Zoning, Planning and Use
Aug. 2, 2002
Panel Appointed to Think About Hastings Parking Lot
SAN FRANCISCO - Hastings College of the Law named four members Wednesday to a development panel assigned to rethink a much-criticized parking garage plan rejected by state Sen. John Burton.
The school announced earlier that prominent Hastings graduate Joe Cotchett, of Burlingame's Cotchett Pitre Simon & McCarthy, will chair the group. Hastings officials said they hope the committee will submit a plan in time for the school's Dec. 6 board meeting.
Cotchett, who said he was surprised at the uproar over the parking garage, wants to get the job done sooner. "It's an outstanding committee, and I intend to move fast and find peace in our time," he said.
The other members are:
• Leo T. McCarthy, an attorney, former lieutenant governor and former San Francisco supervisor, who now is president of a local investment and business partnership. McCarthy is on the boards of Linear Technology Corp. and Forward Funds Inc.
• Carol Galante, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Bridge Housing Corp., the largest builder of affordable housing in California. Bridge recently opened the 93-unit 1 Church Street development.
• Brother Kelly Cullen, the executive director of Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. Cullen, who has lived in the neighborhood for two decades, has served on the board of the St. Anthony Foundation.
• Brad Paul, the former director of ex-Mayor Art Agnos' office of housing and community development. Paul now is a senior program director at the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund.
The committee will seek a revenue-producing plan for Hastings' site at Golden Gate Avenue and Larkin Street, currently a parking lot.
The school's directors were forced to shred an earlier blueprint for a seven-story parking garage there. The move came after strong neighborhood opposition led Burton to strip $15 million from Hastings' state budget funds to compel the addition of housing units.
The site, across Larkin Street from the state Supreme Court's headquarters and catercorner from the federal courthouse, became a metaphorical battleground in the cars vs. housing struggle roiling the overcrowded Tenderloin.
Protesters chanting "No housing, no peace" invaded a Hastings board meeting in June. Eleven were arrested, including San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly. Hastings directors later denounced the activists' "political thuggery" and angrily faulted Burton for "political blackmail."
Hastings appeared to pull back from the hostilities with its announcement Wednesday. The written statement said the committee will consider "the mission, needs, objectives and constraints of the college and the concerns and desires of the neighborhood community."
Paul and Cullen were chosen from a list drawn up by a neighborhood group, the school said. All the committee members are believed to be acceptable to Burton, sources said.
McCarthy said he's aware the committee is stepping into a tangled conflict.
"I just like to jump into large pots of boiling oil," he laughed. "It sounded like negotiation and arbitration might be possible, until I was goofy enough to say OK. Then I woke up. This isn't a can, it's a barrel of worms."
The committee's composition drew praise from Arthur Evans, a veteran local developer whose mixed-use plan had been turned down by the Hastings board before Burton got involved.
"Hastings really came up with a very, very able group," Evans said. "I'd give them an A-plus." Galante, he added, is "as knowledgeable as we are" in the affordable housing field.
Evans said he'll resubmit his design to the committee. "The garage had real questions about its feasibility," he said. "We concluded it's doable for Hastings to make money on a mixed-use facility" that contains parking and student or below-market-rate housing.
Susan Thomas, Hastings' general counsel, said she's "delighted that these prominent and busy people have agreed to devote time and energy to this undertaking."
John Roemer
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