For many who reside in the city's westside neighborhoods and in the Marina, it'll be a cold day in hell before they allow their suburban-esque environs to get any more urban or dense. But it is a city, people!

The blunt instrument that is CEQA has once again been deployed in a threat to stymie or stall SF Mayor Daniel Lurie's "Family Zoning" plan before it's set to go into effect on Monday. As the Chronicle reports, a last-ditch lawsuit was expected to be filed Friday to halt the zoning changes, and the suit is being brought by two groups, San Francisco Neighborhoods United and Small Business Forward.

Lest they be called NIMBYs, a representative for SF Neighborhoods United, historic preservationist Katherine Petrin, tells the paper, "We are not filing this to prevent the plan from going forward." Petrin insists, "We have an opportunity to get it right, and that’s what we are wanting to do — to take a look at this project in ways that it really wasn’t looked at previously."

The suit is seeking to "compel further study" of the upzoning plan and its impacts on infrastructure, historic buildings, and more, using every NIMBY's favorite stalling tool, CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act.

Lurie's upzoning measure, which the Board of Supervisors approved last month and which comes in response to intense state pressure to build tens of thousands of new housing units in the next half-decade, would allow for six- to 10-story buildings on major thoroughfares in multiple parts of the west and north side San Francisco. But opponents fear the measure will lead to mass displacement of existing residents as older buildings are torn down for redevelopment, and will lead to altering the character of their neighborhoods.

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who supports the upzoning, tells the Chronicle that the displacement claims made by opponents are "factually not true, and it’s exploiting genuine concerns of residents across the city to score political points."

And regarding the new lawsuit's claim that the city skirted a full CEQA review, in non-compliance with the law, Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney's office says, "The City took deliberate steps to comply with its obligations under state law, including CEQA," and "We are comforted that the California Department of Housing and Community Development reviewed the Family Zoning Plan and felt it complied with state law."

The same groups that are bringing this week's lawsuit are also looking to thwart the upzoning plan with a ballot measure this coming November, but clearly there is a fear that too many develpoment balls will already be rolling by then, and it will be harder to stop them.

Ironically, YIMBY Law, the legal arm of the California-based YIMBY movement, is also considering suing the city over the "Family Zoning" plan for the opposite reason — they say it doesn't go far enough in increasing density.

Lurie and other supporters of the upzoning plan warn all these critics that if the plan fails to go into effect, and if the city can't reach its annual goals for permitting new housing, the state can invoke the so-called Builder's Remedy, and allow a free-for-all for developers that neighbors will likely be horrified by. YIMBY Law, however, suggests that they'd prefer the Builder's Remedy to take effect at this point.

Previously: Lurie’s ‘Family Zoning’ Plan Approved by Board of Supervisors, Handing Lurie Major Political Win

Photo by Kimson Doan

While there is no buyer announced yet for the shuttered six-acre St. Anne’s Home senior care facility, there’s plenty of interest in the property, and Inner Richmond residents may be gearing up for a fight over the size of whatever goes there next.

It made some waves in the local senior care scene when it was announced in January that the 124-year-old nursing home St. Anne’s Home would be closing permanently. Well, five months later, that closure has happened, and the nearly 60 residents of that 300 Lake Street home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor have been moved to other facilities.

But now the Chronicle reports that the sale of the facility — a sale that has not even taken place yet — is also making waves. And it's making those waves because the six-acre property with a $58.5 million asking price might be sold to a developer who is keen to turn the place into a much, much larger development.  

The sale comes against the backdrop of massive rezoning of SF’s west side where a new developer could, theoretically, build something twice as large the senior home. And that is believed to be driving significant interest in the property, though it would surely not please Presidio Terrace residents for there to be a big apartment complex built next to their gated-community homes.

The Chronicle spoke to several potential buyers who’ve put in bids or have been involved. They gave their thoughts, though in most cases, not their names.

“You could scrape the whole site and build 350 units,” one anonymous developer told the Chron. “I’ve heard that you could do something maybe a little more dense on Lake Street, like 150 units, and then do 30 to 35 single-family homes on the back of the site. I think you have a couple different options. I’m curious about how the neighbors will react.”

I’m not curious how the neighbors will react… they would hate that idea! While it was not a comment on any proposal for this 300 Lake Street property, the Planning Association for Richmond has complained in the past that this rezoning “will result in more traffic congestion, less greenspace, loss of small businesses and an overall decrease in the character of our community.”

The City of San Francisco would prefer to see as much housing there as the law will allow, given that we are well behind on our “housing element” goals to build or approve 82,000 new housing units by the year 2031.

“The site presents a unique opportunity with the capacity for a significant amount of housing,” SF Planning Commission Director Rich Hillis told the Chronicle. “The city’s housing element and our proposed rezoning would prefer a mid-rise multifamily project there.”

But it’s the Little Sisters of the Poor who will be deciding who they sell to.

“The Little Sisters are looking for the right buyer at the right price,” the sale’s operator, Zielinski Companies executive director Greg Zielinski, told the Chronicle. “That is, a buyer who will use the property in a way that is in harmony with their mission and the mission of the Church — not necessarily a long-term care facility or health care focused.”

That comment seems to leave an awful lot of wiggle room. And any angst over some giant development coming in is frankly quite speculative. But anyone who’s paying that $58.5 million asking price is probably not planning to put another nursing home there, and they will likely build that property out to get the best return on their investment possible.

Related: Latest, Greatest Version of Ambitious Stonestown Development Gets Approval, With Even More Housing [SFist]

Image via Google Street View

The Central SoMa area between the Moscone Center and the Giants' ballpark was supposed to boom thanks to an ambitious City Hall plan, but the pandemic made that go bust, so now officials are revising the plan with more of a focus on housing and retail.

Back in 2018, something called the Central SoMa Plan intended to supercharge that neighborhood with “nearly 16 million square feet for new housing and jobs, over $2B in public benefits.” Auto body shops were selling for tens of millions of dollars in anticipation of giant new tech company headquarters that would be built in the areas of Folsom, Harrison, Bryant and Brannan streets near these wonderful new things like the Central Subway and Chase Center that were on their way in.  

“When we first approved [the Central SoMa Plan] we had such a shortage of available office space, we were down at a 3% vacancy rate,” SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development director of development Anne Taupier is quoted by the Examiner as saying. And the flatter skyline of Central SoMa seen elbow would tower as tall as the downtown area next door.

That didn’t happen. The overall office market was obliterated by the pandemic, and a good majority of the planned Central SoMa Plan projects have not yet even had a shovel put to ground. And other neighborhoods like Jackson Square and Mission Bay have since stolen the “It” buzz, while Central SoMa has racked up encampments on still-unstarted development projects.

“We were really banking on the Central SoMa plan when we purchased our property in 2017 — that was one of our selling points with the bank,” Brickhouse Bar & Grill owner Kim Kobasic told the Chronicle this past summer. “I do feel like our neighborhood has been a little forgotten.”

Because of this, the SF Board of Supervisors revised the Central SoMa Plan on Tuesday, as the SF Business Times reports. The new version of this plans for the area highlighted above removes a requirement that two-thirds of a project need to be devoted to office space, allowing for much more housing and retail, as those are considered stronger sectors.

This hopes to jumpstart some high-profile flame-outs. You might remember when a developer booted the SF Flower Mart to build an office complex that has gone nowhere, a deal they surely regret. The famed 88 Bluxome tennis courts did not become the giant Pinterest complex that they were supposed to. The former Creamery at Fourth and Townsend that was intended to be 1,000 apartments is still just a soon-to-be coffee shop that gets broken into a lot.

The new changes to the Central SoMa Plan may not be the silver bullet that city planners hope for, construction and high interest rates may continue to stall projects. But that can change as the years go on. And housing is seen as a better option than office space, because the housing sector will probably bounce back quicker, even if not quick enough for developers’ interests.

Related: Multiple 30-Story Towers In SoMa Are Set to Bring Almost 1,400 New Residential Units to the Neighborhood [SFist]

Image: SF.gov

The latest twist in the ambitious plans to extend Caltrain and eventually the high-speed rail to the Salesforce Transit Center is a developer hoping to send the train tracks underground, and cover that land with new towers, one of which would be taller than the Transamerica Pyramid.

If you’ve been following these elaborate plans to build a new downtown SF Caltrain stop at the Salesforce Transit Center, and all of the futuristic high-speed rail fantasies that come with it, be aware that another futuristic urbanist fantasy has entered the chat. The Chronicle reports today on an elaborate new development proposed on what is now just Caltrain tracks south of the SF’s main Fourth and King Street station, saying that (if it became reality) it would be “San Francisco’s second-densest transit-oriented development hub.”

In plain English, this scheme would put much of Caltrain’s SF tracks underground (which was already the plan for the downtown extension), but also adds an 850-foot tower to that land, one which would be even taller than the Transamerica Pyramid. There is no use or purpose described for this tower, just that the plans call for one.

We wish we had some renderings of this proposal to get hot and bothered over, but alas, there are none in the new 23-page developer submission to the SF Planning Department. But this plan will be discussed at length at Thursday’s SF Planning Commission meeting, which starts at 12 noon, and will be broadcast on SFGovTV2.

Still, we have a handy map in those developer submission materials that explains the multiple prongs of this very complex endeavor. The red line is the new underground Caltrain tunnel to the Salesforce Transit Center, which is already approved and definitely going to happen, though likely at a years-long snail’s pace. The orange zone described as “4th and King Railyards” is the fugly and otherwise barren train track zone leading into and out of that Caltrain station.

That orange zone gets covered with shiny office towers under this plan. Then Caltrain tracks go underground in what is being described as the “Pennsylvania Avenue Extension (PAX) Tunnel.” This effectively renders Caltrain an underground system from downtown to what we now call the 22nd Street station.

And people who use that Caltrain 22nd Street station will likely notice that the map references an “Existing CalTrain 22nd Street Station” and a “Future CalTrain Station Location TBD.” Is Caltrain considering demolishing the 22nd Street station for something newer and more modern? I don’t see any other way to read this, and frankly, Potrero and Dogpatch commuters would probably welcome that with open arms.

As a fun curiosity, Fifth and Sixth streets, which currently dead-end at the Caltrain station, could go all the way to Mission Creek under this proposal (maybe further with some nice little bridges). So that’s interesting.

“It’s a complicated puzzle but the preliminary business case establishes what Caltrain’s needs are, the development needs are and how those could co-exist on the site,” said VP Genevieve Cadwalader of Prologis, the owner of the land on which the Caltrain tracks sit, told the Chronicle. “If you thread the needle there is something that can work for all parties involved.”

The plans also include a timeline, seen above, and the many public agencies involved in this plan. Umm, even this best-case scenario describes 2028 as “Begin Phase 1 Building Permits.” So do not hold your breath. As the Chronicle puts it, "the project will likely take 20 years to build out."

