By John Elberling : 48hills – excerpt
It’s a good PR stunt, but it’s not going to create any new housing anytime soon.
Yimby Law, the developer/tech millionaire-funded legal action arm of SF Yimby, filed suit Thursday against the City of San Francisco, looking to overturn last October’s successful community appeal of the 469 Stevenson project’s environmental impact report by the TODCO Group’s Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium.
The suit—termed “legal grandstanding” by knowledgeable lawyers—dose not actually address any environmental issues about that controversial project’s EIR at all, like failing to evaluate the earthquake risks of a 27-story tower without a pile foundation on the edge of historic Soma marshlands…
When Build started planning for its India Basin, One Oak Street, and Stevenson projects several years ago, the economy was booming and it had a chance to get investment funding from one of the huge development conglomerates in China, such as the giant Vanke. But that hope was dashed last year when the Chinese government stopped all investment in projects outside China, because of a looming real estate financial crisis within China itself…
Of course, the project itself was not actually rejected by the board, just its EIR. Build could go back though the EIR process, fix what was wrong with the first EIR, and presumably get approved again and go ahead. There would be no grounds then for a second appeal. But it hasn’t. Why?
Because the irony is the 469 Stevenson project they all champion is itself a fake. There is no realistic hope that its proposed developer, Build Inc., could in fact get it built any time soon…
Build hasn’t even purchased the 469 Stevenson project site. It merely has an option lasting until 2024 to buy it from the current owner, Nordstrom’s…
You have to hand it to Yimby Law and its political allies. They sure have taken that lemon of a Stevenson project and made it into good PR lemonade…(more)
SOMA residents are painfully aware of their own circumstances so there is not much a lawsuit can do to impress them.