The Treasure Island special report is now fully online!
You can read some of the special report funded by community members like yourself through the links below. Our editorial partners - the SF Public Press did a thorough job. You can help support their efforts by taking our latest community-focused sponsorship about Net Neutrality which is worth $7. Just click the link that says "Earn Credits" above the "Fund this Story" pitch. It'll take you a few minutes - but it'll create real funds for the SF Public Press and their reporting efforts - the fruits of which you can read below.
• Can Treasure Island realize its ecotopian dream?
• Uncertain about the rising seas, developers using mid-range estimate to build up island
• Sand and silt require $137 million fix for Treasure Island
• Pollution: experts concerned about Treasure Island cleanup as seas rise
• Financial upside for developers is long-term and risky, city says
• Through two mayors, connected island developers cultivated profitable deal
• Treasure Island residents face choices for relocation
Residents of Yerba Buena and Treasure islands are divided on the relocation plan city officials have presented to the public. While many Yerba Buena residents expressed concern over maintaining their quality of life through more than a decade of construction, Treasure Island residents tended to express more support.
Joanna Luddington lives on Treasure Island. She endorsed the redevelopment and the relocation plan after a community meeting sponsored by the Treasure Island Development Authority Thursday.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Luddington said. “I’m not too worried.”
But Nate Yeakel, an eight-year resident of Yerba Buena Island, had questions about the phasing of the construction, and suspected that it might get bogged down, making the relocation of residents premature.
“We’ve really developed a sense of community,” Yeakel said. “I find it a little sad that that community is going to be dispersed.
We’re being forced to move without a lot of transparency and due process.” The process of relocating the residents has reached its early stages. The authority has begun to inform residents of about 1,000 households about their relocation options and transition benefits.
SEE YOUTUBE VIDEO OF RESIDENT AGAINST RELOCATION
SEE YOUTUBE VIDEO OF RESIDENT FOR RELOCATION
• Homebuilders Lennar uses federal taxpayer funds to balance its books
In 2006, things were looking good for Lennar, America's second-biggest homebuilder. That year, before the U.S. housing market's epic collapse, the Miami-based giant pulled down $15.6 billion in revenues and closed sales on 29,568 homes. The ink was just drying on a massive and potentially lucrative deal to transform Treasure Island with new housing complexes, and the well-connected Lennar already had secured a deal to develop the Hunters Point Shipyard that the Navy was turning over to San Francisco.
Business was booming and Lennar's books looked good — but the financial page was about to turn to a depressingly long chapter that Lennar and other homebuilding corporations helped write.
Before the deluge, Lennar parlayed its profits — and considerable political capital — into securing the trust of San Francisco leaders, who have bestowed two major military base redevelopments on the corporation. But substantial evidence suggests that Lennar's finances, much like Treasure Island itself, are not exactly resting on bedrock.
An examination of Lennar’s financial documents, and a raft of well-documented critical reports, suggests the company suffered especially deep wounds from a home-mortgage crisis that Lennar and other builders helped fuel through speculative over-building and their widespread issuing of subprime loans through subsidiary underwriting firms. Then, in a calculated bid to shore up its balance sheet, Lennar turned to Congress, the tax code, bank regulators and high-risk debt for financial salvation.
Posted by Spot. Us on 07/07/10