Any of this becoming reality is many years away, and maybe that’s a good thing. The SF office space market remains dismal, and even at projects for which there is demand, construction is stalled. Caltrain, for its part, is also included in those “doomsday scenario” and “death spiral” conversations affecting all Bay Area public transit. And while this plan initially appears largely paid for by the developer, you’ve got at least a half-dozen different SF city and county/regional transit authorities in this mix. So you figure there are inevitably going to be some taxpayer dollars involved.

And very important, there is no mention of the potential cost of this whole thing in the 23-page packet that will be presented at Thursday’s SF Planning Commission meeting.

Related: Feds Pony Up $3.4 Billion for Caltrain Extension to Salesforce Transit Center, Which Is Now Being Called ‘The Portal’ [SFist]

Image: SF Planning Department

The grandiose plan to turn Stonestown Galleria and its parking lot into a vibrant housing village with new parks was approved by the SF Planning Commission, and it’s been souped up from 2,900 housing units to now 3,500 units.

Southwest San Francisco’s once-seemingly-dying, now surprisingly vibrant Stonestown Galleria mall has in recent years become the site of a wildly ambitious proposed 2,900-unit residential village project, revamping its 30-acre parking lot into housing, parks, and community centers. Last we knew of the proposed project from developer Brookfield Properties, it had nixed a planned hotel, raising the number of housing units from 2,900 to now 3,500.

That new plan went before the SF Planning Commission Thursday, and as the Chronicle reports, the commission gave unanimous approval to the new Stonestown plans.

“I spent a lot of time at this mall when my children were younger as pre-teens,” commission president Sue Diamond said before the vote. “I’m about to be a grandparent, and I very much hope this project is built in time that I can hang out with my grandchildren at this mall.”

While the Planning Commission certified Brookfield’s plans, it still needs SF Board of Supervisors approval.

Brookfield Properties Senior Director of Development Christie Donnelly vowed to turn Stonestown Galleria from “a beloved retail center into a town center.” The plan approved contains six acres of parks and plazas, street and parking improvements, and a new “merchant lane” that would hope to revitalize 20th Avenue into something much more pedestrian-friendly. There are also plans for a farmer’s market area.

Brookfield committed to making the project 20% affordable housing (though this may be achieved by donating other parcels of land to meet the requirement). There will also be 200 units of senior housing, with priority given to veterans. Additionally, there are plans for a 7,500-square-foot childcare center, and another 7,000-square-foot senior center.

Brookfield also vows that the existing Stonestown Galleria will remain open and accessible while all of this construction takes place around it.

But this will completely revamp the parking arrangements at Stonestown. Designer SITELAB urban studio co-founder Laura Crescimano said that under the new design, parking  “is not your primary experience on the ground.” Parking will be moved into structures, underground, or within the residential buildings.

“My sister actually learned to drive at the [Stonestown] parking lot,” Commissioner Joel Koppel said before the vote. “That's how much parking there is at Stonestown, People can learn how to drive there. So I’m thrilled to see the potential of this area just totally skyrocket.”

The commission acknowledged there may be drawbacks. “My main concern here, because I used to live at 19th and Taraval, is the traffic,” Commissioner Theresa Imperial pointed out. “On the weekends it’s really high traffic. Early mornings it’s high traffic. During its peak hours its high traffic. And it affects the transit, the buses, also the L [Taraval] as well.”

But here’s a kick! The commission was shown some of the original Stonestown images and advertising materials from its opening in 1949, and back then, there was also a residential component. Check out that one-bedroom apartment for $99 a month.

Of course, we’ve seen a ton of these projects get stalled lately because of “market conditions” or “it doesn’t pencil.” (Ahem, this is the same Brookfield Properties that surrendered the Westfield Centre to its lenders last summer, along with its partner Westfield Corporation.)

This project hopes to avoid that fate by getting permission to put off the affordable requirements, and prioritizing the market-rate stuff first. But that’s no guarantee. The current timeline calls for the whole project to be completed eight years after breaking ground, but there is no target date for breaking ground at the moment.  

Related: Stonestown Galleria Parking Lots Could Become 2,900-Unit Residential Village

Image: Brookfield Properties

The notoriously rejected 27-story residential tower in a SoMa parking lot had its Plan B version approved, but now the developer is putting the project on ice, and a highly frustrated Planning Commission approved letting it remain a parking lot for another five years.

Arguably the most controversial decision that the SF Board of Supervisors has made in recent years was their 2021 rejection of a 27-story residential tower in what was then a Nordstrom parking lot, over seismic and displacement concerns. That rejection drew condemnation from state legislators, lawsuits, and even a mock funeral with fake headstones. But the developer Build Inc. simply submitted a revised version of the plan, and that Plan B was approved without controversy in December 2022.

Well, the place is no longer a Nordstrom parking lot, because that Nordstrom at the Westfield Mall has since closed. And it doesn’t look like the residential tower is coming anytime soon either, as Build Inc. is now citing market conditions and “It doesn’t pencil”-type reasons to delay the project indefinitely.

On Thursday, the SF Planning Commission reluctantly approved an authorization to let the location just sit as a parking lot for another five years. Planning Department assistant planner Elizabeth Mau told the commission before the vote that “The parking lot will serve as a suitable interim use pending the future development of the property.”

Build Inc. was not present at the meeting, and the request came from the parking lot operator North Beach Parking Services.

But Build Inc. did say to Planning Department staff that “We intend to go vertical on the project when market conditions improve sufficiently to make the project economically feasible. We don’t know when or if this will happen.”  

