San Francisco Supervisor David Campos last week said the city should quickly build six new Navigation Centers to house entire encampments of homeless people — but his first stab at finding locations for the centers has agitated neighbors of some potential sites and has been deemed off the mark by the mayor’s office.

Campos submitted a list of 36 parcels to the city’s Real Estate Division, asking which of them could potentially house new homeless shelters. On the list are a parking lot next to Ambassador Toys in West Portal, a parking lot near Golden Gate Guppies preschool on California Street, a tiny circular median in a residential cul-de-sac on Lunado Court in Ingleside Terraces — and even Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall.

Other sites include parking garages that are already brimming with cars or underground with little ventilation, parcels as small as 17 feet across and locations that already house homeless shelters. A few are next to preschools or elementary schools.

“This brings no real, viable solutions to the table,” said Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for Mayor Ed Lee. “What it does offer is grandstanding.”

Campos and Lee partnered to open, to widespread praise, the city’s first Navigation Center on Mission Street near 16th Street last March. Lee said in September he would open a second and perhaps a third center within six months. No sites have been publicly identified, let alone built out and opened.

Calling a ‘shelter crisis’

Campos last week introduced a resolution calling for the city to declare a “shelter crisis” so it can quickly convert city-owned land to homeless shelters. He plans to introduce a second piece of legislation soon that would require the city to open six new Navigation Centers within a year — including a “wet house” where alcoholics can drink inside and a safe injection site where intravenous drug users can legally shoot up.

It was not specified on Campos’ list of 37 parcels which, if any, would be considered for the wet house or safe injection site.

The city owns 2,200 parcels of land, and Campos on Tuesday said it is incredible that Lee has yet to identify any that can be used for more Navigation Centers. Campos said he had his staff come up with a batch of parcels for the Real Estate Division to look at and merely wanted feedback on them. He said they are not formal proposals and that community input would be sought before any changes to the parcels move forward.

‘Suitable on paper’

“We looked at sites that could potentially be suitable on paper — we don’t know these sites,” Campos said, noting he didn’t have time to visit 2,200 parcels to examine them. “I think what’s going on here is that the mayor’s office is trying to make it look like, ‘Ooooh, we’re going to scare people into thinking their neighborhood is next!’”

Campos said Lee is “focused on how it is that we cannot do something instead of looking at the possibilities.”

There aren’t a lot of possibilities on Campos’ initial list, said John Updike, the city’s director of real estate. He sent a letter to Campos calling many of his suggestions “unsuitable.” The current Navigation Center is 36,000 square feet, and the bare minimum for a new one is 10,000 square feet, Updike said. Many of Campos’ suggested locations are smaller.

“There are a handful that are viable, suitable locations, and happen to be the sites we are already evaluating,” Updike wrote. He did not identify the sites being considered.

Bill Barnes of the city administrator’s department said that while the city owns 2,200 parcels, the vast majority are either leftover bits of land — like grassy patches next to roads — that are too small to use or are bigger plots already in full use as libraries, police stations, fire stations and other city facilities. There are only 40 to 50 pieces of surplus city property that are usable, but many are neighborhood open spaces or community gardens, he said.

Neighbors express concern

Campos’ list has already circulated among city officials and some neighborhood leaders. That has prompted plenty of concerns, even if the likelihood of homeless shelters being built on most of his suggested parcels is extremely slim.

West Portal neighborhood leaders are irate that Campos suggested a parking lot next to the beloved Ambassador Toys and another parking lot nearby on Claremont Boulevard as possible sites for new homeless centers.

Deirdre Von Rock-Ricci is the president of the West Portal Merchants Association, an attorney and a mother of three. She said the merchants association is having its regular monthly meeting Thursday and will discuss Campos’ suggestions.

“It’s insane!” she said of the proposal to put a homeless shelter in a neighborhood with many children and no services for homeless people. “It’s people pushing their own agendas for something that’s reckless and irresponsible.”

Tom Kanaley, president of the Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association, has lived in the neighborhood for 18 years and has six children. He said a Navigation Center wouldn’t fit on a merchant corridor with lots of kids — and that removing a parking lot would make it even harder for shoppers to use the busy street.

“The vast majority of us want good, compassionate solutions to the problems we’re all witnessing,” Kanaley said. “But I don’t know why it’s an emergency today when it wasn’t an emergency last year. And if it’s not really an emergency, why can’t we have a thoughtful policy response?”

Not in my district

Supervisor Norman Yee, who represents District Seven, which includes West Portal, has found himself in a bind. He is one of seven supervisors to sign on to Campos’ proposal, but he rejects the sites in District Seven put forward by Campos.

“You want to have the centers closer to where the majority of the homeless population would be,” Yee said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to have it next to a business for families and children.”

Asked which sites in District Seven would be suitable for new homeless centers, Yee said, “I can’t think of any.”

Campos acknowledged that some of the parcels on his list won’t work, such as the Lunado Court median that is just big enough for two trees and some grass. But he said some of the more controversial ideas are worth considering, including Civic Center Plaza.

“Maybe City Hall would move more quickly on the issue of homelessness if things were happening right in front of them,” he said.

Falvey dismissed the idea.

“The Civic Center is a public plaza with two children’s playgrounds and seems as unworkable a site as many of the others he’s suggesting,” she said.

Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf