SAN FRANCISCO - UCSF's new 15-story Parnassus Heights hospital won't need to comply with the building height and size restrictions imposed on the rest of the community through local building regulations, because the hospital is being built to advance the interests of the state government, a state appeals court has ruled.
On June 13, a three-justice panel of the California First District Appellate Court delivered the win for the University of California in its bid to defeat lawsuits from a local community group seeking to halt construction of the proposed University of California San Francisco medical facility at the school's Parnassus campus.
Since 2021, UCSF has sought to move ahead with plans to construct a 15-story, 900,000-square-foot hospital in Parnassus, on the site of the former Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.
California First District Appellate Justice Victor Rodriguez
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According to UCSF, construction on the new hospital is expected to continue through 2029, with the hospital opening to the public in 2030.
University officials have said the hospital would increase hospital capacity on the campus and provide more beds for inpatient services. The university said the project is needed to meet community needs.
In the spring of 2023, a group called the Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition filed suit to stop the hospital project from moving forward as planned. According to the Parnassus Coalition website, the group believes the project "will place a massive 16 story building in a quiet residential neighborhood," which they say "will result in housing shortages, traffic congestion, harm to wildlife, loss of open space and increased cancer risk to nearby residents."
Their lawsuit, however, specifically asserted the project should not be allowed because it violates local building regulations, which limit building height and size in such a neighborhood, and would create an alleged public nuisance in the process.
UCSF, however, argued the such local regulations shouldn't apply to their hospital project under state law, because the project is being built to further UCSF's academic mission, which they say is a "governmental activity" exempt from local regulation.
A San Francisco County Superior Court judge sided with the Parnassus Coalition, saying more proceedings are needed to determine if the hospital should actually be considered a "proprietary activity," rather than a purely public, governmental project. The lower court issued a temporary stay, halting the project.
On appeal, however, the First District justices said the lower court was wrong.
In the ruling, Justice Rodriguez said the University of California is considered an "arm of the state," as it was created under the state constitution as a "public trust ... with full powers of organization and government." And the justices noted state law generally exempts state governmental agencies from needing to comply with local building and zoning regulations if they are acting in a governmental capacity.
In this case, the justices said, they believed UCSF was acting in such a capacity, seeking to build a hospital in furtherance of its academic mission. They said this amounted to "governmental activity."
"The Coalition concedes UCSF provides clinical services and that the construction of a hospital — albeit a smaller one than the New Hospital — at Parnassus would advance the Regents’ 'educational mission.' That concession is fatal to the Coalition’s complaint," the justices wrote.
"Even though the proposed New Hospital may be larger and produce greater revenue, it still has a relation to the Regents’ governmental functions and is thus entitled to immunity."
The justices further said that immunity is not undone by the argument that "the New Hospital may increase UCSF's revenue." Nor does it matter that the immunity could give UCSF an advantage in competing with private health care providers.
"Here, there is no dispute that construction of a hospital at Parnassus would advance the Regents’ academic mission," the justices said. "... Constructing the New Hospital would similarly advance the Regents’ academic mission, even accepting as true the Coalition’s allegations that UCSF’s clinical services provided by the New Hospital would extend beyond those strictly necessary to satisfy this mission."
UCSF has been represented by attorneys Raymond A. Cardozo and Sarah Johansen, of the firm of Reed Smith, of San Francisco; Anagha Dandekar Clifford, of University of California; and Charles Olson, Philip Scirankaand Carolyn Lee, of the firm of Lubin Olson & Niewiadomski, of San Francisco.
The Parnassus Neighborhood Coalition was represented by attorneys Patrick M. Soluri and Osha R. Meserve, of Soluri Meserve, of Sacramento.
Soluri and Meserve did not reply to a request for comment on the decision.