That vagueness did not please Commissioner Sue Imperial. “This project is currently an underutilized lot,” she said Thursday. “The proposal for the extension of another five years makes me uncomfortable to have it still be a parking lot for the next five years, especially if there’s no timeline.”  

Commissioner Kathrin Moore was also disappointed. “We were rushed to approve a redesigned project with great pressure that the developer was ready to build,” Moore said. “The project was buoyant on the fact that it would be built immediately. And that was kind of what was promised in the approval meeting.”

"I’m a little bit miffed — is that a proper word to use? — to have promises made," Moore added. "When you’re sitting here making a decision, based on an impending promise, and then later on, ‘Well, I just have to wait for the market’... That hurts."

Planning Department director Rich Hillis was a little more sympathetic. “There are dozens, if not hundreds of sites around the city that are in this same position, kind of waiting for conditions to change in order for projects to move forward.”

“There’s plenty of reasons why right now that project doesn’t pencil,” Hillis continued. “If that project does come forward, it's predominantly market-rate, but it does contribute toward the affordable housing stock of the city.” (Build Inc's new plan called for 495 units, 73 of them affordable).

Some commissioners wondered why the city wouldn’t just buy the property, and build affordable housing there, as they’ve done elsewhere.

“We’re in an affordable housing crisis, we should be exploring every avenue possible,” Commissioner Gilbert Williams said before the vote. “We should be having every conversation possible with folks that might be sitting on a property that they’re not going to develop.”

But Commissioner Sue Diamond explained why she would begrudgingly approve the parking lot extension. “I’m not sure, given that it’s a private piece of property, that we have a whole lot of leverage over that,” Diamond conceded. “So I don’t want to have it sit there as an empty piece of land. I’d rather that they are using it as a parking lot versus absolutely nothing.”

Prior to the unanimous vote to extend the parking lot use for another five years, Hillis said he’d “convene a meeting with” Build Inc., the Mayor's Office of Economic and Community Development, and the Planning Department to explore possible alternative future uses of the site.

Related: Infamous, Rejected Plan for 27-Story Residential Tower in Nordstrom’s Parking Lot Has New Plans Submitted [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

As downtown San Francisco still has a glut of unused office space, state Senator Scott Wiener says he’s pushing legislation for a decade-long elimination of the environmental review mandate known as CEQA from downtown projects, in hopes of spurring conversion to uses like housing.

Do you remember that infamous 2021 case where the SF Board of Supervisors turned down the conversion of a Nordstrom parking lot into a 27-story residential tower? The rejection of that project was caused by a legal appeal that utilized a 54-year-old state law called the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). While that residential tower was eventually approved last April under slightly different plans, the New York Times reports that its developer has stalled on construction of the project because “it no longer pencils out financially after so much delay.” Meanwhile the Nordstrom store itself closed last year.

That New York Times report is about state Senator Scott Wiener’s apparently incoming proposal to eliminate CEQA reviews in downtown San Francisco for a period of ten years.

While CEQA laws were originally intended to protect the environment, the appeals it’s allowing often have nothing to do with environmental factors. The hold-up over the People's Park student housing development in Berkeley used a CEQA appeal claiming that students would be too loud, CEQA appeals have been used in attempts to block homeless shelters, and some people even used CEQA to thwart the opening of coffee shops.

SF Mayor London Breed on board with Wiener’s proposed bill. “We know we need to make downtown viable,” Breed told the Times. “We can’t let process get in the way.”

Per the Times announcement, Wiener was planning to introduce the bill today (Friday). He says it would be a ten-year suspension of CEQA appeals for a specified 150 blocks of downtown SF. The main goal appears to be facilitation of what’s called “infill housing,” that is, housing built in already-existing but underutilized spaces, as downtown struggles with office vacancies. But it would also help in converting office space to other uses too, like theaters, college campuses, or even that strange proposal to turn the Westfield mall into a soccer stadium.  

There would also apparently be some restrictions and exceptions in Wiener's bill. Projects would have to pay their construction workers a certain prevailing wage to qualify for the elimination of their CEQA reviews, and CEQA appeals could still be lodged against waterfront properties and hotels. The Times also notes that Wiener’s bill would not allow the destruction of “any building that housed tenants within the past decade.”

"We’re not taking away any local control," Wiener says, speaking to the Chronicle following the announcement.  "I’m not one of those people that thinks CEQA should be repealed. When you’re talking about dense, infill urban areas it’s different than some other contexts."

Wiener adds that the city is in a "transition period" right now, and he's "reasonably confident that there will come a period — it may not be very long [from now] — where we do see activity downtown."

Wiener wins some and loses some on these housing bills of his, so we’ll keep an eye on where this one goes. And there are factors other than CEQA appeals that have developers backing off projects these days, factors like spiking construction costs and higher interest rates. Those aren’t factors that state legislature can control, and it’s not certain that just eliminating CEQA appeals would lead to some sort of downtown San Francisco conversion bonanza.

Related: Ex-Fox News Host Pushing 2024 California Ballot Measure to Blow Up CEQA Legal Challenges [SFist]

Image: Aerial view between skyscrapers in San Francisco's Financial district. Looking down Sansome Street towards the Bay on a sunny day. (Getty Images)

Plans have been submitted for what would be the third-tallest building in San Francisco if completed, a 71-story tower at 530 Howard Street that would utilize a new state law to bypass SF Board of Supervisors approval.

