This is a video of the meeting held Wednesday night and regarding the Urban Design plan for the proposed Bayview Hunter's point Lennar development.

The video captures the anger that community members had over the process, expressing a desire to see the committee just approve the plan and build the project, but making sure the site is cleaned up and jobs are provided for them, It's the second video on this community process and includes the roll call vote. You can hear who voted and how they voted.

This blogger claims Transbay Terminal Executive Director Maria Averdi will drive more development to San Francisco and from Oakland.

Time will tell.

The second annual International African Marketplace (IAM) brought music, dance, food, art and crafts of the African Diaspora to the Bayview-Hunters Point district on three consecutive weekends in September.

The IAM ran from 12 to 5 p.m. on September 15-16, 22-23 and 29-30 at the Bayview Opera House located at 4705 Third Street at Oakdale Avenue, easily accessible from the MUNI "T" line. Admission was free.

The IAM is a celebratory series of events and activities of cultural diversity representing the African Diaspora and its cultural influences worldwide. It serves as a venue for all cultures of the African Diaspora and as a rallying point for coordinating resources in the African-American business, social service and art communities. It further serves as a cultural destination for tourists and residents.

By presenting global goods and wares of the African Diaspora, local vendors will recreate a cultural destination venue within the Bayview-Hunters Point community that illuminates the range, depth and diversity of the African-American experience. This extraordinary event includes the finest world music, jazz and rhythm and blues performers, from Brasil Brasil to Pete Escovedo and Kotoja to the African Highlife Band. Children's activities include mask making, mural painting and T-shirt design, while adults can attend and learn African step, salsa dancing and hair braiding.

The IAM is part of Lennar's Community Benefits Program at the redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard. A permanent location for the IAM at the Shipyard is currently under consideration.

Kofi Bonner's attracted a major financial backer for Lennar.

Lennar attracts major backer for S.F. projects
James Temple, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Lennar Corp., the busiest housing developer in San Francisco, landed a significant investor for its proposed mega-projects at Hunters Point shipyard, Candlestick Point and Treasure Island.
Scala Real Estate Partners has signed letters of intent, one step short of binding contracts, to secure an at least 30 percent equity interest in the developments. Collectively, the projects include at least 17,000 housing units, 700,000 square feet of retail and entertainment, 350 acres of open space and, should the 49ers agree to stay in San Francisco, a new football stadium.
The Irvine investment and development company, founded by former executives of the Perot Group's real estate division, will initially invest tens of millions of dollars in the projects, co-managing partner Frank Zaccanelli said.
Kofi Bonner, regional vice president for Lennar, said that the majority of a $200 million fund announced by Scala in October 2007 would eventually land in the San Francisco projects and that the two companies would have equal ownership interests.
If completed, the agreement would satisfy a requirement made by the city when it renewed Lennar's exclusive negotiating agreement for Candlestick Point: that the company secures a partner with the financial wherewithal to ensure that the estimated $1.4 billion project would move forward no matter the market conditions.
Some have raised concerns about Lennar's ability to make good on its promises amid the mortgage meltdown and real estate downturn. Late last year, the Miami home builder reported the worst results in its 53-year history, a $513.9 million third-quarter loss after writing off nearly $1 billion to account for depreciating assets.
"It's hard to attack the project on its merits, so for those who have chosen to attack Lennar, (the agreement) shows this project isn't about them or any other single developer," said Michael Cohen, director of the mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. "This project is about smart land use for southeast San Francisco."
Voters will likely be able to weigh in on the estimated $1.4 billion Candlestick Point project on the June 3 ballot. Backers turned in 14,000 signatures, nearly twice the amount required, to the city's Department of Elections on Feb. 1. Supervisor Chris Daly is pushing a competing measure that would require half the housing developed in the area be sold or rented at below-market rates. That's twice the level Lennar has proposed, and Bonner calls it a poison pill.

