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Hunters Point, San Francisco: Shipyard, Homes & Real Estate Guide

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

Hunters Point is the hill and former naval shipyard at San Francisco’s southeast corner, east of Third Street between India Basin and the Candlestick shoreline. On the Assessor’s 2025 roll its subdistrict, 10J, holds about 1,380 parcels, and most of the private ones are newer: roughly 630 condominium units, about 105 townhouses and only about 150 detached houses, whose median build year is 1988.

That profile comes from the shipyard. The Navy’s BRAC office says it transferred the first 75 acres, Parcel A, to the City in December 2004, and the General Plan’s Shipyard Area Plan places Parcel A and the hilltop under a 2003 development agreement. The Navy says the rest of the base will be conveyed parcel by parcel once its cleanup is complete, and that cleanup shapes what buyers read, what sellers disclose and what can be built next.

Hunters Point homes for sale

Hunters Point market report

From dry dock to redevelopment area

The Navy’s BRAC office gives the outline. A commercial dry dock opened on the point in 1869; the Navy bought the yard on December 29, 1939, and used it mainly for ship repair from 1945 to 1974. The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory occupied part of the site for roughly two decades after World War II. Shipyard operations stopped in 1974, a commercial ship-repair firm leased most of the yard from 1976 to 1986, and the base was selected for closure in 1991.

The Navy counts about 934 acres, about 443 of them under water. The General Plan’s Hunters Point Shipyard Area Plan, adopted in 2010 and amended in 2018, describes the land portion as “a largely flat 493 acre landfill peninsula” with upwards of 135 Navy-era buildings, piers and dry docks, mostly from World War II.

Phase 1, Phase 2 and the zoning that applies

The Area Plan splits the work in two. Phase 1, under a 2003 development agreement with Lennar/BVHP Partners, covers the hilltop and Parcel A and allows up to 1,600 homes, roughly 30 percent of them affordable, with about 25 acres of parks and open space. Phase 2 covers Candlestick Point and the remainder of the shipyard, under a conceptual framework the City endorsed in May 2007. The San Francisco Standard reported on September 10, 2026 that the Candlestick Point development agreement had been amended to separate that project from the shipyard, and that FivePoint had broken ground at Candlestick; OCII has the official status of each.

On Planning’s zoning map the shipyard is not an ordinary district. Its parcels carry the label HP-RA, “See Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan,” so land use there follows the redevelopment plan administered by the City’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure rather than the standard Planning Code tables. The map also shows a Hunters Pt Shipyard Phase 2 special use district.

Off the shipyard, the hill reads differently. A point we checked on the hill above the yard falls in RM-1 (residential mixed, low density), and the wider 10J area also carries RH-1, RH-1(S), RH-2, an NC-2 commercial strip, and M-1, M-2, PDR and mixed-use (MUG) industrial districts toward India Basin. Planning’s special use layer adds the Hunters View, India Basin and India Basin Industrial Park districts.

Area	Main zoning on Planning’s map	What it usually means for a buyer
Shipyard Phase 1 hilltop and Parcel A	HP-RA (redevelopment plan)	Newer condos and townhomes under HOA documents; rules come from the redevelopment plan
Hill outside the shipyard	RM-1, RH-2, RH-1, RH-1(S)	Detached houses and small multi-unit buildings under standard Planning Code zoning
India Basin and Innes Avenue edge	India Basin SUD, M-1, M-2, PDR, MUG	Industrial and mixed-use parcels; check the SUD before assuming residential use

Where the Navy cleanup stands

The City’s cleanup overview on SF.gov (viewed October 2026) says the shipyard was added to the federal Superfund National Priorities List in 1989. It names the Navy as the lead agency for investigation and cleanup, the U.S. EPA as lead federal regulator, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control as lead state regulator and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board for bay water quality. The City’s Department of Public Health is the local public health agency, and the Navy shares cleanup updates with the City under a conveyance agreement.

The same City page lists the contaminants as petroleum fuels, pesticides, heavy metals, PCBs, volatile organic compounds and radionuclides, and notes that native soil also carries naturally occurring asbestos and metals.

