been highlighted in the San
Francisco office market, which hit a new high vacancy rate of 31.6%
in the second quarter of 2023.2

But don’t let the headlines and statistics fool
you—the greater Bay Area still has plenty to offer. The tech,
biotech, and biopharma sectors in the region are continuing to
achieve unparalleled milestones in innovation, notwithstanding
funding and profitability challenges in the current economic
environment. In Silicon Valley, key tech giants are at the
forefront of disruptive artificial-intelligence research and
development. About 50 miles away from San Francisco’s failed
Westfield mall, Westfield’s Valley Fair mall (in the heart of
Silicon Valley) is thriving, having recently completed a massive
expansion by any measure—square footage, roster of retail,
restaurant and food offerings, and non-shopping, “experiential
retail” attractions. Similarly, the East Bay remains focused
on efforts to strengthen its position as a manufacturing hub for
biosciences, clean tech, goods movements, and machinery as higher
education institutions like the University of California, Berkeley
in the East Bay and Stanford University in Silicon Valley serve as
incubators of innovation. Moreover, enough sectors that call the
Bay Area home require employees to work on-site—in labs
conducting research and clinical trials, building prototypes, or
creating hardware. For these reasons and more, experts are not yet
ready to give up on San Francisco or the surrounding Bay Area.

If San Francisco can adapt quickly and reshape its downtown
office landscape, which currently is facing a vacancy rate of
approximately 30%, the city may be able to save
itself.3Local leaders must now reverse the effects of
the decline in retail, hospitality, and small business patronage,
which is contributing to losses in business tax revenue.

Distressed CRE: Opportunities & Challenges

One potential solution involves partnerships between the public
and private sectors to generate creative and viable solutions to
adapt and reuse distressed commercial real estate assets. With
public support from local governments and planning commissions,
developers around the country have successfully converted
commercial properties such as vacant skyscrapers into multifamily
towers, big-box retail stores and vacant department stores into
co-living spaces or fulfillment centers for online retailers, and
warehouses and old factories into corporate headquarters and data
centers.4These adaptive reuse projects each have unique
opportunities and challenges, such as parking ratio requirements,
noncompete language in existing leases, physical and technological
challenges, plumbing capacity or air hygiene issues, zoning
restrictions, and financing. But adaptive reuse is becoming a more
attractive option because cultural shifts such as long-term remote
and hybrid work environments and consumer spending habits could
lead to reductions in demand for office space ranging from 10%-20%
and retail space ranging from 15%-17%.5

With past success in adaptive reuse of commercial property, San
Francisco is jumping on the adaptive reuse trend. Earlier this
spring, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and City Supervisor Aaron
Peskin introduced legislation aimed at addressing underutilized
office space and the lack of affordable housing options by allowing
commercially zoned properties to apply for conversion to
residential or mixed-use projects. Under the proposed program, the
city intends to amend its planning code to support existing
businesses and attract new ones to the targeted downtown
neighborhoods, and to direct the San Francisco Building Official
and Fire Code Official to prepare alternative standards to address
technical infeasibilities and design challenges associated with
converting existing commercial buildings to residential use.

Implementation of adaptive reuse projects in the Bay Area will
surely prove to be challenging. Construction costs in the region
remain exorbitantly high, and the demand for the types of adaptive
reuse projects that have proved successful or promising in other
areas of the country, including hospitality and retail, remains
depressed. However, demand for housing, especially more affordable
housing options, remains high in San Francisco. The mere fact that
local leaders are willing to remove the barriers to conversion in
an effort to address the economic and cultural challenges
inhibiting post-pandemic recovery efforts for the city’s
downtown and financial districts is an encouraging step. As new
types of technology emerge, the San Francisco Bay Area must be sure
not to miss the coming opportunities to show the world it can and
will continue to support and attract the next generation of
innovators and inventors, investors, and communities to impart
positive change in the world.

Originally published in Gordon Brothers

Footnotes

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.

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The Petaluma fixer-upper bought by one of the wealthiest men in the Bay Area doesn’t really need fixing up, some of his new neighbors say.

Not if it means letting 80 dump trucks haul away 10,000 cubic feet of dirt for the next year or so to allow the home to double in size and to enable construction of a 4,200-square-foot underground garage and basement, two large walk-in closets and a dining room that can seat 25 guests.

The historic 115-year-old house on Sixth Street, just south of downtown, was bought four years ago by Peter Haas Jr., an heir to the Levi Strauss pants empire, and his wife, Ginnie. Nipping and tucking may run in the family genes, but the alterations to the property have got some of his neighbors feeling bluer than a pair of the family’s iconic trousers.

“We worked hard to come up with a plan to bring a historic house back to its glory,” Haas said. “We want to live in it for the rest of our lives. Petaluma is such a vibrant, thriving community.”

“This project proposes a complete transformation of the original structure to suit the extravagant desires of its new owners,” said Elsa Beatty of Preserve Petaluma, a group opposing the plan.

More from Steve Rubenstein

Posters and flyers proclaiming “Stop the Big Dig” are popping up all over town, in advance of a Dec. 21 meeting of the City Council. There the plan — already approved by planners and the city’s historical preservation committee — faces a final vote.

A peek at the blueprints filed with the city shows the ambitious changes Haas has in mind for the elegant gray two-story Victorian designed more than a century ago by legendary Petaluma architect Brainerd Jones.

Gone will be four of the home’s six bedrooms. Scheduled for demolition are fireplaces, balustrades, roofs, staircases, a chimney and a dormer roof window.

In their place are to be a pair of 10-foot-by-10-foot closets (labeled “Pete’s closet” and “Ginnie’s closet”), a 25-seat dining room, an 11-seat breakfast room, an elevator, a wine cellar, a mudroom, a powder room, a barbecue porch with two grills and a turntable to enable four cars to maneuver into the new basement parking garage.

