Category: Update

By Dave Osgood, (RPNA)

We filed four appeals (financed by CSFN) to keep the 83-year-old Rincon Annex from being further disfigured by modern new signs. I am pleased to announce our efforts have been successful. The signs will not be installed, but no thanks to the SF Planning Department (which issued the permits). We can’t even thank the members of the Appeals Board. It was the process of exchanging briefs and public testimony that led the building owners to agree to cancel all four permits the morning before the Appeals Board voted. The owners have even agreed to reimburse us the $700 in filing fees. (I will turn the check over to the treasurer – when we actually get it.)

Some takeaways:

The Planning Department clearly has no fire in its belly to protect landmarks. They will exploit any loophole or vague code language to give out-of-town developers what they want:

• An ordinance passed in 2018 specifically to streamline the permitting of affordable housing is now being cited by the department as justification for streamlining permits across-the-board.
• The department is ignoring Article 11 of the planning code which is specifically designed to protect the 100+ historic buildings downtown.
• The department is also ignoring the protections of code Section 1006.6.

The Board of Appeals asked the city attorney to opine on these three sections of code, but her report remains sealed based on attorney-client privilege.

There is no reason to think Mayor Breed’s three appointees to the Board of Appeals would have supported our appeals. They generally stay mum during the hearings, but one Breed appointee said he thought the signs were OK, and another said the votes probably weren’t there. They apparently weren’t much interested in the testimony from the public and distinguished experts. Even viewing the PBS NewsHour segment about the demise of such landmarks, filmed at Rincon Annex last winter, did not phase them.

The Secretary of the Interior‘s standards for historic buildings are often cited for guidance, but we learned the SF Planning Department uses the wrong set. There are actually four separate sets of SOI standards–including preservation and rehabilitation. Since Rincon Annex is pretty well preserved, the preservation standards should have been used. Instead, the Planning Department provided the board with pages and pages of analysis of the rehabilitation standards (which often don’t apply).

It was also disturbing that the assistant zoning administrator testified that there are actually no restrictions on the size and number of signs allowed on buildings downtown (where there are more than 100 landmarks). And a document submitted by the Rincon Annex owner makes it clear that all buildings downtown fall under the same weak guidelines.

This episode is (almost) another example of the blanding of San Francisco. Thanks go to Supervisor Peskin for his support and to the 20 individuals who wrote and called in to the hearing.

By Emily Landes : therealdeal – excerpt

Industrial broker says Bayshore Corridor is already overrun with facilities

San Francisco’s Department of Homeless and Supportive Housing has entered negotiations on a lease to create homeless housing at an industrial site off Bayshore that would put 60 cabins and about 20 safe parking RV spots at the 2.25-acre site of a former drywall contractor.

The city says it is meeting the needs of the community by providing additional housing in an area with the second-largest homeless population in the city But industrial owners in the neighborhood say a third supportive services site in the immediate vicinity is too much to bear — and they are looking at their legal options.

HSH proposes to lease the property at 2177 Jerrold Avenue “to help address unsheltered and vehicular homelessness in the area.” The department is in the early stages of development and still needs authorization on the project, according to HSH representative Emily Cohen, who could not yet comment on lease terms or the cost of building the tiny homes. The Board of Supervisors will need to approve the lease when it returns from summer recess in September, she added.

More than 1,100 people were experiencing homelessness in District 10, which includes the Bayshore Corridor where the site would be located, according to the 2022 Point in Time homelessness count. District 6, which includes South of Market and the Tenderloin, is the only district with more unhoused people at more than 3,800.

Shelter spill-over

The department recently issued a notification to neighbors about the proposed lease and will host an initial public meeting on Aug. 17 to discuss it further, she said. Overall, she has heard “general support from the community as people are invested in having alternative places for people living on the streets of the neighborhood to go.” …

“The city is called constantly to help resolve the problem,” he said. “They do absolutely nothing.”…(more)

RELATED:

New shelter slated for Bayview awaits supervisors’ approval

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Ruling could be a blow to billionaire efforts to take control of San Francisco.

The local news media have largely ignored a critical California Supreme Court decision last week that could have a significant impact on any effort by the tech billionaires to replace district elections of San Francisco supervisors with an at-large system.

