The University of California San Francisco's plan to build a 1.5 million-square-foot hospital and research facility is drawing criticism from residents in the area, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
The university plans to add the facility to its Parnassus Heights campus in San Francisco, to address a severe bed shortage and create a more modern, seismically sound hospital with larger operating rooms, according to the report.
The first phase of the expansion "is intended to ensure that UCSF Medical Center can meet the growing — and currently unmet — demand for the complex adult care UCSF provides in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond," a UCSF spokesperson told the Chronicle.
Construction on the facility is slated to begin in 2023, with an opening date expected in 2029.
Some residents in the area are speaking out against the university's plan to expand, arguing the scale of the project is excessive or it will create too much congestion on Parnassus Avenue. Other residents say it would worsen the city's housing shortage by creating thousands of jobs without much housing.
At a planning commission meeting this month, resident Richard Drury compared the plan to "plunking down a Salesforce Tower in the middle of a residential neighborhood," according to the Chronicle.
Residents are calling on UCSF to outline concrete commitments to the community, including the amount of housing it will build to address the shortage.
Read the full report here.