After news broke that San Francisco was planning on spending $1.7 million of state money for one public toilet in Noe Valley Town Square, some of the politicians planning a celebration canceled the event.
Assemblymember Matt Haney, who obtained the funds from the state, was supposed to attend the toilet celebration on Wednesday alongside State Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, but after the Chronicle reported that the toilet was going to cost as a much a single family home, Haney canceled the 12:30 p.m. news conference.
“This is to build one public restroom?” Virginia builder Tom Hardiman, who runs the Modular Building Institute in Charlottesville, said incredulously when the Chronicle told him about the cost of the toilet. “What are they making it out of — gold and fine Italian marble? It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragically flawed.”
The single toilet is to be built in 150 feet of space, and is projected to be completed in 2025.
“The pricetag’s a shocking number,” commented one Noe Valley resident who supported the creation of the town square. “Oh my god, this s***’s expensive.”
Haney claimed that the Recreation and Parks Department informed him that it would cost $1.7 million to build the toilet so he asked the state for that amount. “They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” he told the Chronicle. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”
Before he heard how much the project would cost, Hardiman estimated it should cost roughly $200,000. After he was informed of the price tag, he researched the issue and noted that Public Restroom Company had built seven modular bathrooms in Los Angeles for the same cost as San Francisco’s one toilet.
Phil Ginsburg, director of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, claimed, “Our parks continue to need investment and every dollar saved by installing one allows us to make additional improvements elsewhere in our parks.”
Haney told the Chronicle that he would contact Ginsburg and ask why the toilet was estimated to cost so much. He told the Chronicle, “When Rec and Park first told us the number, it sounded shockingly high to me, and I think your article has revealed that their process around this is broken and the number is inexplicable.”
“I’m glad that Noe Valley will at some point get a bathroom, but it shouldn’t cost this much and it shouldn’t take this long, and I’m angry about it,” he continued. “It’s not something I want to celebrate right now.”