On the cover of yesterday's Chron, architecture critic John King had a piece critiquing the San Francisco Downtown Plan, following on a recently released report detailing the plan's successes and failures over its 25 years. As some of you may know, it was this 1985 document that limited building heights across the Financial District, resulting in a couple decades worth of office boxes being built that are all the exact same height (the maximum allowable). And this is the document that attempted to make room for 90,000 new office workers who never arrived. more ›

Some of you may have heard the news, via the Chron's Inside Scoop yesterday, that Ike Shehadeh, owner of the ever-popular Ike's Place, has been served with an eviction notice. The owner of the building is being sued by the upstairs tenants, who claim to have been "terrorized" by the noise of Ike's constant crowds and the never-ending smell of Peg Bundys and Kryptonite sandwiches wafting up to their apartments. (Interestingly, frequent NIMBY support Chuck Nevius sides with Ike in this case.) more ›

Matier and Ross share some juicy gossip today about the possible firing of veteran zoning administrator Larry Badiner and three other higher-ups in the planning department over the circulating of porn in inter-office emails. more ›

Good news for motorists and cyclists alike: Bike NOPA reports that a plan has been hashed out for a designated curbside queue lane for the ever-popular and cheap ARCO station at Fell and Divisidero that makes traffic around there so effing miserable (not to mention dangerous) during commute hours. The plan also includes a yellow bike lane to the right of the gas lane. The only objectors here will be the locals who'll be losing street parking spots, so prepare for that griping. [via SF Citizen, who is quick to note the Porsche 944 parked in the foreground.] more ›

Former supervisor Aaron Peskin used the opportunity of a hearing about favorite corporate punching bag Academy of Art University to make his first appearance at City Hall since the end of his elected term. Some of his first public words to the for-profit school, "This is an institution that has made a mockery out of any number of duly passed codes," and "Nobody else gets away with dragging their feet for the better part of the decade." more ›

The Planning Department just released their 25-year plan for the Transbay Terminal-adjacent "Transit Center District." Above is a rendering of what the San Francisco skyline might look like, 20 or 25 years hence, if six new proposed skyscrapers actually get approved and built, including the central 950-foot Transbay Tower, which would be 100 feet taller than the TransAmerica Pyramid. This is just a plan of course, not a design, and the image above is meant only to illustrate relative heights. But wouldn't that be pretty? The view from Dolores Park? (Cue the anti-shadow, anti-tall-stuff whiners.) more ›

Now we're just picking on the poor guy: in today's edition of the Examiner, the largest-font front page headline screams, "Pot club in Jew family's building is under review," going on to say, "Jew's pot-club tenants probed" (hee!) on page five. more ›

We were skeptical about the plan to open the Panhandle DMV lot for public parking. But Lisa Zahner, the city's Divisadero Corridor Manager, reassured us that the Planning Department doesn't anticipate a rise in traffic levels, since the surrounding streets are already so busy. And in fact, traffic might , since drivers won't have to circle the block to find parking. Not only that, but the city's hope is that people will use the lots to come into SF, and then use public transit to mosey on down to Golden Gate Park for the pedestrian-friendly weekends. (Note to city: shuttle buses might make that hope more likely to materialize.) The lot will only be open for public parking during the DMV's off hours and weekends; the rest of the time, it'll be dedicated for DMV use only. Well, that sounds alright then. more ›

We saw this story about problems involving the building of a helipad for SF General and our first, initial thought was yawn. Then we digged around a bit (with help from SFist Jim) and realized, of course, this is San Francisco which means nothing is that easy and everyone goes around saying and doing silly things. In this case, we have NIMBYism, web sites, discussion of class issues, and guerilla art. Yes, guerrila art over a helipad. You can't say we don't have a sense of proportion over things here in San Francisco. Maybe there should be a mural done at Precita Eyes? more ›

Hooray! The Board of Supervisors has agreed to allow beer and wine to be served at the Red Vic movie theatre. While a moratorium had been called on new liquor licenses in the Upper Haight, the newly-approved bill is intended to override that in the case of the worker owned and operated single-screen movie theater. more ›

Yeah, San Francisco's nice, we guess. But you know what it REALLY needs? Parking garages. Yeah, get rid of that stupid Yerba Buena garden, and that useless Golden Gate Park, and that , smelly Mission. We're sick of coffee shops, park benches, covenience stores, murals, and jerks like Supervisor Daly (who's sponsoring legislation that would prevent construction of free-standing parking garages in SF, and limit apartment-building parking spots) who are blind to the unadorned beauty of a squat concrete bunker that reeks of gasoline and pigeon droppings. more ›

-Developers planning to build new housing in the SOMA area encountered a new concern last week as drivers complained that a possible eight story building on Harrison between third and fourth might obstruct views of the city. From the freeway. Turns out it's city policy not to build something along the freeways that would create a "canyon" effect and not allow drivers to see where they are in the city. To which members of the Planning Department banged their heads against their tables and threw their hands up in surrender. more ›

After months of debate, San Francisco finally can legally go to pot (only with doctor’s approval, of course)-- we have our first ever codified marijuana dispensaries laws. Yay!!! Yesterday, the Board of Supes unamiously voted to agree to the latest version of the legislation which had been revised by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi in order to address the latest round of concerns. Included in the new rules are limiting the amount of pot each person can purchase to only one ounce and made it so they can't be near schools. While not putting a limit on the amount of dispensaries that can run in the city, Ross made it so anyone who wants to open one up will have to go through the cities Planning Department first, which is kind of like the same thing. To appease opponents of his legislation, Mirkarimi added a grandfather clause that will allow several dispensaries that are open to stay open and every dispensary won't have to keep up with the usual amount of bureaucratic paper work the city usually requires. more ›