The City of San Francisco has three important pieces of policy on the cleanup of Hunters Point Shipyard. The first, Proposition P, is the result of a ballot initiative passed by the voters in 2000 and adopted unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in August 2001. The second is a Memorandum of Agreement between the City and Navy signed by Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr. in November 2000. The third, the Conveyance Agreement, is a framework that establishes the criteria, including environmental conditions, under which the City will accept property proposed for transfer by the Navy. Click titles to see the actual documents referenced in the descriptions.

An additional important document is the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and Lennar/BVHP's December 2003 Disposition and Development Agreement, a detailed purchase agreement that includesresponsibilities and financial arrangements for the first phase of the Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Plan.

Proposition P

Proposition P was a landmark voter initiative placed on the ballot by Supervisor Tom Ammiano, and former Supervisors Mark Leno (now State Assembly member), Michael Yaki, and Sue Bierman. Authored by Arc Ecology's Executive Director, Proposition P sought to establish what is called the "Community Acceptance Criteria" for the cleanup of the Shipyard under federal toxic cleanup guidelines. The reason for the plebiscite was to send a message to the Navy and USEPA articulating what the voters of San Francisco wanted achieved at the end of the cleanup program. Proposition P was the first initiative in the country to give the voters a voice in the extent to which a Superfund site should be cleaned up.

By the time the San Francisco voters pamphlete was completed, Proposition P was endorsed by Supervisors Tom Ammiano (President), Sue Bierman, Amos Brown, Leslie Katz, Mark Leno, Mabel Teng, Mike Yaki, and Leland Yee and a host of Bayview residents, community activists, environmental organizations and Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. Proposition P received 202,376 votes, a resounding 87% of votes cast. In August 2001, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell of District Ten presented a resolution to formally adopt Proposition P as City policy. The resolution was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors.

Memorandum of Agreement

The HPS Memorandum of Agreement is a conceptual agreement outlining a process and timeline for negotiating and transferring property from the Navy to the City of San Francisco. The MOA includes language that references Proposition P as the City's policy for the cleanup of the Hunters Point Shipyard.

The Hunters Point Shipyard Conveyance Agreement (2.2MB PDF)

The HPS Conveyance Agreement is a framework for accepting the transfer of Shipyard property that was developed by the City, with input from a focus group of Bayview residents and environmental organizations operating under the auspices of District Ten Supervisor Sophie Maxwell's office. The language of the Conveyance Agreement requires that the Navy fulfill certain criteria before a Shipyard parcel could be transferred to the City. Among the criteria was compliance with Proposition P standards.

On March 31, 2004, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy signed the Conveyance Agreement with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. According to this agreement, the Hunters Point Shipyard will be transferred to the City and County of San Francisco when the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the Navy agree that it is clean. The property can be transferred one parcel at a time, as the Navy's cleanup of each parcel is completed and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, and an independent consultant for the Redevelopment Agency concur that it is clean enough to support future uses. If the Redevelopment Agency agrees, the Navy will be able to give them properties that have not been cleaned up.

Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA)

Once Hunters Point Shipyard has been cleaned up and transferred to the City of San Francisco, it will be redeveloped. The official land use plan for the entire Shipyard (as explained in a document called the Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Plan, from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency) includes a mix of housing, light industry, office, and open space. The first step in implementing the Redevelopment Plan is the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's agreement (the December 2003 Disposition and Development Agreement) with Lennar/BVHP, the company selected by the Redevelopment Agency. The December 2003 Disposition and Development Agreement, more commonly called the DDA, is a detailed purchase agreement that spells out Lennar's and the Agency's responsibilities in addition to financial arrangements for the first phase of the Redevelopment Plan. It covers only a portion of the Shipyard that will be developed mostly as housing. Lennar is responsible for preparing the site for development, including construction utilities and streets. It will be up to Lennar whether to develop the housing themselves or to sell the construction-ready parcels to other developers. The Redevelopment Agency will keep a portion of the land to build affordable housing and for uses that are supposed to be determined by the community.