SF: Treasure Island: A Green Treasure Indeed
Treasure Island, floating basically in the middle of the SF Bay, was built originally during the 1939 World Expo to serve as an airport, which it remained until WWII, when it served as a Naval Base. Still owned by the Navy today, the Island is a largely undeveloped stretch of land composed of rental housing, a small number of public agencies, and businesses. A quiet place with a stunning view of the city, it was only a matter of time before someone made a move to develop it.
But the move, this time, is a different one: the plan, since 2005, is that TI become a self sustaining green community. John King, SFgate’s architecture and design columnist, writes
The head-turning vision surfaced in the fall of 2005: recasting the island as an environmental utopia with wind farms, 260 acres of open space and a sun-harvesting tower that would be as tall as Rincon Hill’s high-rise. The 6,000 housing units would nearly all be within a short walk of a ferry to the Ferry Building.
Not much has happened yet, at least not that we can see from across the water, but it’s not hard to imagine that the kind of green planning going into the new TI would take awhile. The G-Living Network highlights some of these features in their write up of the plan:
Minimize or eliminate storm water runoff via hydrologic cycle: Protecting water quality by minimizing disturbances, saving trees, supporting and enhancing natural landforms and drainages, minimizing consumptive water use, utilizing integrated vegetative storm water techniques and pervious paving materials.
Reduce or Eliminate Polluted Stormwater Runoff to the Bay: Construct wetlands for storm water treatment. Treatment wetlands can remove a variety of contaminants prior to discharge into the Bay.
Water Treatment: Replace the existing sewage treatment plant with a decentralized, on-site, state-of-the-art, small-footprint, odor-free plant, integrated into the landscaping that can recycle water for irrigation purposes, treat sewage for disposal without unnecessary costs and can treat storm water to levels appropriate for tertiary uses.
Transit Oriented Development: Require the use of zero emission vehicles by government agencies and encourage their use by businesses and non profits on the island, and provide preferred parking for AFV’s.
Develop alternative fuel infrastructure on Treasure Island: Support the use of clean air vehicles, including the production of clean fuels such as bio-diesel and hydrogen and use of electric, bio-diesel, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles.
New Commercial Buildings: Require that all new commercial buildings achieve, at a minimum, a LEED-NCA® Silver certification level from the U.S Green Building Council (USGBC).
Map of Plan: 
Further, through the use of recycled building materials, housing is meant to be less expensive, and townhomes are projected to list for $650K-$2 million (the lower price being 200K less than the average new condo sells for in most new developments rising up all over the city proper). Also, ” that 30 percent of the housing (1,800 units) be within the reach of households earning at or below the median income for San Francisco — which for a three-person household is $82,000 a year.” Profits meant to replenish the costs of this development are projected to come from the sales of this housing.
Supervisors still have concerns, especially about transportation, but the project has been given (pun fully intended) the green light. Myself, I can’t wait. What could be more amazing than living in a way that for once, doesn’t require the death of so many other living things- and with a billion dollar view of San Francisco?
For more info:
Photo Credit: Clint Wirtanen, Flickr
