The Toxic Secret Under San Francisco’s Most Expensive Neighborhood

There's a sliver of San Francisco's waterfront that most people walk by without realizing that they're walking by one of the most consequential redevelopment battles. It's right between Fort Mason, the Marina Green, and some of San Francisco's most expensive real estate with postcard views. And underneath all of it, buried in the mud, is the toxic legacy of an industrial past that dates back more than a century that the city's trying to transform into a brand new park and redeveloped harbor space. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco, and today we're talking about one of the most fascinating and controversial waterfront projects going on in San Francisco right now, the transformation of Gas House Cove, also known as the East Harbor, at San Francisco's Marina. After years of lawsuits, community meetings, political blowback, environmental studies, and neighborhood controversy, San Francisco just approved a concept design that could transform this derelict marina basin into a new waterfront destination. And in this video, we're gonna do a deep dive into all of it, how this small piece of waterfront became the center of a huge debate about politics, environmental cleanup, public space, and private views. And I'll tell you what the future has in store for this toxic waste site. Let's get right to it and start with an overview of Gas House Cove. Gas House Cove is the historic name for what is now the East Harbor of San Francisco's Marina. The Marina Yacht Harbor is made up of two main harbor areas, the East Harbor and the West Harbor. The Marina extends from Laguna Street in the east to Baker Street in the west, with Fort Mason on one side, Marina Green in the middle, and the yacht clubs, docks, parking areas, and public parkland woven throughout the space. Today, when people think of the Marina, they're usually thinking about the grand open lawn space at Marina Green, the yacht clubs, the big bridge views, Alcatraz views, joggers, dog walkers, all of that. But before this area became one of the most desirable recreational and residential parts of the city, it had a very different past. The Marina was historically marsh, tideland, industrial land, and fill, And Gas House Cove got its name because this area was near a manufactured gas plant. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, cities like San Francisco used manufactured gas plants to produce gas from things like coal and oil. The gas was used for lighting, heating, and other urban needs before, you know, natural gas really took off. So these plants were critical for growing cities, but they were incredibly dirty. They generated waste products like tars and residues containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, often called PAHs, And at high concentrations, PAHs can pose serious health and environmental risks. At Gas House Cove, those contamination issues trace back to the North Beach Manufactured Gas Plant, which was operated by a predecessor of PG&E, the San Francisco Gas Light Company, in the marina right near the East Harbor. Over time, after the gas plant was shuttered, the harbor was expanded into the area of the East Harbor that we know today at the marina. And I'm gonna get into how it was discovered that that East Harbor was contaminated. But before I do, if you could do me a huge favor, if you like videos about San Francisco real estate, lifestyle, current events, new developments, or its incredible history, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying or selling a place in San Francisco and have questions about what all the changes we're seeing mean for our local real estate market, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate, and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the country. Be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now back to how the East Harbor's toxic state was discovered and what the future has in store for Gas House Cove. The East Harbor is bound by Fort Mason on the east, Marina Boulevard on the south, and Marina Green on the west. And the current configuration was constructed in the 1960s when the facility was transferred to the city from the state. By the 1990s, the city was working on doing maintenance dredging at the East Harbor. That's normal operations in a marina, especially one like the East Harbor that has sedimentation and shallow waters. But when the city started the permitting process and doing environmental and soil analysis of the site, That's when they discovered PAHs in the soil, and the elevated levels of those harmful chemicals that they discovered impacted the Recreation and Parks Department's ability to get the necessary permits and to fund the work. Once contamination like that is discovered, everything gets more expensive and time-consuming. You have more tests, more permitting, more regulatory oversight. It becomes substantially more difficult to get the work done, and that's one of the most important things to understand about waterfront projects like this. The public sees a dock, beautiful lawn space, proposed park, You know, it's a beautification project for the neighborhood that everyone's really happy about. But below the surface, there's often a second project invisible to the eye that is extremely consequential. The soil, the sediment, the groundwater, the old industrial fill, the permitting, the environmental review, the mitigation measures, the state and federal agencies, and perhaps most importantly, the question of liability. So what does the city do about this once they discovered the contamination? Well, something that we have become all too familiar with here in San Francisco, the city sues PG&E. In 2001, Through the lawsuit, the city took the position that PG&E was liable through their predecessor that contaminated the site. And over the next 20 years, litigation, investigation, and negotiations dragged on. That was until 2021 when the parties finalized a settlement that would address contamination and create the framework for a better public waterfront. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2021 that PG&E would pay up to $190 million to settle the pollution case, with the settlement calling for PG&E to clean up the pollution in the East Harbor, replace failing docks, and help fund public access improvements at both the East and West Harbors. About $30 million of that $190 million would actually be paid for by the city, but not out of the city's general fund. PG&E was gonna fork over the full $190 million upfront, and the city would pay up to $30 million back to PG&E for the work, but out of revenues in the future earned from the docks at the marina. So PG&E's actual responsibility arising out of the settlement agreement is around $160 million. Okay, so we know who's paying for it, But like, how does this actually work? How do we clean up something like this? The Regional Water Quality Control Board is the lead regulatory agency for the cleanup, and they're the ones that have set targets, mechanisms, and post-remediation monitoring requirements. And the process is pretty complicated. Demolishing existing docks and berths, dredging northern portions of the East Harbor and near the East Harbor entrance, targeted removal of sediment with elevated PAH concentrations, and placing engineered caps over the sediment to address exposure pathways in the future. Now, importantly, the plan does not call for removing every potentially harmful piece of sediment. Studies conducted have shown that when harmful chemicals like PHAs build up in the ground, it's rare that they actually move from where they rest. But when you dredge the marina and dig too deep into the sediment, you do risk exposure. So that's why they're doing partial dredging, not extremely deep dredging, and then they're placing a cap on what's left. It's a bit of a balance. They're removing what can be moved without risking displacement, and then putting an engineered cap over the problem to prevent future exposure. Now, as part of these cleanup efforts, a portion of the docks and berths in the East Harbor need to be moved, and that's where a lot of the controversy comes up. The city needs to preserve marina functionality and maintain enough slips for the harbor to sustain itself financially. Remember, they need to pay for part of the work and keep it operational. So once they decided they need to remove berths from the East Harbor, the question became, where does the city put them? That specific issue led to the first neighborhood controversy over how to deal with the cleanup. Early versions of the plan proposed moving a number of the berths from the East Harbor to the West Harbor, which sits a lot closer to the Marina Green and the big open views that define the Marina. And for locals, that was a problem. For many people, including me, this is where people go on runs, bike rides, walk their dogs, watch Fleet Week, all while taking in incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the bay. And for residents on Marina Boulevard in particular, they love their views. They paid a ton of money for their houses because they have these incredible views, and they want to keep those views and protect the property values. So when people saw a proposal that moved a lot of the berths from the East Harbor into the West Harbor, creating a more dense West Harbor that potentially threatened those views and threatened access, it became a huge issue. Everyone wants cleanup. Nobody wants environmental contamination. Everybody loves a brand new public park, So in theory, everyone's aligned on everything, but once the physical manifestations of plans begin to become clear, that's when the political fractures start. For marina neighbors, the concern was views and the character of the waterfront. For boaters, the concern was preserving slip access, fuel service, and marina functionality. For the city, the concern was financial sustainability and environmental compliance. For PG&E, the concern was completing a legally required cleanup under a defined settlement agreement.. And for the broader public, the question was whether the city could use this process to create something better than a fenced-off, deteriorated, underused waterfront that exists today. So the politics really kicked into gear, and Marina residents eventually won this battle. In February of 2024, the Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that limited West Harbor expansion. Specifically, it prohibited environmental review or otherwise implementing a project to clean up and reconstruct the Marina Yacht Harbor in a manner that would extend the West Harbor Marina by more than 150 feet from its current boundary. Basically, it prevented the West Harbor from becoming a lot more dense than it currently is in a way that would potentially block the views for locals. So that gave rise to a new challenge. If the berths and docks of the East Harbor can't be moved over to the West Harbor, where do they go? Because they have to go somewhere. And that's where the current proposal