There could be another notable and visually prominent change in the San Francisco skyline in the years to come. The Chronicle reported Thursday morning on a new 71-story residential tower proposed for 530 Howard Street (near First Street). If completed as proposed, it would be San Francisco’s third-tallest building at 840 feet, and have 672 units, 67 of them affordable units.

While the renderings embedded throughout this post are from design firm Pickard Chilton, the developer is a relatively new company called Bayhill Ventures, which is headed by some prominent veterans of the downtown SF real estate scene.

“Rising 840 feet (255 meters) from San Francisco’s SoMA neighborhood, 530 Howard is a residential tower designed to complement the city’s skyline while maximizing views to San Francisco Bay,” according to a description on Pickard Chilton’s website. "The transit-oriented development incorporates a fifth-floor pedestrian bridge directly connecting to the 5.4-acre Salesforce Park and the Salesforce Transit Center. The tower will be taller than any existing apartment building in the city, and will be the third tallest in the city.”

The Chronicle’s coverage rather flatteringly focuses on Bayhill Ventures founder and CEO Paul Paradis, who’s certainly got a few notable projects under his belt, including involvement with the Salesforce Tower.

Deep in the article, the Chron also mentions Paradis was "tasked with damage control” for the flooded 33 Tehama apartment complex, and you can check him out doing said damage control below, after residents reported repair contractors stealing items from their rooms. Those residents are still displaced, and the building developer Hines had previously told the Chronicle the building could be reoccupied “sometime in the second half of 2023.” Which (looks at calendar) that deadline is going to pass pretty soon.

Paradis left Hines in March of this year to start his own firm.

Regardless, the 530 Howard project is unique in that it doesn’t have to be passed by the Planning Commission or the SF Board of Supervisors, who notoriously shot down the high-rise at a nearby Nordstrom parking lot in 2021. This project would fall under a new state law called AB 2011, which allows for automatic, streamlined approval of projects with a certain percentage of affordable housing on commercially-zoned land next to a street 75 feet wide or wider.

“It will be the first major project that is utilizing state ministerial approval process — no (California Environmental Quality Act) study, nor a hearing at the planning commission,” SF Planning Department director Rich Hillis told the Chronicle. The project would still have Planning Department staff review to ensure compliance, but it would face no up-or-down vote from the Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors.

If completed as planned, this 530 Howard project would be the city’s third-tallest building behind only the Salesforce Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid.

Related: Mid-Market Luxury Apartment Tower NEMA, a Symbol of Last Tech Boom, Faces Foreclosure [SFist]

Image via Pickard Chilton

More intentional drama is being generated over the implausible 50-story condo tower a developer is proposing to build in the Sunset District. After City Hall rejected it for the umpteenth time last month, the developer is now suing the city.    

It has been difficult to take seriously a proposal to build a 580-foot condo tower in the Sunset, a neighborhood that is otherwise mostly one- or two-level single family homes. But the developer claiming they would go through with this 646-unit project right across from the SF Zoo keeps producing rendering after rendering, only to be repeatedly told the proposal is completely out of whack with the neighborhood’s zoning. The latest of these repudiations was a July 26 Board of Appeals meeting, where that board voted unanimously to reject the plans again according to The Frisc.

So now, the developer, 2700 Sloat Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Reno-based CH Planning, is suing the city of San Francisco for rejecting the project, according to the Chronicle. The lawsuit, which you can read online, was filed Tuesday.

“The State of California is in the midst of a historic housing crisis — a crisis that has largely been brought on by NIMBYs and their enablers in local governments who continue to thwart the will of the Legislature and find ways to unlawfully interfere with the production of housing,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit claims that the developer should be able to build this 50-story behemoth under the California’s Density Bonus Law (DBL), which allows developers to exceed regulation limits if they add more affordable housing. That state law has led to some really terrific affordable housing projects to be approved, but this one goes way beyond the density bonuses afforded under state law.

The lawsuit is defiant over the latest City Hall rejection. “It is a new regulation issued unlawfully and in violation of recent state legislation intentionally and admittedly designed to limit the size of residential buildings to give the City’'s Planning Department additional discretion to deny or limit the size of housing developments,” the lawsuit says.

The project at 2700 Sloat Boulevard had originally been proposed in 2020 as an eight-story tower with 213 residential units, and then resubmitted again in 2021 as a 12-story building with 400 units. That the developer is bulking it up to unrealistic levels, rather than negotiating, does not indicate good faith.

“It kind of defies logic that you could take a site that has a 100-foot height limit, apply a 50% bonus to it and somehow get a 560-foot tower,” SF Planning Department director Rich Hillis told the Chronicle. “We think they’re wrong in their interpretation of what’s allowed under the zoning.”

We have noted before that developer CH Planning’s primary consultant John Hickey has done time in federal prison for defrauding investors, and has a history of proposing improbably large projects that never get close to breaking ground.

This seems more just another protest move — or negotiating tactic? — designed to antagonize and troll SF City Hall, decrying that it is difficult to approve and build housing here (which it is!), but then gumming up the works with more frivolous litigation that will take resources away from the city's ability to approve more realistic projects.

Related: New Renderings Drop For 50-Story Tower In the Sunset That Is Absolutely Never Going to Get Built [SFist]

Image: Solomon Cordwell Buenz

The one-time SF Bay Tennis Club has been razed to the ground, and after a new developer promised and then backed out of a promise to put tennis courts on their forthcoming project, the SF Planning Commission approved the no-tennis-court version Thursday.

