Like every body of water that opens onto a global ocean, San Francisco Bay is virtually guaranteed to rise several feet in coming decades, climate scientists say. But that has not deterred real estate developers from proposing and building billions of dollars worth of new homes and offices in bayfront areas that current climate change predictions show could flood by century’s end.

Land-use records and environmental applications reveal that the building boom, fueled by a white-hot tech economy, is moving too fast for regulators to keep pace. Most cities and regional agencies have not yet adopted tools to address flooding in areas where thousands of acres are threatened by sea level rise.

Developers say they have engineering and financial solutions to deal with any reasonable future flooding risk. But critics, including climate scientists, urban planners and environmental activists, say the current wave of construction might leave taxpayers on the hook for enormously expensive emergency protections and repairs.

Researchers studying climate change predict that the rise in ocean levels will accelerate later this century as the atmosphere heats the ocean and melts glaciers. Many of their models show that by 2100, occasional flooding could reach as high as 8 feet above current high tide, in the event of a severe coastal storm.

Even the scenario widely considered “most likely” — 3 feet of permanent rise — would put thousands of acres of the current shoreline underwater.

Developers are planning or currently building at least 27 major commercial and residential complexes around the bay on land lower than 8 feet above high tide, as estimated by recent aerial surveys. And more than a dozen Bay Area cities continue to issue permits for plans that address future flood risks vaguely, if at all.

Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Facebook are among the marquee corporate names driving the bayfront explosion. Some cities are even courting companies to build near sea level, often on landfill created in the mid-20th century in former salt marshes. Much of that land could return to the sea, unless cities erect seawalls, levees and other monumental edifices.

In many areas new development includes desperately needed housing. Projects now in the pipeline in San Francisco would add 25,000 new apartments. On Treasure Island alone, developers are ready to break ground on a forest of residential towers that could house 12,000 people, and at Mission Rock and Pier 70, developers have pledged to build more affordable apartments than the city requires.

Public Costs

Corporate and government data show that the highest-profile building projects on the shorelines of San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the East Bay will cost more than $21 billion to build, excluding the value of the land underneath them.

That does not account for the likely public cost, coming within decades, of protecting these settlements with dikes, levees and artificial wetlands — or for the economic toll of abandoning development in designated buffer zones as waves rise.

A few local governments, including Mountain View, are beginning to spend money on sea level rise infrastructure projects that can protect waterfront business districts.

And San Francisco is in its second year of interdepartmental planning to address sea rise. But the city has yet to update its flood plain ordinance or planning and building codes to address increasing flood risk on the waterfront.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has updated its flood maps, which guide public works investments, but other agencies do not impose those guidelines on private property.

Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors last year resisted a call from the chair of the city’s civil grand jury to stop approving new shoreline development until stricter building rules are passed. Officials said that changes to city codes might be necessary, though until now state environmental laws and reviews have been sufficient.

Official maps upon which the city’s 2008 flood ordinance is based do not account for future sea rise. Developers say this means the city lacks the legal grounds to prevent building there.

In the past five years, San Francisco land-use agencies have approved residential, entertainment, retail, medical and office projects on nearly 50 waterfront parcels that are less than 8 feet above sea level. Major projects are somewhere in the approval process for Treasure Island and in parts of South of Market, Pier 70, Candlestick Point and Hunters Point.

The most contentious is the Golden State Warriors’ $1 billion plan for a mixed-use facility in the Mission Bay neighborhood south of downtown. Opponents of the project, centered around an arena for the 2015 NBA champions, have focused on how it would affect traffic and bay views. But the basketball team’s engineers admit in an application for environmental review that the site could under some scenarios temporarily flood “to depths between 2 and 4 feet” by the year 2100.

Team engineers express confidence that they can design the buildings to resist storm surges by raising entrances, waterproofing basements, installing floodgates in the garage and judiciously deploying sandbags. The Warriors are expected to present the proposal to the Planning Commission this year before the scheduled release of a city-sponsored report showing Mission Bay’s vulnerability to sea rise.

Also at potential risk are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of facilities that opened this year in other parts of Mission Bay, where many streets and sidewalks are less than 10 feet above the bay’s current level. That includes University of California, San Francisco, Benioff Children’s Hospital and the San Francisco Emergency Services Center, where the city’s Police and Fire departments have set up new headquarters.

Some nearby projects do include plans to address sea rise. At the San Francisco Giants’ $1.6 billion Mission Rock development, which includes 1,500 apartments with views of AT&T Park, the plan is to elevate the land to accommodate 4.6 feet of sea rise, plus storm surge.

Development projects are springing up all around the southern half of the bay, from San Francisco to San Jose, and north to the Port of Oakland and the island of Alameda.

Maps created for the San Francisco Public Press by graduates of the Geography Department at the University of California, Berkeley, using published development plans and oceanographic data, show that current or proposed building projects that are at least partly in low-lying areas add up to more than 5,100 acres.

Around the Bay

Regional planning is hard, and the Bay Area is struggling to coordinate. There are efforts underway. Individual cities are planning to build expensive protections, and new organizations are aligning the responses of cities and public agencies. Some state-level responses are in the works. The challenge is that local development is governed by a patchwork of inconsistent zoning and differing interpretations of state law.

In a survey of 13 communities around the bay with the most intense waterfront development, the Public Press found that six had progressed beyond studying the threat of sea rise but none had an action plan. And only two — San Francisco and San Jose — had changed rules for any departments that oversee land use.

When asking for details about flood protection, cities typically rely heavily on developers to summarize which predictions for sea rise are as relevant. These predictions are sometimes based on shorter time frames than the period it will take to finish paying for the construction. Developers’ long-range engineering suggestions are often based on just 3 feet of permanent inundation by 2100, and do not account for storm surge.

Climate change science is still evolving, but the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission found that government and academic experts, including the National Research Council, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Climate Assessment, state and regional climate agencies and independent research groups, largely agree on a matrix of predictions that endorse the 3-foot “moderate” benchmark.

None of the 13 cities surveyed requires developers to prepare for the less likely 4.6-foot scenario. The debate in local planning circles is whether to plan for the moderate outcome, or a less likely high-end one.

Several public and private science groups have posted interactive maps online in the past three years that show which areas would flood under various scenarios. But their creators say it has been hard to persuade city planners to use them to assess flood hazards.

In a 2009 report for the California Energy Commission, the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based research group advocating for corporate environmental stewardship and social equity, estimated that property lost in the event of 4.6 feet of sea rise by 2099 would cost the Bay Area $62 billion (nearly two-thirds the cost for all of California). This inundation would require rebuilding the airports serving San Francisco and Oakland, and moving parts of interstates 101 on the Peninsula and 80 in the East Bay. It could also put 270,000 people in danger during severe floods, the report warned, and “continued development in vulnerable areas will put additional areas at risk and raise protection costs.”

Follow the Money

“Now is the time to look seriously at what will happen 50 or 100 years down the road,” said Gary Griggs, who directs the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and contributed to the National Research Council’s most recent report on sea level rise on the West Coast. “What is the value of making a development, housing project or mall if we know it will have to be removed later, except for some short-term temporary gains?”

Developers stand to profit handsomely from the waterfront land rush, but governments also benefit in the short run. The proposed megaprojects promise tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Some cities are offering developers tax credits, low-cost land and flood-control infrastructure to encourage building on their shorelines.