A proposed top-floor deck that will replace the dormer will offer “unimpeded views into at least six neighboring backyards,” complained Preserve Petaluma on its website.

Haas, 73, grandson of the late Levi Strauss president Walter A. Haas and himself a former president of the company, said he worked closely with his architects and with the city on his plans and cannot understand the controversy.

“Most people look at this and say they support it, or they say what’s the big deal,” he said. ”I understand that a neighbor wouldn’t be happy with construction going on next to his house for a period of time. But when it’s done, it will be consistent with the look and feel of the neighborhood. If you stood in the street, you wouldn’t see anything different.”

Bill Wolpert, the project’s architect, said he suspected that opposition to the renovations, which mystified him, was driven by fears that the house will be “some sort of corporate entertainment house — and it’s not.”

He has already altered his blueprints, he said, to accommodate critics who objected to the sunroom and to the proximity of the barbecue grills to the neighbors’ property.

The renovations, he said, would cost “over $1 million, which is not really a lot of money for a project with this much work.” And he said he knew of no rules against big dining rooms or big closets, if that’s what the client asks for.

In a statement, Preserve Petaluma maintained that the preservation committee and city planning department showed a “complete lack of support for historic and cultural preservation” in approving the Haas plans, which, it said, would “essentially gut and forever change the character of this home and surrounding environment.”

Preserve Petaluma founder Margie Turrel, who is also the Haases’ next-door neighbor, said she and others started the group in July after she and Peter Haas differed over his plan for the barbecue deck that directly adjoined her property.

“I believed smoke and odors would permeate from the cooking area,” she said. “I asked him politely if he would move it and he unpolitely said he would not.”

Turrel added that the plans for the barbecue deck called for it to be raised 5 feet off the ground. That meant, she said, that the feet of the Haases and their guests would be directly opposite the heads of the Turrels on the other side of the fence.

Turrel said she “welcomed the Haases as neighbors,” but believes the size and scope of the renovations are “out of scale with adjacent homes.”

Neighbors seemed divided about whether to let the pants magnate do his thing.

“Some of my customers are for it and some are against it,” said Don Gossage, whose barbershop is two blocks from the project site. “A lot of people don’t care. Some say this guy’s got more money than brains. Most of the time we talk sports around here, not old houses.”

Restaurateur Tara Williams, proprietor of the nearby Cafe Zazzle, said whatever Haas wants to do is OK with her. She said the architect’s drawings for the project don’t appear to alter the house’s looks.

“I feel a lot of the people who are against it are just freaked out by change,” she said. “I don’t live in that neighborhood so it doesn’t really matter to me. And digging to build the underground garage isn’t any deeper than digging to build a swimming pool.”

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF

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Dan Walters

A few days ago, the toll for driving on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge took another jump. It will now cost motorists at least $6.75 to cross the entrance to San Francisco Bay — if they are using carpool lanes — and as much as $9.75 if they are invoiced for their crossing.

It appears the tolls are destined to climb even higher.

The iconic bridge is owned by the multi-county Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, whose directors have directed a series of toll increases over five years. They were done to cover rising maintenance costs and — this is the most important factor — offset a decline in traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic began three-plus years ago.

It’s an aspect of a larger phenomenon that has upended the San Francisco Bay Area’s economy. Many workers, particularly those in technology and financial services, shifted to working remotely when the pandemic struck and the work-from-home tendency has persisted after the health threat eased.

Downtown San Francisco suffered what some call a “doom loop” of reduced in-place employment, wholesale declines in office space usage and closure of retail businesses.

Fewer commuters also translated into lower bridge toll income and very sharp drops in transit use and revenues, particularly on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

BART and other transit systems pleaded with Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators for a package of state aid to offset declining farebox revenue and got a $5.1 billion, four-year commitment in the new state budget.

“Public transportation is easy to take for granted, but allowing it to collapse would have been devastating for our state’s future,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said. “This budget extends a critical lifeline that will help transit agencies maintain service while making critical improvements to cleanliness and safety.”

However, Wiener added, “the future of public transportation in the Bay Area is still under threat due to pandemic-related operational deficits that, without help, will lead to severe service cuts.”

Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story

Wiener and other Bay Area legislators are proposing a $1.50 per vehicle hike on motorists who use the region’s seven state-owned bridges to provide transit systems with more operating revenue. The nonstate Golden Gate Bridge would not be affected by the proposal but, as noted earlier, is already raising its prices.

The $1.50 toll increase has been amended into a Wiener bill, Senate Bill 532, that has already passed the Senate and is pending in the Assembly, which could lead to fast track (no pun intended) approval.

Auto tolls on the seven bridges are generally $7 now, so Wiener’s bill would boost them to $8.50, roughly in line with the new Golden Gate Bridge tolls.

“Bay Area transit ridership continues to climb, but it’s not happening quickly enough to make up for the loss of federal emergency assistance,” Wiener said. “SB 532 provides critical lifeline funding for our transit systems — ensuring they have the resources they need to provide safe, reliable service for our residents.”

How, one might wonder, would raising the already stiff tolls on Bay Area bridges impact a region that is struggling to recover economically from the pandemic?

Classic economics would say that increasing their commuting costs would make San Francisco’s workers even less likely to return to their cubicles and therefore hinder downtown recovery.

However, perhaps it would merely persuade them to take BART or other transit services, thus reducing auto traffic on the bridges, which in turn would decrease revenues from the new tolls.

Dan Walters has been a journalist for more than 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times. CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. He can be reached at dan@calmatters.org.

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