Former City College Parking Lot Will Soon House More than 1,000 Residents
By Ellen Yoshitsugu
ellenyoshi@gmail.com
Construction will begin soon on the major Balboa Reservoir housing development to be located just west of City College’s Ocean campus. The project’s development team held a Community Update meeting on Saturday, Sept 28, 2024, in the plaza on Ocean Avenue next to the Muni bus turnaround. A large map of the planned project was spread out for the public to view, and many representatives from the project were present to answer questions.
Only a few members of the public were present, despite the meeting being the legally required public notice of the coming changes. There was a larger crowd at a nearby food giveaway.
A young woman who lives nearby was there to “listen and learn” and said she was concerned about how “adding a thousand more people” to the area was going to impact the traffic on Ocean Avenue. An older man who lives near Archbishop Riordan High School was worried about construction noise, parking and traffic.
“Ingleside has been historically underserved,” said Miles Escobedo, co-owner of the Ocean Ale House. “It’s time for us to get a little bit of love and maybe this kind of attention and this kind of massive build-out, this kind of increase in population density per square foot, per capita in this area is what we need,” Escobedo said.
According to the plan, there will be seven housing blocks when complete, with space for retail stores on the ground floor and then multiple levels of housing above. The housing blocks will ring around a central two-acre Reservoir Park. Ranging in size from 78 ft on the eastern side facing City College to two-story townhomes arranged along the western edge. The plan includes educator housing (for both City College and the school district) and a childcare center. Apartments will be both market rate and affordable, while the townhouses will be for sale at market rate.
City College no longer owns the property, so the future rent and sales income will not help the college with its financial troubles.
Construction will begin first on Building E next June, according to Josh Carrillo, Senior Project Manager for Bridge Housing. It will be a multistory affordable housing building running parallel to Frida Kahlo Way behind the new STEAM building. Construction on Building A is set to begin in January 2026. It will be affordable housing located directly behind Whole Foods on Ocean Ave.
The first steps will include grading the site, putting in utilities and moving the underground “geothermal wells” associated with the Multi-Use Building.
The project will bring more residents to the immediate area of the college while retaining fewer parking spaces. The apartment buildings are zoned for 0.5 cars per dwelling unit. That’s parking for one car for every two units. Only the townhouses are designed to have individual garages. The developers plan to include 550 parking spaces, the maximum allowed, but only a small fraction of these will be available to the public, including City College students.
The current City College student parking lot on the Lower Reservoir will eventually be completely replaced by the development. The lots may be closed initially for groundwork and then partly reopened temporarily for student parking. AVC for Capital, Alberto Vasquez and the City College Facilities Committee have not yet responded to requests for comment.
This is a “transit-friendly” design intended to reduce San Francisco residents’ reliance on cars, according to design documents.
City College is a commuter college. Many students have jobs or family responsibilities and must commute to school by car. This project could have an impact on students’ access to the college.
Recently, both former Chancellor David Martin and interim Chancellor Bailey have publicly mentioned constructing a parking garage for City College’s Ocean campus. In 2023, $50,000,000 in bond money was designated for a parking garage, and the college’s Facilities Committee has been discussing the idea. Such a structure would take years to complete.
The Reservoir Project will impact traffic as well. There are only two access roads planned for the development. One will be through Lee Avenue from Ocean Ave, which is the narrow street next to Whole Foods, where shoppers exit the parking garage and trucks unload. The second access street will be off Frida Kahlo Way next to Riordan High School.
In addition to the new apartments, the project’s planned childcare center and retail stores, as well as the City College’s soon-to-be-built Performing Arts Center, will all need access and parking.
A lone protester at the event, Ken Crizer, carried a sign reading, “Balboa Reservoir Belongs to City College, Recall Supervisors and Lousy Breed.” Crizer refers to the 2020 decision by the mayor and board of supervisors to sell the lower reservoir and approve the development. Crizer is a retired City College engineering professor and was a member of a coalition that successfully fought previous attempts to build on the site.
“We were involved back in the 80s, beating back a similar short-sighted housing project. We were involved in three citywide elections. We beat the snakes, and now they’ve come back 30 years later, and they’re going to do the same kind of nonsense.”
In the years before the 2020 decision, members of the City College community spoke out about their concerns regarding the impact of the development on the college.
Local neighborhood groups have been watching closely. The Sunnyside History Project’s website has an extensive history of the battle over the reservoir site, and the Westwood Park Association publishes regular updates on the Reservoir Project.
Miles Escobedo of Ocean Ale House said that although the development will not be directly on Ocean Ave, it will impact the corridor, noting that property values will increase. “With more street and foot traffic, everything will get used more and be dirtier, and we will have to utilize our resources to better our traffic system,” he continued, “It’s gonna be interesting, and I can’t wait for them to map that out.”