But there are signs of change. The Port of San Francisco in 2012 sketched a $2.7 billion concept to wrap a 10-mile-long, elevated supplemental pier around the existing Embarcadero piers, and is considering adding pumping stations and dikes.

Acting alone, cities risk pushing floodwaters into neighboring areas. In the short term, to avoid ringing the whole bay with barriers, communities could surround themselves with small levees and extend them inland up creeks. This would keep water from neighboring communities out, until it got too high.

The Bay Conservation and Development Commission, formed 50 years ago to stop developers from filling in the bay, is urging caution and trying to play a regional coordinating role. But its jurisdiction stops just 100 feet inland from the current shoreline. The commission was chartered to ensure public access to the land, not to tell developers how to build.

To address the commission’s concerns, many development plans propose a strip of grass — heralded as “parkland” or “open space” — separating buildings from the bay. This does little to protect property if seas rise even a few feet vertically, sending floodwaters thousands of feet inland.

The common roadblocks that environmentalists face nationwide in raising concern over adaptation to climate change, such as distrust of science or lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, play only a small role in Bay Area politics. Here, the obstacles involve pressure from the real estate, construction and tech businesses emphasizing short-term economic opportunity over more precautionary environmental perspectives.

Capitalizing on Uncertainty

San Francisco planning staffers say they evaluate each application for its response to the threat of sea level rise and suggest a range of adaptation strategies. According to public records, in the last five years the city has approved more than 50 projects, each worth at least $1 million, in low-lying waterfront areas. The estimated development costs of these projects exceed $4.5 billion.

A report in June 2014 from the city’s civil grand jury — a volunteer committee that examines local government — concluded that San Francisco was not moving nearly fast enough to protect public safety in the event of sea rise. David Behar, climate program director for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission who last year headed the city’s interagency Sea Level Rise Technical Committee, said scientists’ increasing confidence in their projections and the degree of agreement among them support taking action.

This year, Mayor Ed Lee convened a new panel, the Sea Level Rise Coordinating Committee, chaired by Gil Kelley, the director of citywide planning, and Fuad Sweiss, the city engineer. He said the group would produce a “high-level assessment” of risks and vulnerabilities, and consider recommending stricter rules for private development.

Maryta Piazza, corresponding secretary of the civil grand jury, told a Board of Supervisors committee in September 2014 that the city should impose a moratorium on private developments until its codes are updated.

“If we don’t stay ahead of the trend,” Piazza said, “as we are now we’ll be forever catching up, fixing up, and ending up spending much more money in the long run.”

Kristina Hill, an associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley, said long-range planning is essential because sea level rise will be exponential.

“We are living in the last two stable decades of sea level rise,” Hill said. “Around 2045, 2050 or 2060, it’s going to get faster.”

Roger Kim, a representative of Lee’s office, said more research was needed. Lee said in a memo to the civil grand jury that requiring new buildings to withstand sea levels projected for 2050 or 2100 was unnecessary because many developments are not designed to last that long. He echoed developers, who often argue that if sea level rise becomes a problem, future generations can find engineering and financial solutions.

He added that any future regulation should be written with more nuance than determining whether a new building will flood. Rather, each development faces a different threat from storms, depending on its unique geography and the consequence if it is flooded. For example, a park is resilient to flooding in a way that an electrical substation is not. Regulations need to let planners adapt approvals to the circumstances, he said.

“It may be unwise — and expensive — to require immediate measures to adapt to wide-ranging, highly uncertain SLR projections further out in time,” Lee wrote.

Rethinking Mission Bay

On April Fools’ Day 2009, the cover story of Synapse, the student-run weekly paper at UCSF, was headlined “Mission Bay: The Underwater Campus.” With sea waters likely to threaten the health science school’s new campus within decades, the paper joked, adaptations could include a “campus housing fishing hole,” “surgical scuba gear,” and a 10-block “Third Street Ridge” cutting through Mission Bay to act as a seawall. Little did the editors know that at least one of these farcical suggestions could become reality.

In September 2014, consultants drafting a report to the city’s Public Utilities Commission and the Capital Planning Committee said sea level rise should not be addressed in a piecemeal fashion. The 303-acre neighborhood, which was an inlet of the bay before it was filled and used for a sprawling rail yard, must be rethought comprehensively. One suggestion from the consultants is to put Third Street on top of a levee that would reduce flooding risk in most of Mission Bay.

“The entire shoreline is too low to be protected, so what can we do about that?” Laura Tam, environmental director at SPUR, a Bay Area urban planning and advocacy group, asked at a City Hall hearing. “We cannot just protect individual buildings. We need something that protects the whole area in the long term.”

Tam co-authored the forthcoming report with Peter Wijsman, a consultant with the Dutch engineering firm ARCADIS, which has engineered solutions to sea rise in the Netherlands. Wijsman said options for Mission Bay ranged from “learning to live with water” to “armament” for the shoreline. Officials also discussed a “Venice-style” system allowing water to flow around flood-proof ground-level shops and building entrances. (See video.)

When UCSF began planning its new medical center in the 1980s, it stabilized the land in Mission Bay by adding more fill on top of the sand brought in from SoMa during the 19th century and debris added after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Paul Franke, a senior planner for the medical center, said the grade was raised by 2 to 5 feet to ensure that hospital and research buildings could withstand 3 feet of sea level rise. He said that was meant to make the project last “in perpetuity.”

When the city reviewed Mission Bay’s original sitewide permits in 1998, officials generally planned for 100-year floods, those with a 1 percent chance of happening each year. They used older predictions of sea rise and less precise topographic mapping, focusing on relatively short time horizons (8 inches by 2025). But Franke said UCSF will monitor the science over the next 50 years to ensure “we were not tragically off in our predictions.”

Meanwhile, the hospital is planning more facilities even closer to the bay and recently bought a parcel east of Third Street near 16th. As an arm of the state, UCSF gets its permits from the Division of the State Architect, not the city. But San Francisco planners do have regulatory power over the Warriors arena. Developer Strada said it plans to explain in reports mandated by state law how it will safeguard the facility, whether by raising the land, permitting some flooding or building barriers.

With the Warriors’ environmental review scheduled months before the Mission Bay sea level rise report is due, and given the mayor’s unwavering support for the sports facility, it is hard to see the Planning Commission derailing the plan because of the threat of sea level rise.

Representatives of Prologis, the developer overseeing* all Mission Bay planning, did not respond to repeated calls for comment on long-term plans.

Costly Fixes

At Treasure Island, the towers approved by city officials will include 8,000 homes and 235,000 square feet of retail space. Kheay Loke, a manager with development firm Wilson Meany, says the project makes sense because the area already has roads and electricity, so developing there is more environmentally sustainable than building in the suburbs. For the company, it means not having to install new infrastructure.

For years, the property’s developers have emphasized their plans to conserve energy, maintain open spaces and build walkable neighborhoods, linked to the rest of the city by public transit, including ferries. In an interview in a downtown conference room with a view of the island, Loke said there was an easy — if “sacrilegious” — solution to sea level rise.

“Fill in the bay,” he said. “You go 50 feet out, and you build yourself a levee.”

Wilson Meany and co-developer Lennar Urban already plan to fortify existing berms around the 400-acre island to make them broad enough to build higher in the future. And they plan to raise the land, at a cost of $1.2 billion. Construction will continue through 2035.

“We can adapt and protect,” Loke said. “Sea level rise and flood protection are problems that money can solve.”

