SF Standard owner Michael Moritz trashed Supervisor Aaron Peskin in the NY Times yesterday. Today we get some insight into why, as a Telegraph Hill condo project Moritz is backing just had its applications canceled, though mostly because of a missed deadline.

On Wednesday, local venture capital magnate and SF Standard owner Michael Moritz got another New York Times op-ed, a lengthy diatribe against District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin. This is curious, given what tiny percentage of New York Times readers have any idea who Aaron Peskin even is. And one of the many arguments Moritz lodges against Peskin sounds somewhat personal, as he wrote, “Mr. Peskin has attacked my involvement in an ambitious plan to build a large housing development in northern San Francisco.”

Peskin got his own chance to respond in a Chronicle op-ed today. “Never in my recollection have I heard of the Times publishing a billionaire’s 1,300-word attack on a local politician on the other side of the country, but it is worth knowing a bit more about Moritz than the Times has thus far conveyed,” Peskin responded. “As Moritz admits in his Times op-ed, he has also invested heavily in commercial real estate in San Francisco, including plans to raze a historic building on the northern waterfront to construct a towering new luxury structure. In other words, Mortitz’s views on real estate development — and his views about me — are driven, in substantial part, by self-interest.”

Whether you call it a “large housing development” or a “towering new luxury structure,” the project both men are referring to is a proposed 17-story condo at 1088 Sansome Street. The building currently at this location just two blocks from the Bay is only three stories. The project has been in the works for most of 2024, but on Thursday, the Chronicle reported that the project now appears to be dead.

And it wasn’t Aaron Peskin that killed the project. Per the Chronicle, the project’s application was “automatically canceled” because the project sponsor did not submit a full plan within the required 180-day timeframe.

Still, Peskin’s fingerprints are all over the complicated history of the 112-unit condo project. Proposed in January, it took advantage of the state density bonus rules that allowed for higher heights in exchange for more affordable units. And Peskin himself was behind 2023 legislation to make office-to-housing conversions easier in certain parts of downtown, which would have included the 1088 Sansome site. But since then, Peskin has managed to pass new legislation that tightened up some of those rules, and the new rules now apply to that property.    

If the 1088 Sansome project sponsors had submitted their plans by the deadline, the project would have been grandfathered in under the more relaxed rules. They did not. They can reapply a new proposal for the property, but under Pekin’s revised rules, the waterfront property would not be able to be as tall — and the Telegraph Hill Dwellers neighborhood group is more than likely to fight the project to the end, as they have other large developments in the area.

Related: Local Billionaire Michael Moritz Pens Another NYT Op-Ed, This Time Attacking Aaron Peskin [SFist]

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