CASE BACKGROUND
The Marina Safeway Development Project is a planned 850-unit, 22-story residential development on the site of the Safeway in San Francisco’s Marina district, at 15 Marina Boulevard. The project site has a known history of being contaminated with toxic waste left by PG&E industrial works over the prior two centuries. Despite these environmental and health issues, for unknown reasons the SF Planning Department is pushing the project forward without requiring the developer to follow its legal obligations.
The lawsuit seeks to require the City, PG&E, and the developer to comply with their legal obligations to adequately investigate and remediate the site of the Marina Safeway Development Project. Plaintiffs YesAnd Foundation, Neighborhoods United SF, and four nearby residents allege that the project is being rammed through by the City and developers Align Real Estate and Marina Property Owner, LLC, without regard for the law or the impacts of the project. The lawsuit also alleges that PG&E is responsible for the hazardous waste and must ensure it is properly cleaned up.
This lack of investigation and remediation stems from the City’s allegedly improper application of the streamlined approval process available under a relatively new California law, AB 2011, which creates a process for streamlined review of certain housing development projects that meet specified site and project criteria. The complaint alleges the project does not meet the statutory requirements for streamlined review, so the City improperly allowed the project to bypass necessary environmental and other reviews.
In addition to challenging the City’s determination that the project qualifies for streamlined review, the complaint also challenges the lack of investigation into the hazardous impacts of PG&E’s prior activities at the site. PG&E operated a steam electric plant at the project site from about 1900 to 1942, including a storage tank holding more than 1.2 million gallons of petroleum products, and it operated the North Beach Manufactured Gas Plant on five blocks immediately to the south and west.
As alleged, the proposed site is contaminated with a toxic soup of hazardous wastes left behind from PG&E’s activities at the site and in its immediate vicinity. Even though neither PG&E, the developer, nor the City has conducted or required a full investigation of the full nature, extent, or location of these wastes, the City has pushed the project through a streamlined process that eliminates the environmental review, public hearings, and notice that state law and the U.S. Constitution require.
Even though the project does not meet the statutory criteria and the statutorily-mandated endangerment assessment has not been completed, the City improperly approved the project for streamlining on August 13, 2026.