The corner of Fifth and Brannan Streets had long been the home of the SF Bay Tennis Club, which featured both indoor and outdoor tennis courts. But the site was sold nearly ten years ago to SoCal-based Alexandria Real Estate Equities, who promised to replace it with two high-rise office buildings with life science labs, light-industrial space, and retail outlets. Plus they made the magnanimous offer to add “12 indoor tennis courts below ground as a replacement for the San Francisco Tennis Club.” And they made this generous offer because a 2015 lawsuit from tennis players forced them to.

The building has long been razed, and above we see what it looks like now. But the legal battle over the tennis courts has been volleying for years. After anchor tenant Pinterest backed out of the new office complex, Alexandria removed the tennis courts from the ambitious project.

Undaunted tennis fans were not Wimble-done. They won their case at the SF Board of Appeals in December 2021, and then sued the developer last August in hopes of keeping the courts. That lawsuit came to an amicable conclusion, or amicable for the tennis players at least, as Alexandria Real Estate agreed to pay a $7.5 million settlement to get out of the tennis court obligation.

And so the new plan with no tennis courts went before the SF Planning Commission Thursday. An attorney for Alexandria told the commission, “We are seeking to make no change to this project other than to remove the underground private tennis club that was to be built on this site.”

That was good enough for the commissioners, who approved the revised project unanimously. According to the developer's revised application, those basement tennis courts will now instead be “off-street parking and [a] public recreation facility with two pools.”

Related: Tennis Enthusiasts Serve a Lawsuit To Block Sale of SoMa Property That Had Promised Them Tennis Courts [SFist]

Photo courtesy of The Bay Club

In what appears to be the first Bay Area attempt at the “builder’s remedy” for a town without an approved Housing Element, a Los Altos Hills property owner is trying to subdivide his home into 20 units. Though he admits that if the scheme works, he’s just going to sell the property and move.

San Francisco did manage to pass its Housing Element, a state-mandated plan which, for us, meant a plan to build 82,000 new housing units by 2031. And by passing it and getting it approved in time, the city was able avoid the so-called builder’s remedy, which would allow any developer to push through any project they please, with no need to adhere to zoning requirements, as long as 20% of the units are low-income units, or if 100% of them are moderate-income units.

Many Bay Area cities did not get their housing elements passed or approved by the state by the January 31 deadline. Among these is Los Altos, which was only required to build a relatively paltry 438 new units. And even with that seemingly low threshold, Los Altos still pulled some eyeroll-inducing maneuvers to create the illusion of compliance, like claiming they were going to build housing on a Methodist Church and Draeger’s grocery store, which was news to that Methodist Church and Draeger’s grocery store.

And one property owner is going ahead with what appears to be the first Bay Area attempt at a builder's remedy project. And it’s a doozy, as the Bay Area News Group reports that a Los Altos Hills homeowner is moving forward with plans to tear down his own home and build 15 apartments and five townhouses, for a total of 20 units on his 1.84-acre property.

“There’s this option sitting in front of me to do something very different, and the town can’t say no,” the homeowner Sasha Zbrozek told the Bay Area News Group.

On one hand, you can certainly sympathize with Zbrozek’s situation; his home suffered severe water damage in a 2019 storm, he has been unable to get his repair permits through the Los Altos City Hall, and describes his home as “cold and wet.” On the other hand, the News Group reports that “if he gets to move forward with the apartment complex project, he’d likely sell it off to a developer to build it and move back to the Southeast where he grew up.”

In other words, the “builder’s remedy” may be more of a “flipper’s remedy” in practice.

And there will likely be legal challenges to the plan. This is the tony Los Altos Hills, after all, and his neighbors can certainly afford to sue. And while there have been just under two dozen builder’s remedy projects initiated in southern California, those too are likely to be tested in the courts.

Zbrozek’s architect Mark Hogan (whose firm OpenScope Studio also designed SF’s Vapor Room dispensary), seems to realize this project is in unchartered waters. “There’s no precedent in the area for doing one of these,” Hogan told the News Group. “Nobody knows exactly how it’s going to play out.”

It’s also notable that Zbrozek submitted two plans, the other a scaled back version, which only included the five townhouses and not the 15 apartments. That indicates this may all be some sort of bargaining tactic, with Zbrozek submitting a larger project simultaneously to make the smaller one seem like a more amenable compromise. After all, the New Group reports that if the smaller version of the project gets approval, Zbrozek “might decide to stay put” and not move or unload the developed property.

Related: Dozens of Bay Area Cities Are Late In Getting Housing Elements Certified, and YIMBY Groups Plan to Sue [SFist]

Image: Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons

A nearly year-long housing policy battle appears to have come to a surprisingly harmonious conclusion, as the SF Board of Supervisors just unanimously passed a state-mandated housing element, and in an unexpected surprise, the state says it will approve the plan.

If you’re into San Francisco housing discourse, the January 31 deadline for passage of the state-mandated Housing Element plan was shaping up to be your Super Bowl. The State of California is requiring ambitious housing growth goals for each different county, and for San Francisco, that mandated goal was 82,000 new housing units over the next eight years.

And it has been an article of faith on Housing Twitter that San Francisco would fall short of this goal, and/or miss the deadline entirely, and/or have its plan rejected by the state. Should any of those outcomes have happened, the city would lose out on hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars in affordable housing and transportation funds, could have set off a “builder’s remedy” free-for-all where zoning laws went out the window, and those intransigent supervisors would finally get theirs and reap what they sowed by not approving enough housing projects.