In this case, the money probably will come from the island’s future taxpayers. Treasure Island property owners will pay a special fee, called a Mello-Roos tax, to fund any future adaptation measures needed after the developers leave.

Brad McCrea, regulatory program director at the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, said Treasure Island’s developers brought “eyes-wide-open expertise” to their planning. But he said he was skeptical of applying this kind of technology-centered approach everywhere around the bay, given that sea level rise could continue for centuries. “At the end of the day, this will be a levee-protected community,” McCrea said. “There’s no getting around that.”

McCrea said Bay Area communities should be talking about retreating from the riskiest shoreline areas. “This is not about Treasure Island, but there are some basic questions here about where is the right place to build.”

Will Travis, who headed the commission for 16 years until 2011, said the region needed a more “thoughtful, reasoned, rational and financially sound solution.

“It will buy you 50 years of time to get our heads around this notion of ‘permanent temporary’ development,” he said. “Getting developers and local governments to think half a century ahead is very hard.”

Developers are spending millions of dollars on public relations to persuade voters that they are building safe and environmentally benign projects. In November, San Francisco voters approved Proposition F — which technically exempted Pier 70, a development south of Mission Bay, from height limits, but in effect endorsed the construction of commercial space and 2,000 homes (600 affordable) on 28 waterfront acres. Our maps suggest that large portions of the former industrial area could be submerged under several feet of water by 2100 in the event of 6.4 feet of flooding (the intermediate prediction for sea rise and extreme storm surge).

After three years of public outreach, developer Forest City spent almost $3 million on the campaign, including paying $15,000 to the San Francisco Democratic Party, $10,000 to the Republican Central Committee and $25,000 the Sierra Club for mailing campaign fliers. The project won endorsements from the city’s last three mayors, all 11 current members of the Board of Supervisors and more than 50 community groups. Activists with the Sierra Club’s local chapter told a reporter last fall they never pressed the developer about sea rise.

Forest City has not yet sought environmental permits, so its specific plans are not public.

Other proposed waterfront projects that still need some approvals include the sprawling Hunters Point development that includes 1,600 homes now under construction at the old Naval Shipyard, and a commercial and residential complex rising at Candlestick Point to replace the eponymous stadium. Developers are raising the land there to keep buildings, streets and key infrastructure above the moderate estimate of the 100-year flood level — a few feet of storm surge on top of 3 feet of sea level rise.

Planners Value Flexibility

Chris Kern, a senior environmental planner for the city, said the lack of firm city codes allows easier adjustment to new scientific projections. It is sufficient that state law requires the city to assess whether new projects “expose people or structures to a significant risk of loss, injury or death involving flooding,” he said. The city interprets that to include future flooding from sea rise.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Behar said it was common for government to test regulations by applying them to public property before forcing compliance in the private sector. Perhaps surprisingly, the real estate and development industries are not uniformly opposed to regulation. Developers say working under clear rules makes it easier and less expensive to plan. “Sea level rise adaptation should be government mandated,” said Loke, of the Wilson Meany development firm.

Piazza, the civil grand jury member, said San Francisco should halt the rapid pace of development until it adopts comprehensive policies that protect both public safety and private property. If the city takes too long, all the gaps in the waterfront skyline will have been filled in by the time the rules go into effect.

Tam, a longtime advocate for regional climate adaptation planning at SPUR, sees hope in the city’s new approach.

“Five years ago, this topic was virtually unknown,” she told John Upton, a reporter for Climate Central, a nonprofit that researches and reports on climate change. “Today, many city departments have not only participated and worked together to produce this guidance, but they are working collaboratively to develop solutions.”

Kelley, the director of citywide planning, said it was too soon to recommend new planning codes. “We need to know what the problem is before we come up with an answer,” he said. “This will lead to some discussion of what we might do.”

Silicon Valley Growth

When Google first proposed in February to build a massive new headquarters in Mountain View, it issued promotional videos and renderings showing 3.4 million square feet of office space under undulating canopies of glass and plastic.

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, blasted the tech giant’s choice of location.

“Their property at the south end of San Francisco Bay is extremely vulnerable to projected sea-level rise,” Gleick blogged. “Google is a forward-looking company. But are they looking forward to, and planning for, the now-unavoidable impacts of climate change as they design new multibillion dollar infrastructure investments?”

Mountain View’s North Bayshore neighborhood hosts Google’s current headquarters, as well as offices for Microsoft, Intuit and other companies. The city’s plan envisions a walkable community of corporate campuses, stores, hotels, services and entertainment. Flood maps show that much of the zone could be underwater with 8 feet of combined sea rise and severe storm surge. But the plan looks only to predictions for the year 2064, when, it asserts, seas are expected to rise a maximum of 3 feet.

Mountain View has set aside more than $43 million for proposals to bolster existing levees, pump stations and tide gates, the Bay Area News Group reported in June.

In May, the City Council voted to award the majority of the developable office space to LinkedIn’s Shoreline Commons mixed-use concept, based largely on its claims that it would “preserve business diversity” — a reference to Google’s already dominant footprint in the city.

But Google has designs on several additional waterfront properties. In neighboring Sunnyvale, it took over a 60-year lease from NASA for part of the land at Moffett Federal Airfield, where the space agency had concluded it needed a buffer zone to keep rising waters out.

In Menlo Park, Facebook recently finished a new campus with a 430,000-square-foot building, featuring 9 acres of rooftop foliage, designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry. According to recent U.S. Geological Survey data, parts of the site were below 8 feet in elevation before it was developed.

In its environmental impact report, Facebook said that although the average height of the land was 9 feet, the buildings themselves would be “raised above future flood risk.”

The environmental report also argued that Facebook was not technically obligated, under state rules, to judge environmental risk to the facilities, even though the company had taken various protective measures.

As the report put it, the purpose of state-mandated review “is to evaluate the effects of the project on the environment, not the effect of the environment on the project.”

Facebook representatives declined to speak on the record about the company’s flood plain adaptation strategies.

Charlie Knox, a principal at PlaceWorks, a firm in Berkeley that helps cities plan for sea level rise, said the main Facebook building would probably be safe from flooding through the 22nd century. “They are pretty hip and they have over-anticipated sea-level rise,” he said.

In an extreme event such a building, elevated on concrete pillars, would probably survive, though the land around it would be submerged. “People would be sitting in their offices looking at the water,” he said. “It is a model for adaptation.”

Knox said technology firms know the risks they are taking by proposing and building tens of millions of square feet of new research and development facilities.

“There is a ton of good jobs, meaningful stuff that will help medicine and human life, and it is all going up like crazy,” he said. “And it is all in a place that sea level is going to rise.”

East Bay Renewal

Large swaths of underused East Bay waterfront have been under construction for years, with some projects originally financed by redevelopment funds that the state pulled back after falling into deficit. At Oakland’s Jack London Square, the newest project includes a 1,700-seat movie theater, restaurants, supermarkets and a 250-room hotel with a marina and small beach. Developers said it faced no flood risk, though they did not address sea level rise in their 2004 environmental impact report.

But an addendum to the report released this May asserted that the company was not “required to analyze or mitigate impacts pertaining to the impact of the environment on the project.” The construction, the company explained, “is not causing sea level rise, sea level rise will occur regardless of the proposed project.”

Construction also is underway on 1 million square feet of warehouse space at the former Army base in West Oakland. Local officials laud this project as a restoration of the “working waterfront” because it will bolster a growing freight industry by connecting cargo ships with trains.

In Alameda, development is continuing on the site of a Naval Air Station that shut down in the 1990s. Currently in the works are 800 apartments and 600,000 square feet of retail space in a $500 million project by Alameda Point Partners, which proposes to raise the land and build levees in the future to keep land below sea level from flooding.

In addition to 26 current major development plans the Public Press found to be at least partly below the projected 8-foot elevation, we found a 27th that for now seems to be off the table. Starting in 2009, Arizona-based DMB Pacific Ventures sought permission from Redwood City to build 12,000 homes on 1,478 acres of bayside salt evaporation ponds owned by agricultural giant Cargill. It was withdrawn in May 2012 after a firestorm of protest from neighbors, some of whom were concerned about the environmental effects of building farther into the bay. Project attorney David Smith said there was “currently no development proposal whatsoever pending for the site,” though the project’s website said a “scaled back” plan was in the works.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded in 2014 that the federal government had no jurisdiction over most of the Redwood City site. But the federal Environmental Protection Agency — which has spent more than $40 million to restore San Francisco Bay wetlands — announced in March that it was investigating whether the land falls under the Clean Water Act. This could be a test case for whether the EPA can include sea level rise in assessing future flood risk or limiting shoreline development.

Search for Solutions

Several regional initiatives aim to coordinate how bayfront cities cope with sea level rise. Most notable are the Resilient Shoreline Program, the San Francisco Bay Regional Coastal Hazards Resiliency Group and Our Coast, Our Future.

The state has created a $2.5 million California Climate Resilience Account to pay for planning. Legislation is also pending on a statewide database of preparedness work.

In the South Bay, a coalition of federal and state agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coastal Conservancy and the Santa Clara Water District are proposing the federal government spend $162 million for wetlands restoration and levee construction. Also in the South Bay, a regional authority is widening old levees and building new horizontal ones around San Francisquito Creek.

But creating consistent rules governing private property could be a challenge. “Regulations around climate change are in their infancy, or nonexistent,” said Behar of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Jasper Rubin, a professor of urban planning at San Francisco State University, said the common solution of raising land to raise the height of buildings fails to address the “larger systemic issues.” If one property is raised, he said, it “doesn’t mean the rest of the waterfront’s not going to get inundated.”

Kristina Hill, the UC Berkeley planning professor, said more experimentation is needed in waterfront construction techniques. But few businesses are invested in fortifying the properties they build beyond midcentury. It is hard to fund resilient architecture, Hill said, when developers “do not have a shared interest with the public about what will happen with those properties in the future.”

Some environmental and planning experts are appealing directly to the public to change sea level rise policies. The King Tides Project publishes reports on coastal erosion and flooding that occur when sun and moon align, known as king tides. These events offer a preview of sea level rise.

Project co-founder Marina Psaros started working with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission to urge cities to pass new flood zone regulations. “Our theory was we need to get heads of planning and public works directors aware, concerned, activated on climate change,” Psaros said.

Discouraged by institutional inertia, she shifted her focus to public outreach, publishing dramatic photos of high tide events on social media.

Knox, the consultant who works on adaptation planning around the bay, said that the time horizons of developers and governments are too short to deal with the effects of climate change. The waterfront will change noticeably even in a single lifetime, but sea level rise will plague coastal communities for generations.

“One of the problems we face is that we do not live very long,” Knox said. “We think, ‘I’m going to move into this house and have kids here.’ People do not care what the house will be in 200 years. But now we have to think differently.”

The post Major S.F. Bayfront Developments Advance Despite Sea Rise Warnings appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Just a few years ago, Mission Bay was sparsely populated, home to abandoned rail yards and parking lots serving AT&T Park. But now the area is coming alive with a wave of development, with new housing complexes and office buildings popping up along the waterfront.

This year the University of California, San Francisco, opened a hospital complex in the neighborhood, and the San Francisco police and fire departments relocated their headquarters a block from the bay. If approved, the $1 billion Golden State Warriors arena and mixed­use development would break ground on the neighborhood’s southern end.

But the Warriors project and other proposals may face difficulty, depending in part on the results of a study due in the fall on Mission Bay’s sea level rise vulnerability. For now, cranes and bulldozers continue their work, and residents and workers say they love the neighborhood. Few say they have any knowledge of, nor are they much concerned about, the long­ term flooding risk.

UNSETTLED ABOUT PLANNING

Nicole Van Malder, 27, junior architect and student Van Malder is about to start studying at the California College of the Arts Mission Bay campus. She expressed concern about the shortage of public transit options and parking. “Where are all these cars going to go when the neighborhood is built?”

NEW COMPANY, NEW JOB

Julian Enoch, 24, inventory management analyst at Old Navy Enoch grew up in San Francisco, but has worked in Mission Bay for less than a year. “All the stuff past AT&T Park used to be warehouses. It’s crazy,” he said. Though Enoch said he is not all that worried by sea level rise, “I probably would be concerned about flooding if I was more educated about it, to be honest.”

LIVES ON THE WATER

Jack Wickert, 78, playwright and retired music teacher Wickert pays $400 a month to live in a houseboat on Mission Creek. A Mission Bay resident for 16 years (a San Franciscan for 72 years), he likes the new development, and is especially excited about the prospect of the Golden State Warriors moving in. 

WILL MOVE OUT EVENTUALLY

Kyle Fowler, 30, UCSF graduate student Fowler has been living in Mission Bay for 10 months in UCSF’s student housing. “It’s different, but there’s not much culture like in the Mission,” he said. He is aware of the potential of sea level rise, but plans to move long before it could affect him. “My fingers are crossed that I get to higher ground before anything happens.”

UCSF RESEARCHER

Diego Garrido Ruiz, 28, Ph.D. student Garrido Ruiz, who hails from Mexico City, moved to San Francisco four years ago. He conducts research on the UCSF campus. He dislikes how expensive the neighborhood has become. He was more bothered by the idea of earthquakes than sea level rise. “Even last year when there was that storm of the century,” he said, “I wasn’t very concerned.”

SETTLING IN

Grace Wang, 26, student at UCSF Wang moved to Mission Bay from Orange County in late spring. “This part of the neighborhood is pretty cool,” she said, adding that the campus gets quiet on weekends. “I can tell it’s developing a lot.” She is not worried about sea level rise right now, but sees it as a concern in the long term.

LIKES THE DEVELOPMENT

Mikael Palner, 45, postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford Palner has been living in Mission Bay for two years and is now on parental leave from Stanford. The neighborhood, Palner said, is “going to be much better when all the development is done.” He has not heard anything about potential flooding from sea level rise but wants to know more.

WORRIED ABOUT COST

Jamie Butler, 51 Butler lives with her 21-­year-­old son in affordable housing at Fourth and King streets. She likes the neighborhood, but wishes it had more economic diversity. “If you don’t live in affordable housing, it’s very, very expensive. I feel like they’re building a lot of apartments and stuff, but there are no jobs over here, and not a lot for kids to do.”

The post Mission Bay Pioneers: Working and Living in a New Waterfront Neighborhood appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Illustration by Emily Underwood / San Francisco Public Press

1. Retreat from Shoreline

The simplest response, abandoning land that is at risk, is also the rarest. Communities encourage and protect coastal properties “so they can get tax revenue to pay for services and even adaptation strategies,” said Jessica Grannis, a sea level policy expert at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington. The best and cheapest time to adopt this strategy is after a disaster — not rebuilding after floods in some areas. But planning for these decisions should be made prior to such disasters.