Parcel A

The City’s overview (SF.gov, viewed October 2026) states that “the cleanup site does not include Parcel A, which was historically used for residential and administrative purposes.” It adds that the California Department of Public Health carried out a radiological survey of Parcel A at the request of the EPA, the Navy, the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the City, and that the EPA issued a memorandum in November 2020 stating that Parcel A is suitable for residential use.

Retesting and the parcels still in cleanup

In a June 21, 2019 release, the Navy said it was reevaluating areas where contractor Tetra Tech EC had performed radiological work, about 20,000 square meters of building surfaces and 6,900 soil samples, starting with Parcel G. Retesting decides whether a parcel meets its original cleanup objectives and can transfer, or needs more excavation and sampling.

The Navy’s document library lists newer Citizens Advisory Committee presentations dated April 2026, June 17, 2026 and July 27, 2026, but we could not open them for this page. The parcel details below therefore come from the Navy’s May 19, 2025 presentation to the committee and describe status as of that date:

Parcel G: a task order to remove six buildings was awarded April 23, 2025, with abatement and demolition scheduled for February 2026 to May 2027; Phase 2 radiological retesting was pending a contract modification.
Parcel E: on a 129-acre area, more than 103,000 tons of soil and debris had been removed, with roughly 40,000 tons still being processed for disposal.
Parcels B, C and D: soil, groundwater and bedrock work continues, including excavation along former sewer and storm drain lines that began in March 2025 and mercury groundwater treatment planned through 2028.
Parcels E-2 and F: landfill gas, wetlands and remedial design work were in contracting.

Later notices add a little. A June 25, 2025 Navy notice announced final soil cleanup at a Parcel B-1 warehouse site (IR Site 10, Building 123).

In March 2026 the Navy announced that hazardous-materials abatement had begun at six Parcel G buildings, with demolition expected to finish in June 2027, as reported by Local News Matters on March 9, 2026. The Navy’s notice for the July 27, 2026 committee meeting listed Parcel E Building 400A and “progress toward Parcel G transfer” among its topics; no Parcel G transfer date is stated there.

Schedules at Superfund sites change. Read the Navy’s latest committee presentation and the City’s cleanup overview before relying on any date.

Disclosures and documents for a Hunters Point purchase

Federal law attaches notices to land the government transfers where a hazardous substance was stored for a year or more, is known to have been released, or was disposed of. Under CERCLA section 120(h) (42 U.S.C. 9620(h)), the federal deed must give notice of the type and quantity of those substances, when they were stored, released or disposed of, and any remedial action taken. It must also carry a covenant warranting that all remedial action necessary to protect human health and the environment was taken before the transfer and that any further action found necessary later will be conducted by the United States, plus a clause granting the United States access to do that work.

The statute also allows an early transfer: with the Governor’s concurrence, EPA may defer that covenant if the property is suitable for its intended use, and the deed must then include use restrictions and assurances that the remaining cleanup will be completed, with the warranty delivered once it is. Ask the title officer to point out any federal deed language, and any recorded covenant or restriction, in the preliminary report.

For a home in a newer building, the reading list usually includes:

The preliminary title report and the recorded documents it lists, including any environmental restrictions.
The HOA’s CC&Rs, budget, reserve study and minutes, plus any master association documents.
For a below-market-rate unit, the recorded affordability restrictions; our San Francisco BMR homes guide explains how resale limits work.
The Natural Hazard Disclosure report and the seller’s disclosures, read alongside the Navy and City cleanup pages.

None of this replaces an environmental or legal review of a specific parcel. This is general information, not legal advice; talk to a California real estate attorney about the recorded documents on a specific property.

Bay fill, flood zones and the shoreline

Hunters Point combines a hill with a filled shoreline, so hazard maps vary block by block. Planning’s liquefaction layer, which shows the state’s mapped seismic hazard zones, returned no zone at the hilltop point we checked or at a point on the shipyard flats. That should not be read as a soil finding; the Area Plan itself calls the shipyard a landfill peninsula, and building-specific geotechnical reports carry more weight than a map lookup.

Flood maps are clearer about the water’s edge. FEMA’s effective flood map, as shown in Planning’s flood layer, puts parts of the Hunters Point and Candlestick shoreline in AE and VE zones, with base flood elevations from 10 to 15 feet, while the hill points we checked are Zone X. To check a single lot, use the steps in our San Francisco hazard maps guide; what the seller’s hazard report has to include is in the natural hazard disclosure guide.

