GrowSF supports the expansion of the UCSF Parnassus campus

The UCSF Parnassus Heights campus expansion will give us a world-class hospital and research facility right here in the neighborhood. This is a necessary project that will renovate outdated and seismically vulnerable buildings, provide new state-of-the-art facilities, and increase capacity to treat patients. It will also build over 1,000 new housing units, provide new public open space, create thousands of new jobs, improve bike infrastructure, and provide millions of dollars in Muni funding for local transit improvements.

You can learn more about the plan and see early renderings of the future campus on the UCSF website here.

Background

UCSF is our city’s largest public education institution and has been inextricably tied to the history of SF: treating survivors of the 1906 earthquake, caring for the sick during the 1918 flu pandemic, and now, as a top 10 ranked hospital in our country, treating residents inflicted with COVID-19. In order for UCSF to continue their life-saving work, they are planning on investing in our neighborhood by expanding the 123-year-old Parnassus Heights campus.

UCSF has been working closely with the community on this project for more than two years. They have been great collaborators, asking for and incorporating community feedback into the project designs. They’ve held more than 25 accessible public community meetings, online and in person, to solicit input and ideas. The project has been shaped with community input, and it looks exactly like the type of project we need in SF.

The problem

Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming public support for this project (including hundreds of residents signing letters of support), the plethora of community benefits, and years of UCSF collaborating with our community, a very small group is trying to halt this project. That group is Calvin Welch, Dennis Antenore, and Tes Welborn and they have a decades-long history of obstructing progress in SF. While they claim to be housing advocates, they regularly attend public hearings and complain about projects that include new housing. And now, Antenore, Welch, and Welborn have partnered with NIMBYs in Cole Valley and are trying to convince Supervisor Dean Preston to delay this UCSF expansion, against the community’s wishes.

We think this is unacceptable. We need your support to tell our elected officials that this project should not be delayed. COVID-19 has taken a massive toll on our great city. Residents are out of work, our public transit system has been partially shuttered, homelessness continues to rise, and our hospital beds are filling up. This project is the kind of investment that will help San Francisco come back stronger and be more resilient in the future.

What’s next

In late January, the UC Board of Regents will vote to approve the project. In an attempt to delay this project, District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, whose district does not even include the UCSF campus in District 7, has called for a hearing about the project at the Board of Supervisors Land Use & Transportation Committee in advance of the project going before the UC Regents.

We need your voice at this meeting to show the Board of Supervisors that we San Franciscans support this project and need Supervisor Preston to advocate for all of his constituents instead of the vocal minority who want to delay this important investment in our neighborhood.

Three things you can do:

Sign the petition in support of the project today
Speak in support of the project during the online public comment at the Planning Commission hearing on Thursday, January 7 at 1pm and the Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday, January 11th which starts at 1:30pm (details TBD)
Send an email in support of this project to the Planning Commission and your local elected officials. The form embedded below will ask you some basic questions, create a semi-custom email, and then automatically send it to the mayor, supervisors, and others.

Who supports and opposes this project?

Supporters:

Assemblymember Phil Ting
Assemblymember Kevin Mullin
State Senator Scott Wiener
Congresswoman Jackie Speier
Mayor London Breed

Not yet shared a public position

Supervisor Dean Preston or the other Board of Supervisors

UCSF Expansion