The main destruction of Sutro Forest – from the so-called “Vegetation Management Plan” of 2018 – is already underway. But a recent Draft Environmental Impact Report (Read it here: UCSF-CPHP-Draft-EIR (1) ) developed because UCSF is making significant changes to its 2014 Long Range Development Plan, presages even further damage.

ALDEA  STUDENT HOUSING – MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION

The Aldea Student Housing, which is adjacent to Sutro Forest, was formerly subject to a “space ceiling” that limited construction there. Now it has been removed from the space ceiling, and UCSF plans to build dormitories up to 96 feet high in a 40-foot zone. This will involve demolishing the old buildings and putting the new ones on the same footprint – or possibly changing it all to a “completely reconfigured and redesigned site.” Either way, this is likely to destroy even more trees than the already painful Plan.

The pictures UCSF is using to mock-up the changes are already obsolete.

Almost all the trees along Clarendon Avenue and the corner of Christopher and Clarendon are gone. Trees along Christopher are likely to be felled as well. Essentially, the picture above can be visualized as bare of trees.

TAKING ANOTHER PIECE OF THE FOREST

In addition, UCSF is removing an area at the bottom of Medical Center Way from the forest, and removing the trees from the area. (This is near Edgewood – the purple triangle with the diagonal black bars.) In “compensation” it will add back to the Open Space Reserve an area that is already part of the Reserve. (The green space with the diagonal bars, lying between the Woods parking lot and the Surge parking lot.)

In fact, in UCSF’s prior maps of Mount Sutro Reserve, that area is shown as part of the Reserve. (Something like this has happened before. An acre was taken for the Regenerative Medicine Building – and the offered compensation didn’t happen.)

Here’s a UCSF map from 2013 that shows the area as a green part of the Open Space Reserve.

UCSF will also be felling more trees as it replaces storage tanks within the foot print of the forest.

Finally, as icing on the cake – a grove of redwood trees on Parnassus are to be felled.

UCSF HELPING CLIMATE CHANGE ALONG

As the world – and California – faces climate change, carbon-sequestering trees are one of the few “easy” ways to help fight this. Not cutting down mature trees that store – and sequester – the most carbon is the first step. In addition, the Vegetation Plan for removing thousands of trees has a potential for disaster, as what was one a damp self-sustaining forest for over 130 years dries out and weakens.

San Francisco has a 13.7% tree canopy cover, the lowest of any major city in the US. That number is from 2013, and is probably smaller by now, as a lot of tree-felling is under way.