A Peek at Treasure Island's Future

Last month the Navy agreed to transfer ownership of most of the Island back to San Francisco. Now, plans are emerging to turn the island in to eco-friendly community with condo towers, a community center, marina, retail space, and a large organic community farm.

It could even be car-free.

The Contra Costa Times reports Treasure Island: A view of the future

Plans include a range of “green” housing, from townhouses to towers, one as high as 60 stories. The buildings all will feature solar panels, and the streets are designed at 68-degree angles to draw in sun and shield against stiff winds, planners say. Most of the housing would cluster near a new ferry terminal and transit hub — the kind of layout environmentalists trumpet as an antidote to sprawl.

As much as 450,000 square feet of retail space and reuse of historic buildings will include a public market hall with boutique food outlets inside one of two historic Pan Am hangars on the island’s south end. A K-8 public school, sports park, marina, large organic farm and stormwater-friendly wetlands will occupy a big swath of the island. Aside from three historic buildings and a prominent U.S. Department of Labor Job Corps campus, the plan is to level every building on the island and start fresh.

The proposal also calls for 30 percent affordable housing, including 435 units for homeless families, and upscale housing and a hotel among the woodsy outlooks of Yerba Buena Island. Being part of San Francisco, the design mostly faces west, its back to the East Bay.

…

One question — whether there’s a market for the windswept, traffic-challenged island — doesn’t seem to faze the project’s supporters. The question is economics: If the housing market lags, the expected 16-year building plan will stretch out, leaving the island thin on residents to support strong public transit. More than 80 percent of future Treasure Islanders will be empty nesters, singles and young families, according to a 2006 study commissioned by the city.

“I think it would be a very, very desirable place for people who really appreciate living a sustainable lifestyle, and ideally, a car-free lifestyle or a car-minimal lifestyle,” said Ruth Gravanis, an environmental activist who has long pushed a green vision for the island. “The potential is there to create something that’s very beautiful and desirable.”