And the low expectations were justified. The Chronicle reported last spring that “just six out of 196 housing plans have been deemed in compliance with state laws,” meaning that out of the first couple hundred individual housing elements submitted, only 3% were being approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

Surprise! On Tuesday afternoon, the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Housing Element plan. But more shockingly, the state had already approved it before the board’s vote. The Chronicle reported Monday that HCD approved the draft SF Housing Element, saying it “meets the statutory requirements” of state housing law.

There was no discussion at the board level Tuesday, and the unanimous vote was a rubber-stamp. But there have been rancorous five-hour-long meetings in the lead-up.

The Housing Element plan does not specifically say where the 82,000 new units would be built, just submits a plan for how that could happen. And a large percentage of them would come from rezoning the west side neighborhoods. And another controversial component involves using funds from 2020’s voter-approved Prop I real-estate transfer tax for offsets to help market-rate projects achieve “economic feasibility,” which detractors call a “develop dirty bomb.”

There are still some longshot possibilities this approval could falter. The board has a second vote scheduled for next week (most legislation does require a “second reading” vote), so the vote could theoretically change. Mayor Breed could veto it, but she has spoken glowingly of the plans. And while the state HCD has approved the plan, Governor Newsom may decide to meddle, because he’s made a point of needling SF on its housing approval rate.

All of the above scenarios are exceedingly unlikely. What’s more likely is that a year or two down the road, the city gets called out on not building the housing it said it would build (and the construction cost boom makes this a real possibility) and all the funds are at risk again. But for now, City Hall is about to cross a finish line many thought they would never be able to cross. And the folks rooting for the “builder’s remedy” (or hoping for a cocktail called “Builder’s Remedy”) will be left a little shaken and stirred.

Related: Supervisors Spend Five Hours Haranguing Over Mandated 82,000 New Housing Units, But We Might Actually Hit That Goal? [SFist]

Image: Daniel Abadia via Unsplash

Hoping to transform “an industrial wasteland” into the “next hot neighborhood of San Francisco,” there’s been a $2 billion redevelopment project underway for four years at the former Potrero Power Plant by Pier 70, with housing, hotels, hotels and office space.

Let us begin with the current, fugly conditions at the Potrero Power Plant, formerly one of PG&E’s dirtiest, most outdated, pollution-spewing monstrosities in the state of California.  It was San Francisco’s last remaining fossil-fuel power plant until its closure in 2012, and has not been open to the public since.

As SFist previously reported in early 2020, the 29-acre site was set to be transformed into 2,600 residential units and 1.8 million square feet of new commercial space, though some of the plans have changed.

We have renderings of what it is slated to become, courtesy of architects Perkins & Will. The stack will stay as a centerpiece, and there are also plans for a boutique hotel, green space, and more. Per the designers, “The 300-foot-tall stack will remain as an icon on the waterfront and a reminder of the new neighborhood’s rich history. In a complete turnaround, the site will be transformed from a polluting power plant to a sustainable, resilient neighborhood that embraces wellness.”

“Wellness” aside, this does look like a cool and ambitious revitalization. “The perception of what’s out there has really changed from an industrial wasteland where no one wants to be to the next hot neighborhood of San Francisco,” Build SF founder Lou Vazquez says in a statement.

The Chronicle reported last year that developer Associate Capital was doubling the scope of many aspects to the project, another sign of developers betting big on a post-pandemic tourism and economic rebound. Per the Chron, “Instead of 315 housing units, the initial phase will have 735, including a free-standing affordable building with about 100 homes. Instead of $100 million in “horizontal” work — the utilities, streets, sidewalks and parks that provide the bones of a new neighborhood — [Associate Capital] is doing $300 million. Instead of three commercial buildings, it will have four. A 2.5-acre park will also now be part of the first phase as will the restoration of the historic brick Station A.”

And today, the San Francisco Business Times reports that infrastructure work is about to begin to bring power, water, plumbing and telecommunication into the coming “brand new, all-electric neighborhood.”

The units and storefront space numbers are still up in the air, and that’s sort of by design. Associate Capital principal Enrique Landa tells the Business Times that the development plans are "flexible enough where we'll be able to meet the market, whatever that market is — whether it's life science, or office, residential, for rent, or for sale."

The revitalization of this area around Pier 70 and Dogpatch is already underway. That RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) furniture showroom opening had everyone’s smokestacks standing at full attention, the recently announced and glamorous sounding Portola Music Festival could become an annual fixture, and an adjacent mega-development at Pier 70 is also in the works (though experiencing hiccups). Actual construction is unlikely to start for at least a year, but the Potrero Power Plant is definitely powering forward.

Related: Massive New Furniture Showroom and Restaurant From RH (Restoration Hardware) Opens In Dogpatch [SFist]

Images: Perkins Will

That 27-story residential tower slated for a Nordstom’s parking lot, which the supervisors shot down last October, has now generated a complaint with the SF Ethics Commission that the district’s former supervisor Jane Kim improperly lobbied against it.

When the San Francisco Board of Supervisors rejected a plan last October to build a 27-story residential high-rise in what is currently a Nordstrom’s parking lot on Stevenson Street near Sixth Street, there was immediate speculation that the vote was some sort of “payback” against the district’s supervisor Matt Haney. Haney had just weeks before declared he was running against former supervisor David Campos for a California state Assembly seat, and six supervisors who’d voted against the project had already endorsed Campos.

“This is at least partly about punishing Matt Haney for running against Campos,” SF State political science professor Jason McDaniel told the Chronicle at the time. “They see it as a betrayal.”