Kofi Bonner hired Carmen Policy - Matier and Ross made a mistake

Former 49ers President Carmen Policy has just been recruited by Mayor Gavin Newsom to lead the city's effort to keep the team from exiting for the South Bay - bringing the veteran football executive's long journey to build a stadium in San Francisco full circle.
Policy headed the $100 million bond measure drive in 1997 that would have helped pay for a stadium at Candlestick Point. The voters approved it, but the stadium never got built.
Now Charmin' Carmen will serve as San Francisco's go-between with the Niners and the National Football League. He will also help lead a referendum headed for the ballot next June to allow construction of a stadium at Hunters Point, along with a housing and retail development at neighboring Candlestick Point.
"I consider it unfinished business," Policy said of the assignment.
"I'm absolutely thrilled Carmen will be joining our team," Newsom said. "Carmen's track record speaks for itself."
While Policy will be reporting to the mayor's office, Lennar Corp. - which is behind the stadium and Candlestick developments - will be footing the bill for his work as well as for the ballot referendum.
Policy was at the side of then-49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo when the 1997 bond measure narrowly passed. But then came DeBartolo's fall from grace as he was caught up in a federal bribery scandal involving the former governor of Louisiana.
Team ownership transferred to DeBartolo's sister Denise and her husband, John York, Policy left to run the Cleveland Browns, and now - after many years of butting heads in San Francisco - the Yorks plan to move to Santa Clara.
Last month - on the very day Policy appeared on a Commonwealth Club panel to talk about the Niners' stadium plans - Newsom invited Policy to breakfast to ask him to help the city try to keep the team.
Policy agreed, but only on the condition that both the league and the Yorks would deal with him - assurances he soon got.
"There's still a lot of work to be done in terms of infrastructure, cleanup and financing (at the Hunters Point site), and if Carmen can help make progress in that direction, it's a very positive move," 49ers spokeswoman Lisa Lang said. "But it doesn't change the current situation of what we're doing in Santa Clara."
The arrangement allows the Yorks to continue pursuing the South Bay stadium while San Francisco works to assure the league that it has an alternative plan lined up in case the South Bay effort falls flat.
It also means that the Yorks won't actually have to campaign for the San Francisco deal - a commitment that virtually would force them to stay in the city if voters approved the plan.
"So we will be stomping the streets of San Francisco and campaigning, while they sit back and let everyone do the heavy lifting," Policy said.
Much of that lifting, by the way, is already being done by Lennar's local development rep, Kofi Bonner, who - yes - worked under Policy in Cleveland.

Hmm...If Hunter's point residents like the plan, then what's the problem?

Hunters Point residents happy with redevelopment plan
Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 26, 2007

(03-26) 21:22 PDT -- Bayview-Hunters Point residents found plenty to like Monday night in a plan to rebuild their community around a new football stadium -- even if the South Bay manages to snatch away the football.
Many of the 40 or so people at a community planning meeting said their main concern was that progress shouldn't depend too much on the team forsaking plans to relocate to the South Bay.
"It's time to move the project forward," declared Linda Richardson, who chaired the meeting of two local advisory committees, which held a joint meeting at the Southeast Community Facility a few blocks from the proposed project site.
"We love the 49ers, and we want to accommodate the team so they will stay here, but we can't be held hostage," she said.
People raised a familiar list of concerns such as parking, environmental contamination at the site, need for affordable housing, transportation and jobs for local residents. But the main question on many residents' minds seemed to be how much optimism might be justified given the financial and political realities - and a long history of disappointments.
"It's gonna happen - it has to happen," said Olin Webb, who said he has lived in the area since 1944.
Rev. Arelius Walker, pastor of True Hope Church of God in Christ on Gilman Avenue, said the project could "truly impact Bayview-Hunters Point, this entire area, in a very positive way."
Despite suspicions that previous redevelopment plans would displace long-time residents or funnel profits and jobs to outsiders, Walker said the community is more than ready to support the new plan, envisioned as a partnership of the team, the city and the Lennar Corp. development firm.
Michael Cohen of the Mayor's Office and Kofi Bonner of Lennar presented a "conceptual framework" and architectural drawings that portrayed a stunning transformation of blighted waterfront.
"The majority of people here think it's a great idea," Walker said. "I mean, what else is there waiting in the wings?"
Cohen even predicted the storied football franchise can be persuaded to reverse field and stay put given the "inevitable challenge" of building a new stadium in Santa Clara.
Richardson insisted that isn't necessary for the basic idea to move ahead through what she described as a "meticulous" planning process in the next two years.
"For the first time in the history of San Francisco we have a truly public-private development partnership that can benefit all residents," she said as the two-hour meeting adjourned.
She also underscored one of the more certain facts of life in San Francisco urban renewal projects: "There will be questions," she said.
Angelo King, chair of one of the local citizen committees, was among the first to bear that out, saying he welcomed the creativity of the project in broad sweep, but wanted to get into the details on "jobs and opportunities" for residents.
Others may want to cheer on the team as well as the redevelopment plan, but King said "our job is to review and critique."
That is expected to begin in detail at a series of meetings starting later this week. Even if all the questions are answered, construction wouldnt start until 2009.
E-mail Carl Hall at chall@sfchronicle.com

By Christine Haughney
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Lennar Corp. seemed to have snatched two dream properties when it paid $2 for the right to rebuild two former military bases in one of the nation's most expensive housing markets.

But Lennar executives have learned there's nothing easy about turning vacant military land into profitable housing developments. At Hunter's Point, a former Navy shipyard in southern San Francisco, Lennar faces demands to build more affordable houses for an economically depressed population as it tries to market homes in an area many San Franciscans consider environmentally unsafe.

Even at the closed Mare Island Navy shipyard in suburban Vallejo, the builder's success in selling homes with sweeping bay views has been overshadowed by criticism that it should have first developed job-creating commercial sites.

"It's not for the weak of heart," says Tim Ford, executive director for the Association of Defense Communities, a group based in Washington, D.C., that advises communities on base redevelopment. "It's something that you have to be able to look past all of the problems and realize the potential of a piece of land."

Lennar's experience is being closely watched because it has made the biggest plunge among home builders as the U.S. government shutters more bases.

