In phrases of outstanding San Francisco land use battles, the proposal to construct 57 studio apartments on a thin parking lot close to Mission and Sixth streets was not on anybody’s radar.
There had been no letters of opposition. No calls to the District Supervisor’s workplace. When the developer’s legal professional reached out to neighboring teams — the Filipino-American Development Foundation and the Bayanihan Community Center — he was instructed they’d name “if they had any questions.”
But nonetheless, on Thursday, a short-handed Planning Commission rejected the venture at 1010 Mission St. after an Eleventh-hour blitz from a half dozen South of Market nonprofit employees, who argued that the principally market-rate housing — eight of the 57 condos can be under market fee — can be unaffordable and too small to accommodate native households.
“As developers seek to maximize profit and the market-driven cost of development continues to rise, developers are proposing and building smaller and smaller units to increase their returns,” mentioned David Woo of the SoMa Pilipinas Filipino Cultural District. “This should not be the guiding force of city planning.”
The 3-2 vote to kill the event was uncommon as a result of the Planning Commission presently solely has 5 lively members, not its regular seven. One longtime planning commissioner, Rachael Tanner, is inactive as a result of she is ready for her reappointment to be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors. And another newly appointed member, Derek Braun, nonetheless has to be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors.
Under town constitution, the fee has 4 members appointed by the Mayor and three by the Board of Supervisors. In this case the three members of the fee appointed by the Board of Supervisors — Kathrin Moore, Gabriella Ruiz Martinez and Theresa Imperial — voted to kill the deal slightly than proceed it till the physique was at full power.
The two mayoral appointees, Joel Koppel and Sue Diamond, unsuccessfully sought to delay the vote for a month so as to give the developer extra time to tackle group considerations.
The vote comes because the California Department of Housing and Community Development is specializing in San Francisco for its first-ever “housing policy and practice review,” a course of that can disect why town has the state’s longest timeline for advancing housing initiatives and is the topic of essentially the most complaints from Gov Gavin Newsom’s Housing Accountability Unit. The unit was created final 12 months to alleviate California’s housing scarcity by forcing cities to comply with state legal guidelines in approving and allowing new housing.
That state scrutiny was not less than, partially, prompted by the Board of Supervisors’ choice to reject about 500 apartments at 469 Stevenson St., a valet parking lot a few block from the Mission Street parcel.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the South of Market neighborhood, mentioned that he couldn’t touch upon the precise Mission Street venture as a result of it may find yourself being appealed to the Board of Supervisors. But he referred to as the 3-2 fee vote a “political stunt” and “galling.”
“This isn’t good government. It’s anti-housing gamesmanship. It’s why San Franciscans are losing confidence of their local government,” mentioned Dorsey. “It’s why the state department of Housing and Community Development is investigating our processes. The matter should have been continued.”
Dorsey mentioned he had reached out to the workplace of City Attorney David Chiu “to explore what our options are now.”
Jeff Cretan, spokesman for Mayor London Breed, additionally mentioned the fitting factor to do would have been to proceed the matter for a month or so, which might have given the developer an opportunity to tackle neighbors’ considerations and allowed the total board to vote on the venture.
The absence of two commissioners shouldn’t have been seized upon “as an opportunity to kill a housing project,” Cretan mentioned.
The north facet of Mission Street between Sixth and Seventh is without doubt one of the metropolis’s densest collections of reasonably priced housing. The assortment of multi-family properties on the block consists of 83 models of household housing at 1083 Mission, 256 studios for previously homeless residents at 1064 Mission, and a mixed 227 reasonably priced, single-room occupancy apartments on the Kean Hotel and the Bayanihan House.
The solely vacant parcel left to develop is the sliver of a parking lot — it holds just 15 vehicles — to the west of the Bayanihan constructing, which features a group heart, a Filipino bookstore and different nonprofits. The proposal referred to as for a nine-story constructing that may entrance onto Mission and again up onto the Jessie Street alleyway.
The legal professional for the developer, John Kevlin of Rueben & Junious, mentioned he had no indication that the neighbors didn’t help the venture. He mentioned there have been some “friendly conversations” with neighborhood teams and no response after the developer handed over the “latest set of plans.”
“They said, ‘Thank you, we’ll let you know if we have any questions,’ ” he mentioned. “We have heard nothing from them since then.”
At the planning fee listening to SoMa activists lamented the development of compressing as many small models as potential into infill buildings.
“We do not need any more tiny, expensive units,” mentioned P.J. Eugenio, who works on the South of Market Community Action Network, which has sued to cease a number of market fee housing initiatives within the neighborhood.
Raquel Redondiez, govt director of SoMa Pilipinas, mentioned that town planners ought to “respond to the reality that there is an over abundance of tiny studios and one bedrooms and these do not fit the needs of families.”
J.Okay. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle employees author. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @sfjkdineen