2. Flood-proof structures

Engineers typically do this by raising occupied floors above flood level or trucking in dirt to raise the land before starting to build. A 2014 study of the Gulf Coast by researchers at The Nature Conservancy and academic researchers concluded that elevating structures was among the least cost-effective solutions, ranking behind seawalls, natural barriers and simple sandbags. But it is the most popular solution around San Francisco Bay.

3. Build levees

Dirt, rock and concrete can be effective barriers. Most of the urban parts of the bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are already protected by a patchwork of levees. San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are both studying what it will cost to make their levees stronger. But levees — and their more compact cousins, seawalls — are expensive and can fail. Officials at the Port of San Francisco say $5 billion in retrofits is needed along the 4-mile Embarcadero to keep some 700 acres of high-value property above the water line through 2100.

4. Restore nature

Natural habitats such as marshes, sandbars and creek beds absorb the energy of storms, mitigating risk from sea level rise. Past development has tended to erase or bury these features, but recent restoration projects are changing that. A 2013 study by the Bay Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group, showed that restoring a 200-foot-wide strip of marsh around the bay would cut the cost of protection in half — mainly by allowing engineers to build smaller, less expensive levees. A rising bay will eventually put many marshes at risk of inundation, though some shoreline ecosystems are designed to grow vertically as seas rise.

The post Four Ways to Guard Against Sea Level Rise appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The San Francisco Public Press surveyed 13 Bay Area cities and counties where building projects are planned in waterfront areas vulnerable to sea level rise. While most are studying the issue, few have passed new regulations to limit growth or require developers to flood­proof their properties.

The results show a huge gap between awareness of the threats of climate change and concrete action to protect vulnerable waterfront communities in coming decades.

Reviewing published reports of plans for large­scale commercial and residential construction projects across the Bay Area, we focused on San Francisco, plus five other counties and seven cities where the most intense development has entered the permitting process.

In the chart below, we graded governments by their level of response to the threat of sea level rise.

All cities and counties responded that they were studying and planning, but fewer than half had completed vulnerability assessments. Two completed the drafting of an action plan. But carrying out changes, such as setting new zoning or land­use rules for private development, proved more of a challenge.

We also determined whether each government’s state­mandated climate action plan addresses sea level rise, and whether it had maps showing where future flooding was likely to occur.

Among the findings:

• Only six of 13 governments have gone beyond studying the problem.
• None has adopted a sea level rise action plan.
• San Francisco is the first city with a written policy for evaluating public works investment accounting for sea level rise, though the plan does not cover private developments.
• San Jose has made some zoning changes in the bayside community of Alviso, but has fewer rules for elsewhere in the city.
• We were unable to find evidence that any of the governments had calculated the cost to taxpayers of protecting future developments.
• Every government surveyed has some plans to protect or expand coastal wetlands as natural protection.

Cities and counties cite at least three problems that keep them from acting more swiftly. First, while virtually all scientists predict that the bay will rise, nobody knows for sure how by much, or how fast.

“We’re having to do planning where the conditions are continually changing,” said Jack Liebster, planning manager for Marin County. “And water doesn’t really respect city and county boundaries.”

A second problem is that a rising San Francisco Bay will require regional solutions. A fix in one city can worsen flooding down the shore. Third, all the jurisdictions have struggled to fund environmental plans.

“Getting people to think about long­range problems, when they don’t even know how to fill the potholes today, is difficult,” said Brian Beveridge, co­director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, an environmental justice organization. “We’re at the beginning of a long­term public discussion that’s going to be tough, frankly,” Beveridge added. “It’s going to fall down along lines of class and political power — who will be protected and who will be thrown to the dogs.”

Counties

San Francisco:

Status: Capital Planning Committee has issued guidelines to assess sea level risk in publicly funded construction. Planning Department, which regulates private development, may suggest changes to building codes in the next few years.

Key Actions:

• Port of San Francisco projected food risk for 2050 and 2100
• Studying multibillion-dollar sewer upgrade to prepare for rising seas
• Mission Creek vulnerability study coming this year
• Developed plan to protect structures at Ocean Beach
• Formed interdepartmental coordinating committee on sea level rise

Alameda:

Status: Only county in our survey in which every city has adopted a climate action plan addressing sea level rise. But no countywide plan has been adopted.

Key Actions:

• Currently assessing vulnerability and protection strategies with regional agencies
• Three cities — Alameda, Berkeley and Oakland — got Rockefeller Foundation funding to hire “resiliency” officers

Marin:

Status: Developing plans to build up degraded wetlands, while abandoning some vulnerable land to San Francisco Bay. “The time is really right,” said Planning Manager Jack Liebster. “The community is really asking for this now. It’s not just staff saying we need to do this.”

Key Actions:

• Completed more than 20 projects to adapt to sea level rise and extreme storms
• Seeking funding for countywide vulnerability assessment

San Mateo:

Status: With $24 billion in property and contents at risk from extreme sea level rise flooding, the most of any West Coast county, 110,000 people may be at risk, a Pacific Institute study found.

Key Actions:

• Published vulnerability assessment in 2011
• Hosted workshops introducing representatives from all 20 cities to federal, state and local experts

Santa Clara:

Status: Creating a complex tool to estimate the economic effects of ignoring sea level rise, which can be shared with other counties. Demetra McBride, director of sustainability, said: “Everyone is looking at the cost of measures, and that can be daunting. What no one was really looking at was the cost of inaction.”

Key Actions:

• Largest salt pond habitat restoration project in the Western U.S.
• Studying vulnerability of water supply and wastewater systems

Solano:

Status: Working with cities to study sea level rise risk in the Sacramento River Delta area. Benicia is set to present a Carquinez Strait adaptation plan, said environmental consultant Alex Porteshawver.

Key Actions:

• Published sea level rise study in 2010 and strategic plan in 2011
• Suisun Marsh restoration will limit threat to water quality and marshlands

Cities:

Burlingame:

Status: A very low-lying, vulnerable community. Climate Central’s online tool shows that 30 percent of the city would be inundated if foods reached 8 feet.

Key Actions:

• The city’s general plan will soon be revised to include projections and proposed mitigation for sea level rise

Hayward:

Status: City has vast expanses of marshes and open space, so it has focused on strengthening natural barriers. “People are interested in sea level rise and they know it’s important,” said Maggie Wenger of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

Key Actions:

• Produced resilience study in 2014, now part of the general plan
• Environmental Services Manager Erik Pearson said city is evaluating where to protect shores and where to “allow nature to take its course”

Menlo Park:

Status: New general plan will likely include zoning updates for waterfront that may address sea level rise specifically, senior planner Deanna Chow said.

Key Actions:

• Will revise general plan by June 2016
• Working with neighboring cities to fortify levees and protect San Francisquito Creek area

Mountain View:

Status: Hosts tech giants LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft and Intuit. City Council in May gave Google only a quarter of the new 2.2 million square feet available in the North Bayshore zone. A 2014 city plan discusses strategies including retreat, requiring developers to build higher and encouraging “adaptive planning” such as levees.

Key Actions:

• Developed a study that evaluates and creates cost estimates for protecting the city’s low-lying shoreline community most at risk
• The city recently proposed to build a seawall to protect North Bayshore developments

Oakland:

Status: West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project worked with other groups to study sea level rise and social equity. “This city, like most, is still assessing which institutions and facilities need to be protected,” said co-director Brian Beveridge.