The incentive for home builders: The government assumes responsibility for much of the costly environmental cleanup and sifting through competing community demands for the abandoned bases, limiting the builders' exposure to delays. Builders pay to construct roads and other infrastructure improvements. They profit by selling the redeveloped plots of land or newly-built homes.

At stake is the economic viability of areas around the 22 more major bases that have been ordered closed by President Bush. Among them: Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and Concord Naval Weapons Station near Oakland, Calif., both due to shut down by 2011.

While other national home builders -- including Toll Brothers Inc., based in Horsham, Pa., and Actus Lend Lease, Nashville, Tenn. -- have looked at the bases slated for closure, Miami-based Lennar is the national developer furthest along in the redevelopment process. As the nation's third-largest home builder based on number of homes built, Lennar has plucked five military-base redevelopment projects in California, which company officials say offered bases with the best large parcels near major cities.

Lennar took ownership of Mare Island land in 2003 and Hunter's Point in 2005 for $1 apiece. An affiliated company, LNR Property Corp., is helping with nonresidential redevelopment of the bases' combined 1,100 acres. The price reflects the risk of the two projects, which require more infrastructure investment than bases more immediately available for home building. In contrast, Lennar paid $649 million in 2005 for the former El Toro Marine Air Corps station, covering 3,700-acres in real-estate hotbed Orange County, Calif.

To be sure, Lennar expects both Mare Island and Hunter's Point to pay off. After investing $80 million in Mare Island, it has sold 178 homes for an average of $700,000 apiece, or nearly $125 million. It splits the profits with the city of Vallejo. The company expects to invest a similar amount at Hunter's Point. It projects a profit there by mid- to late 2007 after starting home sales.

And while military-base redevelopment represents a tiny part of Lennar's business -- in 2005, it had sales of $13.8 billion and profit of $2.4 billion -- some analysts say the move gives the company an edge over competitors. "This is not going to make or break the company," says Stephen Kim, a managing director at Citigroup Investment Research. Still, he adds, Lennar is gaining valuable experience learning to negotiate, particularly in San Francisco, a fertile area for social activism but a lucrative market for home builders. "The more resistance there is," says Mr. Kim, "the greater potential for a competitive advantage to emerge."

Lennar executives acknowledge they've encountered unexpected problems and delays in negotiating with the military, local governments and community groups. "Everybody -- including the Navy, the cities and us -- all have gone through a learning curve," says Emile Haddad, president of Lennar's Western region, which oversees these projects.

Standing on the highest mound of Hunter's Point amid neat piles of concrete left from razed military buildings, Kofi Bonner, president of Lennar's urban land division for northern California, points out the abandoned industrial warehouses where Hunter's Point opened as a shipyard in 1867. It closed in 1974, triggering three decades of rancorous on-and-off discussions over its reuse and sporadic industrial use. The area lags behind San Francisco as a whole in average household income ($41,994 compared with $55,221) and housing values (a median of $119,600 versus $396,400).

Lennar executives have pledged that a third of the 1,238 homes planned for Hunter's Point will be affordable, measured by the median household income for Hunter's Point. The home builder also has sponsored seminars on cleaning up poor credit records and joined with an affiliated mortgage company to help residents buy homes with a minimal deposit.

But some community leaders say that's not enough. Lennar's housing "may be affordable to some people, but it won't be affordable to people here in Hunter's Point," says Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the Bayview local newspaper.

Lennar's promise to create 1,000 permanent jobs over the next decade, with initiatives such as attracting the film-production industry to the base's abandoned warehouses, also has met with community skepticism.

Meanwhile, Lennar faces a marketing challenge. Though the Navy spent $400 million to clean up the area polluted partly by a national radiation-defense lab, Hunter's Point still has lower life expectancy and higher hospitalization rates for chronic diseases like diabetes compared with the rest of the city, according to Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, director of environmental health for San Francisco's health department.

"Some people are convinced that the shipyard is a radioactive, pulsating volcano of ill winds and vapors," says Scott Madison, a local businessman who chairs a citizens advisory committee.

Even along the well landscaped streets lined with Victorian homes on Mare Island, Lennar has encountered community resistance for getting its plans to build 1,400 homes off the ground faster than its efforts to build job-generating commercial and industrial space to replace the 10,000 jobs lost when the base closed in 1996.

"We would like to see the industrial go up first," says Craig Whittom, Vallejo's community-development director. A Lennar spokesman says the company has attracted more than 85 businesses that employ 2,000 and is on schedule to bring in a promised 6,784 jobs by 2013.

Vallejo officials also are pressing the home builder to preserve 502 buildings and features of the Mare Island base that the city considers historically significant. Lennar already has spent three years categorizing every building for its landmark status, architectural integrity and contributions to the Mare Island historic district.

Despite the frustrations at the two bases, Lennar's Mr. Haddad says he's optimistic both projects will help the communities and be financially rewarding for the home builder. "One thing that I love about my job," he says, "is that I can ultimately see the results of my efforts through tough times."