Getting in and out

The shipyard Area Plan notes that “the only way in and out of the Shipyard is via Innes Avenue,” which connects to Third Street through Hunters Point Boulevard and Evans Avenue, and it calls for a dedicated right-of-way for bus rapid transit or light rail. Today the nearest rail is the T Third on Third Street, with stops at Hudson/Innes and Kirkwood/La Salle among others; it has run through the Central Subway to Chinatown since January 7, 2023.

Published route lists give the 19 Polk a terminus at Galvez Avenue and Robinson Street, the 44 O’Shaughnessy one at Hudson Avenue and Third Street, and the 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express, 23 Monterey and 24 Divisadero one at Palou Avenue and Third Street. Those lists date from 2022, so confirm current service with SFMTA.

Selling a home in Hunters Point

Buyers here compare buildings, phases and documents before they compare finishes. A condo on the Phase 1 hilltop, a townhouse with its own association and a detached house on the hill can sit within a few blocks and carry very different HOA dues, restrictions and resale rules.

Have the HOA packet ready early, with budgets, reserve study, insurance and any special assessments, so buyers can review them inside their contingency period.
Identify any affordability restriction on the title before pricing; a BMR unit sells under its program’s rules, not at market.
Collect the environmental paper trail: the parcel’s history, the City and Navy status pages, and whatever the title report shows. A clear, sourced packet answers questions better than reassurance.
Note the shoreline flood zone where it applies, since lenders may require flood insurance in an AE or VE zone.

The rules every San Francisco seller follows, from the 3R permit report to transfer tax, are collected on our San Francisco selling requirements page. The listing approach for newer condo buildings is covered in our San Francisco condos guide.

Questions people ask

Is Hunters Point Shipyard a Superfund site?

Yes. The City’s cleanup overview (SF.gov, viewed October 2026) says the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was added to the National Priorities List in 1989. The City also states that the cleanup site does not include Parcel A, which was historically used for residential and administrative purposes.

Is Parcel A considered suitable for homes?

The City’s overview reports that the EPA issued a memorandum in November 2020 stating Parcel A is suitable for residential use, after a California Department of Public Health radiological survey. Read the current Navy and City pages, and the recorded documents for the specific unit, before you buy.

Which shipyard parcels are still being cleaned up?

The Navy’s May 19, 2025 presentation showed work continuing on Parcels B, C, D, E, E-2, F and G and on utility corridors, with Parcel G awaiting Phase 2 radiological retesting. In March 2026 the Navy began abatement at six Parcel G buildings, with demolition expected to finish in June 2027 (Local News Matters, March 9, 2026), and its July 27, 2026 committee agenda listed progress toward a Parcel G transfer. Check the Navy’s latest presentation for current status.

What zoning applies on the shipyard?

Planning’s map labels shipyard parcels HP-RA, meaning land use follows the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment plan rather than the standard Planning Code districts. The hill outside the shipyard is mostly RM-1 and RH zoning.

How many homes are planned at the shipyard?

The General Plan’s Shipyard Area Plan (adopted 2010, amended 2018) allows up to 1,600 homes in Phase 1, about 30 percent affordable. Phase 2 originally covered Candlestick Point and the rest of the shipyard; a September 2026 news report says the Candlestick agreement has since been separated from the shipyard. Check OCII for current figures.

Is Hunters Point in a flood zone?

Parts of the shoreline are in FEMA AE and VE zones on the effective map, with base flood elevations of 10 to 15 feet, while the hill is mostly Zone X. Check the specific parcel on the FEMA and SFPUC maps.

What transit serves Hunters Point?

The T Third light rail runs along Third Street, a short distance west of the hill, with stops including Hudson/Innes and Kirkwood/La Salle. Bus routes serve the hill and shipyard; confirm current routing with SFMTA.

Thinking about buying or selling at Hunters Point? Contact Diamond Real Estate Group and we will help you assemble the HOA, title and environmental records a buyer will ask for. Nearby guides cover Bayview, Candlestick Point and the rest of SF District 10, and the San Francisco guide covers the city as a whole.

Sources & notes

Last reviewed October 2026 by Matthew Martinez.