comes in. The current iteration of the project is officially titled the San Francisco Marina Improvement and Remediation Project. And it was conceived with help from one of the most renowned landscape design firms in the country, Field Operations, who has participated in the design of incredible parks like the Presidio Tunnel Tops and New York's High Line. And in April 2026, the Recreation and Parks Commission officially approved a concept design that would solve the issue that I talked about earlier. The new project concept is now centered around 3 main areas or main phases. First, improving the southeast corner, of the East Harbor. Second, improving the northern portion of the East Harbor. And third, improving the West Harbor. The most visible public-facing change is the first part, changes from the southern portion of the East Harbor. The area is now slated to become approximately 5 acres of protected open water, creating access for small non-motorized water recreation and non-boating activities. And that's a big shift. Instead of trying to preserve the space as a functioning marina, they're now creating basically a new public park right in the water. Think things like kayak access, a community dock, a softened shoreline, improved bay trail, nature exploration area, lawn area, viewpoints, volleyball courts, public restrooms, lighting, terraces, plazas, electrical improvements, a visitor dock, and improvements to the existing harbor breakwater to allow public access. The second part, which are the improvements to the north part of the East Harbor, is ensuring ongoing functionality of the marina as a marina, eliminating that southeast eastern portion of the East Harbor and not moving those berths and docks to the West Harbor means they got to go somewhere and they're going to go north. So the north part of the East Harbor will still remain an operating, functioning marina. That proposal is not without its own controversy, though, and mainly from boaters. The number of slips is being reduced from the prior proposal and the size of the slips is actually increasing, which means that it's more of targeting larger boats, which is a different, you know, owner profile, different user profile. So there are some trade-offs here that are impacting not just residents, but also the boating community as well. And then there's the fuel dock, which is a major component of the West Harbor changes. The Gashouse Cove fuel dock is a really important part of boating infrastructure at the marina, provides diesel and gasoline service to boats in the area. And the current proposal on the table is to move it from the East Harbor over to the West Harbor. All of this sounds great, and it sounds like things are actually moving toward breaking ground, but like, what is the real timeline? The power The powers that be are working to finalize construction documentation with the hopes of soliciting bids later this year, with construction to start in the middle of 2027. And the hope is that the public access spaces will open in 2029. But of course, you know, the timeline might still shift. Major waterfront projects like this are incredibly complex. There are a lot of different constituents involved with a lot of different views. So there still could be delays. But the April 2026 approval is a major milestone because it's now gone from, you know, an abstract concept design into something that's more concrete and can actually move forward. The city now has an approved concept. The legal settlement framework has been finalized. The funding structure exists. The remediation approach has regulatory oversight. The project has survived a major political fight. And now the next phase is about turning the design into construction documents with permits and bids and eventually physical work. And this is all great news for the marina in my view. There's no question that the remediation has to happen and that the East Harbor needs a makeover. It's one of our most iconic waterfronts, and in its current state, it's really not nice to look at. And if we can get a beautiful waterfront park out of it without completely destroying our boating infrastructure, without destroying people's views, all while setting the site up for safe occupation into the future, that sounds like a big win to me. Everyone is compromising in some way, but in projects like this, it's almost impossible for everybody to be 100% happy. So I'm happy to see it finally at least look like it's moving forward. Of course, I would love to hear what you think about the project in the comments. And remember, if you like videos about projects like this or about other projects in San Francisco, all things San Francisco real estate, lifestyle, current events, or new developments, or its incredible history, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying or selling a place in the city and have questions about what all of this means for our local real estate market, what all the other changes we're seeing mean for our local real estate market, reach out to me. I've lived in the city for over 13 years and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the country. Be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you want to learn more about some other exciting waterfront projects going on in the city at like Mission Rock, Treasure Island, Pier 70, the Potrero Power Station, I've got videos on all of those. I'll link some in the description below. Go check them out. I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one. Hola, ¿cómo estás? Hola, ¿cómo estás?