But maybe it was a different former supervisor gaming that vote. The SF Standard reports that a YIMBY-affiliated activist has filed an ethics complaint against District 6's former supervisor Jane Kim for paid lobbying against the project, an alleged violation of local laws barring former public officials from lobbying on projects they’d worked on while in office. Kim has been a paid organizer for TODCO, an affordable housing developer that opposed the Stevenson Street project.

“I think it’s a clear pipeline from public power to improper use of knowledge and influence that violates the law to lobby against the project,” YIMBY Law board member Steven Buss, who filed the complaint, told the SF Standard.

There are certainly receipts tying Kim to TODCO. The Standard reports that Kim called TODCO president John Elberling “10 to 15 times to discuss efforts to halt the apartment project,” and that Kim “sent materials to members of the Board of Supervisors that were prepared by a TODCO affiliate and which argued that the project needed to be stopped.” There are call logs and calendar invites linking Kim to paid opposition of the project, and she’s done paid work for political advocacy groups to whom TODCO has donated.

That said, none of this is explicit proof that Kim broke any laws. I could file an Ethics Commission complaint against a ham sandwich, but that doesn’t mean the sandwich did anything illegal. And while the Ethics Commission says in a letter that their “Enforcement and Legal Affairs decision has opened an investigation” into the matter, these things often fizzle out with no wrongdoing found.

And that the complaint was filed by one of the many YIMBY-affiliated groups’ premier trolls smacks as San Francisco housing politics as usual. That a lobbying group is complaining about someone else’s lobbying certainly has a Spiderman-pointing-at-Spiderman-dot-gif kind of feel to it.

But some of Kim’s defenses simply do not pass the smell test. While she acknowledges doing paid work for TODCO, the report notes that “Kim told The Standard that her work in opposition to the project was done on her own time.” Which… come on, that is an implausible-sounding defense to those of us who do not work in politics. Kim also played a seemingly irrelevant race card, telling the Standard that “I’m offended that, as an Asian American woman, an older white man can tell her how to think.”

Kim then turned the argument against the website itself, and she kind of has a point here: The SF Standard is a new publication funded largely by venture capitalist Michael Moritz, who has donated $40,000 to YIMBY Action, which shares board members with YIMBY Law. The Standard says “Kim compared her and Elberling’s situation to that of The Standard and Michael Moritz,” without quoting her directly, and she’s indicating that if Moritz can keep an ethical arm's-length between himself and the publication, then she can do the same with her own work. But there’s a shrewd shiv there in pointing out that the SF Standard is bought and paid for by a Silicon Valley YIMBY guy, which is literally true.

Still, the main issue here is not the SF Standard, it's Jane Kim’s alleged lobbying. And there is certainly some “there” there with regards to paid conflicts of interest. It may all technically be legal, but it’s yet another side issue to a high-rise development that lost at City Hall, but now seeks to win through lawsuits and legal complaints.

Related: State Agency Threatens Investigation Into Supervisors Rejecting 27-Story Residential Tower [SFist]

Image: JaneKim.org

The megadevelopment dubbed the “Monster in the Mission” would have been the Mission District’s largest housing project. Now that it’s developer is waving the white flag, it still could be — and possibly as an entirely affordable housing project.  

You might remember back around Halloween 2017 when a series of ads declared “I am Not a Monster” all over the 16th Street BART station, attempting to put a working-class face on a luxury condo and apartment project that had acquired the unfortunate nickname “Monster in  the Mission.” That development, which would have turned the shuttered Walgreens and Burger King spots at 16th and Mission into the towering ten-story housing complex seen above, set off a divisive seven-year battle over gentrification and overdevelopment in the Mission. That battle is now over, and may represent a landmark victory for Monster opponents and affordable housing advocates, as the San Francisco Business Times reports that the “Monster in the Mission” building has been put up for sale.

The jilted developer Maximus Real Estate Partners still has the 1979Mission.com website up describing their market-rate condo dreams for the project site, as well as their allegedly astroturfy “community” website Mission4All.org. And while we could not find the property listed on the San Francisco section of the website of its new realtor Colliers International, the Business Times reports they've seen a listing for the 58,000-square-foot project describing it as an “opportunity to entitle and construct a new, ‘large-scale’ mixed-use residential housing project.”

More intriguingly, Mission Local reports that a community group wants to buy the property and make it all affordable housing. Community advocacy group Plaza16 says in an announcement that “Plaza 16’s commitment to the community does not stop with the defeat of the Monster. The mission remains to build a 100% community-developed deeply affordable housing project at 1979 Mission St. The Coalition is convening an effort to bring together community, government, and philanthropic entities to deliver on the promise that will lead us to building the ‘Marvel in the Mission.’”

The group has at least one friend at City Hall. The district’s supervisor Hillary Ronen told the Business Times, "I think a fresh start is exactly what the 16th Street BART Plaza needs," and that "if we do this right, this project can be a model for how the city of San Francisco builds housing on top of public transit."

Whether or not that happens, Maximus Real Estate’s sale of the property does mean that the “Monster in the Mission” version of the project is definitely done and dead. These derisive development project nicknames don’t always work to stop them. The “Beast on Bryant” was temporarily stalled in 2015, but eventually beat its appeals and has broken ground. On the other hand, the site of the exceedingly well-crafted insult “Mess on South Van Ness” will be turned into an affordable housing site. It’s up to community groups to see if the 16th and Mission “Monster” trucks in that same direction.

Related: Wiener’s Controversial SB-50 Housing Bill Dies for Third Consecutive Year [SFist]

Image: 1979Mission.com