Key Actions:

• Port of Oakland is raising facilities above projected sea level rise
• Hired Victoria Salinas as chief resiliency officer to coordinate response to rising bay waters

Redwood City:

Status: Facing complications of massive development in the at-risk bayside area of Redwood Shores, where Dreamworks and EA Sports are currently constructing new offices. The city is planning for sea level rise of 3 feet.

Key Actions:

• Environmental Protection Agency in March stepped into the dispute over whether old Cargill salt ponds fall under U.S. jurisdiction
• One opponent, Save the Bay, proposing alternative plan to build a 3-mile levee and restore 100,000 acres of marshland

San Jose:

Status: Designed “food risk management levees” to protect the community of Alviso, a wastewater facility and other low-lying lands, according to the Planning Department’s Whitney Berry.

Key Actions:

• South Bay Shoreline Study and Salt Pond Restoration Project evaluated food risk, and proposed levee improvements
• Some developments placed in floodplain management area, where all occupied floors must be above 100-year flood level

The post Bay Area Governments Study Sea Level Rise, but Few Set Limits on Development appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Rohin Saleh, a civil engineer with Alameda County’s flood-control and conservation district, said a levee in one town could worsen flooding in adjacent communities. “We are dealing with a volume of water, and the water needs to be pushed one way or the other,” he said. “That’s why it’s critical that we all work jointly and make sure that our projects not only don’t have a negative impact, but we are actually helping each other.”

Several new projects map the threat and address the response, including the Coastal Hazards Adaptation Resiliency Group, which Saleh helped start last year. A major goal is creating uniform standards for waterfront development.

CAREFUL WHAT YOU FIX

Development decisions are made by city planning and building departments, boards of supervisors and mayors.

Imagine, for instance, that Redwood 
City approves a high-value office park on waterfront land likely to be flooded by 2050. Since water seeks low points, protecting the property could also require new levees in communities to the north and south.

Who can nudge these governments to coordinate their approach? One candidate is the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The state agency, founded in 1965, safeguards public access to the water and stops developers and public agencies from filling in marshes to create new land. Every project within 100 feet of the bay-shore must get its approval.
“They need to be our regional agency that prepares for sea level rise,” said Kristina Hill, an associate professor of environmental planning at the University of California, Berkeley. “They need more authority.”

Brad McCrea, the commission’s regulatory director, said the agency has an avid interest in sea level rise and presses every project to consider future flood risks in light of climate change.

But the fact remains that no single agency has real authority to coordinate a regional response. Instead, there are several regional initiatives, including:

1. Resilient Shorelines Program: Organized by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the Association of Bay Area Governments and two other baywide agencies, it aims to develop a regional strategy for sea level rise by 2021.

2. San Francisco Bay Regional Coastal Hazards Adaptation Resiliency Group: The coalition of federal, state and local flood-control officials has been meeting since 2014 to coordinate local strategies to pre- vent shoreline flooding.

3. Our Coast, Our Future: Public agencies and nonprofit organizations teamed up to create a detailed inter- active online map showing potential bay flooding under various sea rise scenarios. Its 2014 model is the most detailed digital tool that planners in many Bay Area cities have to work with.

4. Climate Readiness Institute: Bay Area flooding is one focus of this collaboration among academics, governments, nonprofit organizations and companies, launched at UC Berkeley in 2014.

5. South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Study: Federal and state agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coastal Conservancy and the Santa Clara Water District are proposing to spend $162 million for wetlands restoration and levee construction.

6. Other projects include a $2.5 million fund for planning called
the California Climate Resilience Account; proposed legislation for a statewide preparedness database; and a regional authority in the South Bay to widen old levees and build new ones around San Francisquito Creek, which borders Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. 

The post With Dozens of Local and Regional Governments, Baywide Planning Is Hard appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The post Experts Weigh In on Sea Level Rise appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Full page view of interactive map
 

Map by Maia Wachtel, Marcea Ennamorato and Brittany Burson // UC Berkeley CAGE Lab; Amanda Hickman // Public Press

Waterfront property is always desirable, but a San Francisco Public Press survey has found that at least 27 major real estate developments proposed, planned or underway around San Francisco Bay could be vulnerable to severe flooding due to climate change.

Together these projects (including one massive residential development in Redwood City whose plan was withdrawn and where the land is under federal environmental review) represent more than $21 billion of new investment on at least 5,100 acres of waterfront land. This metro region already has two­-thirds of all West Coast property, measured by dollar value, that could be threatened by climate­-driven flooding.

Local officials around the bay are increasingly realizing that the current building boom has proceeded without adequate attention to rising ocean levels, which are the inevitable result of greenhouse gas pollution and global warming.

Our interactive map shows planned construction projects: In many of these vulnerable areas, cities are encouraging new construction with special zoning and tax incentives.

• Gray represents bay water up to the current, familiar shoreline.
• Dark blue shows a severe storm scenario on top of a high-­end projection for sea level rise — for a total of about 8 feet.

To compare other sea level rise outcomes — including a 3-foot rise in sea level (considered by scientists the “most likely” scenario for 2100) — download a pdf of the map from our print edition, or order a copy of the newspaper.

Mission Bay, Block 1

Photo courtesy of Stada Investment

2.7-acre mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Strada Investment Group, SOMA Hotel | STATUS: Construction in 2015-2017 | COST: $220 million

Will turn part of the parking area now used by Giants fans into a residential and commercial complex. The plan is for 350 residential units, up to 50,000 square feet of retail space and the area’s first hotel with 250 rooms, between the stadium and the Golden State Warriors arena planned to the south.

Central Waterfront Neighborhood

Photo courtesy of the City and County of San Francisco Planning Department

Mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Many | STATUS: Still in planning | COST: Not set

The mixed-use portion of the city’s Eastern Neighborhoods Program would create up to 1,500 new homes over five years, plus life sciences and medical facilities. Another 1,600 residential units could be added later. An environmental report says city Public Works hydraulic engineers will review building permits to suggest improvements “on a project-by-project basis to ensure that properties are removed from risk of flooding.”

Pier 70

Photo courtesy of Pier 70: A Forest City Project

280 acre mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Forest City | STATUS: Environmental review pending | COST: At least $200 million

Rehabilitation of historic pier in the Dogpatch neighborhood. Up to 2,100 apartments (600 affordable) plus 2.5 million square feet of commercial and retail space. Nine acres of open space. Voters in November waived height limits there. Developers to propose structures to protect shoreline through 2100 and “a financing mechanism to fund future improvements.” $200 million is for infrastructure, not buildings.

Executive Park Neighborhood

Photo courtesy of the City and County of San Francisco Planning Department

14 acres, mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Yerby Co., Universal Paragon Corp. | STATUS: In planning | COST: Undetermined

At the southern edge of Candlestick Point, within Bayview-Hunters Point development zone. Would contain up to 1,600 residential units on land now occupied by offices and parking. Developers, acknowledging threat of rising seas, pledge to “implement an appropriate long-term design strategy” to protect new homes. They say the site will be safe if seas rise 3 feet by 2100.

Golden State Warriors Arena

Photo courtesy of MANICA Architecture, images rendered by steelblue 

12-acre sports complex (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Golden State Warriors | STATUS: Construction to be completed in 2018 | COST:Estimated $1 billion

The 18,000-seat arena would host the NBA champions in Mission Bay. Includes 100,000 square feet of retail space, 500,000 square feet of commercial space and 3.2 acres of plazas. Opponents cite high traffic and lack of parking. An environmental report downplays sea level rise threat, citing lack of regulatory clarity.

India Springs

Photo courtesy of Build Inc

15.5-acre mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Build Inc. | STATUS: To seek approval in 2017 | COST: $200 million

Area opposite India Basin Shoreline Park could get 980 apartments and 300,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, plus a charter school. Traversed by 13-mile Blue Greenway bay trail. Marcel Wilson of Bionic Landscape Architects said the firm will “create a living shoreline that can adapt over time.” Wetland terraces could drain storm water, becoming marshes if flooded.

S.F. State University

1.4-acre satellite campus (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Lennar Urban | STATUS: Could open fall 2018 | COST: Unknown

San Francisco State would be an anchor tenant at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, leasing more than 60,000 square feet to accommodate its expanding enrollment. But the project remains largely under wraps. The school has not said what departments might move there or what the campus will cost, and turned down our request for a map of its plans. The environmental statement is another bit of homework yet to come.

Mission Rock

Photo courtesy of The Cordish Companies

28 acres, mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Giants Development Services | STATUS: Construction starts 2017 | COST: Estimated $1.6 billion

Currently a parking lot, new waterfront neighborhood with views of AT&T Park to host Anchor Brewing Co., 1,500 apartments, offices and 8 acres of open space. Plan revised in May makes 40 percent of housing affordable. Building height of 240 feet needs voter approval. Land raised to protect against 4.6 feet of sea rise by 2100, with other strategies if change accelerates.

8 Washington

Photo courtesy of 8 Washington

3.2 acres, mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Pacific Waterfront Partners | STATUS: On hold | COST: Estimated $200 million

This residential tower, two blocks north of the Ferry Building, was stalled by referendum in 2013 over whether it could exceed the 84-foot waterfront height limit. Original proposal called for 134 apartments, 20,000 square feet of retail and a fitness club. Stalled a second time due to traffic concerns. Environmental report cites ground floor elevated 3.4 feet above grade for flood protection.

Ferry Terminal

Photo courtesy of San Francisco Bay Ferry

3 acres of ferry gates (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: WETA | STATUS: Construction complete by 2018 | COST: $80 million (1st of 2 phases)

This project would demolish Pier 2 and build three new gates between Pier 1 to the north and Pier 14 to the south, while renovating the Ferry Building and Plaza. Developers plan to raise the new structures to make them “resilient to expected sea level rise conditions over at least a 50-year time frame, the assumed design life of the project.” Additional strategies to keep the Ferry Terminal viable until 2100 are under study.

Treasure Island & Yerba Buena Island

Photo courtesy of Treasure Island SF Bay

465 acres, mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Treasure Island Community Development, Lennar Urban, Wilson Meany | STATUS: Construction 2016 | COST: Estimated $1.5 billion

Built on landfill for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, Treasure Island will get 8,000 homes, 235,000 square feet of retail and three hotels, plus 300 acres of open space. Developers plan to protect against seas 3 feet higher with a berm that could be raised over decades.

Hunters Point Shipyard & Candlestick Point

Photo courtesy of the City and County of San Francisco, Office of Community Investments and Infrastructures Hunters Point Shipyard

700 acres, mixed-use development (San Francisco)
DEVELOPERS: Lennar Urban | STATUS: Construction starts 2017-2018 | COST: Estimated $8 billion

Former naval shipbuilding area to become 12,000 homes, and nearly 3 million square feet of office, commercial and retail space. A mall and 220-room hotel planned at Candlestick Point. Buildings will be set back and raised 4.6 feet above the current 100-year flood level at Hunters Point and 3 feet at former Candlestick Park site.

Burlingame Point

Photo courtesy of Burlingame Point

20 acres, mixed-use development (Burlingame)
DEVELOPERS: H&Q Asia Pacific, Genzon Property Group | STATUS: Construction starts late 2015 | COST: $300 million

Six buildings with office, life sciences and retail space are planned. The environmental statement acknowledges flood risk due to sea rise. Developers pledge to design buildings in the floodplain to remain dry if the bay crests 7.1 feet above current levels.

Lincoln Centre Campus

Photo courtesy of BioMed Realty Trust

20 acres, mixed-use development (Foster City)
DEVELOPERS: BioMed Realty Trust Inc. | STATUS: Begins 2016 | COST: Estimated $149 million

Three new buildings with 555,000 square feet of laboratory and office space would be leased by San Diego-based biotechnology company Illumina Inc. for 15 years. Environmental report says existing 10-foot levees would block 1.5 feet of sea rise (plus “100-year extreme high tide”) expected by 2050, or a tsunami, making risks “less-than-significant.”

Redwood City Saltworks

Photo courtesy of Google

1,433-acre, residential (Redwood City)
DEVELOPERS: DMB Pacific Ventures | STATUS: Withdrawn | COST: Unknown

Original plan would bring 12,000 homes to Cargill industrial salt ponds near Dumbarton Bridge. Withdrawn in 2012 after fierce public battle. Developer’s attorney said “there is no time frame for any new proposal at this time.” EPA is studying whether the Cargill-owned property falls under the federal Clean Water Act. (Initial $1.8 billion cost estimate represented labor expenses over 30 years.

Crossing 900

Photo courtesy of Hunter/Strom Properties

2.4 acres, mixed-use development (Redwood City)
DEVELOPERS: Kilroy Realty Corp., Hunter/Storm Properties | STATUS: Est. completion 2017 | COST: Estimated $180 million

Two buildings totaling 334,000 square feet next to Caltrain for Cloud storage company Box Inc. Redwood City Downtown Precise Plan says a “limited portion” of this development zone is vulnerable to 4.6 feet of sea rise, but stresses “uncertainty” in climate predictions. Developer representatives declined to comment.

Pete’s Harbor/ Blu Harbor

Photo courtesy of the Redwood City Planning Department

14 acres, residential (Redwood City)
DEVELOPERS: RWC Harbor Communities | STATUS: Construction starts “soon” | COST: $76 million

Plan includes 411 homes and a new marina between Smith Slough and Redwood Creek, west of the Cargill Saltworks. A 2003 environmental statement for this and surrounding areas predicts 1.3 feet of sea level rise by 2036.

Facebook West

Photo courtesy of Matt Harnack / Facebook

22-acre corporate headquarters (Menlo Park)
DEVELOPERS: Gehry Partners | STATUS: Complete | COST: Estimated $185 million

A pedestrian tunnel links the 1.4 billion-member social network’s existing headquarters and this new campus, centered on a 430,000-square-foot building, with a 9-acre green rooftop. Designed by Frank Gehry. Occupied space, with room for 2,800 employees, is elevated to avoid floods, and basement designed to resist rising ground water as sea levels change.

North Bayshore Development

Photo courtesy of Google

650 acres, mixed-use development (Mountain View)
DEVELOPERS: Many | STATUS: Unknown | COST: Undetermined

Google, LinkedIn, Intuit, Microsoft and others competed to build 2.2 million square feet of allowed office space on a former tidal marsh. LinkedIn was awarded 60 percent. City proposes levees, floodwalls, pumps and erosion protection. Environmental report says this would protect against 2.6 feet of sea rise (called “worst case”) by 2067.

Google Moffett Federal Airfield

Photo courtesy of NASA

1,000 acres, mixed-use development (Mountain View)
DEVELOPERS: Planetary Ventures | STATUS: Undisclosed | COST: Estimated $200 million

Google has leased part of the former airfield, including three hangars, another building, two runways and a golf course, for 60 years from NASA for aviation and robotics research. It plans renovations to three gargantuan hangars visible from Highway 101, and would manage the flight operations building, two runways and a private golf course. The environmental review is not yet public.

Google Moffett Place Campus

55-acre, mixed use development (Sunnyvale)
DEVELOPERS: Jay Paul Co. | STATUS: Started in 2013 | COST: Estimated $1 billion

Google leased this land next to Moffett Field in a current 100-year flood zone and plans to build six eight-story buildings and a two-story “amenities building,” totaling 1.8 million square feet. A draft environmental statement asserts the development would not expose people or structures to injury or loss as a result of flooding.

Centennial Gateway

Photo courtesy of the Montana Property Group

8.4-acre, mixed-use development (Santa Clara)
DEVELOPERS: Montana Property Group, Related California | STATUS: Starts construction 2016 | COST: Estimated $400 million

Former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana is among investors in a 622,000-square-foot office and retail development planned near Levi’s Stadium, where the NFL team plays. The project includes office and retail space, plus a Montana-themed restaurant. The environmental review is not yet public.

Alameda Point Site A

68-acre, mixed-use development (Former Naval Air Station Alameda)
DEVELOPERS: Alameda Point Partners | STATUS: Construction 2016-2029 | COST: Estimated $500 million

The former naval air station, shuttered in the 1990s, could get 800 more homes and 600,000 square feet of commercial space. Builder says it “protects against sea level rise as well as a 100-year storm” by raising land and building levees or floodwalls. “Additional flood protection measures” possible if sea level rise is worse than expected.

Brooklyn Basin Project

Photo courtesy of Signature Development Group

64-acre, mixed-use development (Oakland)
DEVELOPERS: Signature Development Group, Zarsion Holdings Group | STATUS: Completion 2024 | COST: Estimated $1.5 billion

Oakland’s largest redevelopment in decades could add 3,100 homes (465 below market rate), 200,000 square feet of commercial space and 32 acres of open space. Would renovate marina at Oakland Estuary. Developers plan to raise land about 3 feet and say they are using Bay Conservation and Development Commission projections for sea level rise.

Oakland Army Base

Photo courtesy of California Capital & Investment Group

360-acre, mixed-use development (West Oakland)
DEVELOPERS: California Capital & Investment Group, Prologis, City of Oakland, Port of Oakland | STATUS: Completion 2018-2019 | COST: Estimated $1.2 billion

Construction on this phase of the transformation of the former Oakland Army Base into a “world class intermodal hub” connecting cargo ships with trains and trucks started in 2013. The land — dredged bay sediment — is still settling. Engineers would “densify” the soil and raise it at least 1.3 feet.

Jack London Square

Photo courtesy of Ellis Partners LLC

12 acres, mixed-use development (Oakland)
DEVELOPERS: Jack London Square Ventures | STATUS: Completion 2020 | COST: Estimated $400 million

The popular waterfront commercial and residential area along the Oakland Estuary is being expanded to add office space, a 1,700-seat movie complex, supermarkets, restaurants and a 250-room hotel. A recent update to the environmental statement claims no significant flooding risk but does not detail its methodology.

San Leandro Shoreline

52 acres, mixed-use development (San Leandro)
DEVELOPERS: Cal Coast Cos. | STATUS: Construction starts 2016 | COST: At least $200 million

Plan includes 352 homes, 150,000 square feet of offices, a 200-room hotel, conference center, restaurants, library, amphitheater and recreational space with artificial beach. Cal Coast CEO Edward Miller said the firm is “very aware of the sea level issue” and is working with the city, Army Corps of Engineers and Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

Data Sources

Sea level rise: Projections for San Francisco flooding are from U.S. Geological Survey LiDAR data from 2011, using sea rise scenarios projected by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Total flood estimates are approximations; the estimate of 3.4 feet of storm surge is a baywide average. This map incorporates a dynamic computer model from Our Coast, Our Future, showing that floods can vary by location.

Outside San Francisco, these projections are based on metric elevations, which we converted to feet to provide the best match for San Francisco’s scenarios. (See the interactive version: ourcoastourfuture.org.)

Different bay-wide flooding models using ocean dynamics have been produced by FEMA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the nonprofit research group Climate Central.

Development: Information about projects in San Francisco comes from the Planning Commission, Department of Building Inspection and Port of San Francisco. Baywide maps derived from environmental impact reports, developer websites, and news articles and maps in the San Francisco Business Times, Silicon Valley Business Times and San Francisco Chronicle. Areas are approximate, calculated using the Spatial Analysis toolbox in ArcMap. Some elevations have changed due to construction since the last aerial elevation survey.

The post Interactive Map: A Baywide Building Boom Threatened by Rising Waters appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Many objections to preparing aggressively for sea level rise center on the uncertainty in projections about how quickly global warming will cause the oceans to expand. But the science is increasingly clear.

A 2012 study of the effects of climate change on the West Coast, published by the National Research Council, found that average high tides will be about 3 feet higher in San Francisco Bay by 2100, under the “most likely” scenario. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Climate Assessment, the National Research Council and several independent research groups have all hit on similar numbers.

Most of the models also have an upper range, defined in terms of statistically less probable events or as a worst-­case scenario in which the world continues its business­ as ­usual growth in greenhouse gas pollution. Under several predictions, the seas would rise about 4.6 feet by 2100.

But it could get worse: Add 3.4 feet of surge during a “100 ­year storm” — severe weather with a 1 percent chance of happening in any year — and the total rise could hit 8 feet during such an event. No one knows how likely that is, but there is reason to be pessimistic. Sea level rise so far has tracked the upper bound of past projections, according to observations in recent years.

Downward shifts in land elevations due to earthquakes or depletion of aquifers by cities and farms facing drought could make that flooding even worse. The National Research Council predicts that this subsidence could depress land height by an average of 6 to 11 inches by 2100 along the California coast south of Cape Mendocino. This would effectively raise the total upper- range flood scenario by a similar amount.

Moreover, sea rise is likely to accelerate this century and after 2100 — in part due to disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which scientists reported last year will eventually add at least 10 feet of water to the global ocean. As climate change makes our weather overall more violent, it becomes increasingly difficult to define a “100­ year flood.”

In his book, “High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis,” oceanographer John Englander noted that if all the land ice on Earth melted, seas would rise more than 200 feet. That would transform the San Francisco Peninsula into an archipelago.

San Francisco officials have so far reacted with caution. But residents may take heart from one bit of advice enshrined in the city’s Environment Code in 2003 requiring city departments to act — and approve new developments — based on the “least environmentally harmful alternatives,” considering “both immediate and long­-term consequences.”

“Where threats of serious or irreversible damage to people or nature exist,” the ordinance states, “lack of full scientific certainty about cause and effect shall not be viewed as sufficient reason for the City to postpone cost effective measures to prevent the degradation of the environment or protect the health of its citizens. Any gaps in scientific data uncovered by the examination of alternatives will provide a guidepost for future research, but will not prevent the City from taking protective action.”

Interactive sea level rise maps from public and private agencies:

 Pacific Institute

View the Pacific Institute’s report

Surging Seas, a project of Climate Central

Our Coast Our Future

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

CAL-Adapt

The post As Science Gets Better, Dramatic Sea Rise Seems More Certain appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.