There’s no doubt that groups like Together SF and Grow SF, funded almost entirely by very rich people who want to take control of the city, have as part of their agenda the repeal of district elections…

But in the case of Pico Neighborhood Association v. City of Santa Monica, the Court ruled, in essence, that citywide elections by definition dilute the power of minority groups and are a violation of state law…(more)

By J.D. Morris and Roland Lee : sfchronicle – excerpt

A San Francisco commissioner who created a controversial planned tour that intended to show attendees downtown’s worst “doom and squalor” resigned from his city position on Monday.

Alex Ludlum is stepping down from the city’s Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure after emails affiliated with the so-called Downtown Doom Loop Walking Tour indicated he had organized the event, which was canceled shortly before it was supposed to occur over the weekend.

“I regret that my attempt to bring attention to the deplorable street conditions & rampant criminality in my neighborhood has been misconstrued as a mockery of suffering individuals. Satire is a poor way to address the grave issues we face as a city,” Ludlum wrote in a letter to Mayor London Breed, which he provided to the Chronicle. Breed appointed Ludlum to the commission last year…(more)

Another Breed Appointee bites the dust. Loses faith in the fate of San Francisco.

By Liz Lindqwister : sfstandard – excerpt

San Francisco ethics watchdogs have long urged the city to adopt tighter restrictions on gift-giving practices that have in the past opened the door for corruption. Now, the city will take the issue to voters.

The Ethics Commission voted on Aug. 18 to place a package of anti-corruption measures on the March 5, 2024, election ballot. The news comes after two delayed efforts to bring a corruption-related ballot measure to voters, first in the June 2022 special election and again on the Nov. 8, 2022, ballot.

“Our city residents and dedicated public servants alike expect and deserve a city government that works to promote the public good, not personal interests,” said Ethics Commission Vice Chair Theis Finlev. “Reformed conflict of interest laws and increased training for city officials can help ensure that governmental decisions are made on a fair and impartial basis.”…(more)

Something is happening at the Ethics Commission. They are finally giving the residents the right to vote on a package of anti-corruption measures after years of attempts to do so. Maybe they are overwhelmed by the number of cases.

By St. John Barned-Smith : sfchronicle – excerpt

Prominent San Francisco engineer Rodrigo Santos, who has pleaded guilty to bank fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion charges as part of a wide-ranging federal corruption probe, was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Santos has pleaded guilty to charges that he stole money from clients through check fraud and improperly influencing a senior building inspector by having clients donate money to the official’s favored rugby club.

Prosecutors wanted 51 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Santos’ attorney Randall Knox had requested a sentence of just over a year in prison.

At the beginning of Friday’s hearing, Senior District Judge Susan Illston said she was inclined to sentence Santos to 30 months, as the probation department recommended.

“You had everything going for you — but I find the offenses set out here to be very, very serious and very destructive,” Illston said. “The effect of fraud on city and county of San Francisco was substantial.”…(more)

by Sam Whiting : sfchronicle – excerpt

A summer of simmering San Francisco neighborhood resistance to a plan to build a new small boat harbor in front of the Marina Green boiled over into a protest outside a community meeting on Wednesday.

Members of the recently organized citizen group Keep the Waterfront Open gathered outside the meeting hosted by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department at Moscone Rec Center.

The plan was to carry signs, march and chant at the entrance to the meeting in the old gymnasium on Chestnut Street. Around 75-100 energized people showed up, some with signs in hand — though they forwent the march, and the chanting was done mainly by two 8-year-old girls, Siobhan Butler and Carolyn Wong, president and vice president of the Earth Club at their school.

“Save the cove!” they chanted loudly, alternating with, “Clean the cove!”…

Some of the more adamant protesters are still fighting a $190 million settlement reached in 2021 between the city attorney and PG&E to pay for the cleanup. Homeowners along Marina Boulevard claim that the cleanup plan is insufficient for remediating both the boat harbor and the property beneath their homes…(more)

by Garrett Leahy :sfstandard – excerpt

A feud between a property developer and a city official may squash housing plans for a dilapidated old San Francisco movie theater.

The conflict centers on a local supervisor’s plan to designate the Alexandria Theater as a historic landmark, which the property owner says will cause development costs to skyrocket, making it impossible to complete the project—and leaving the theater in its blighted condition.

Development plans for the theater have fallen through before. Now the city and restoration advocates are seething at the thought of the failure of another project that could transform the theater into much-needed San Francisco housing if completed…

Woody LaBounty, head of San Francisco Heritage, a nonprofit that seeks to preserve San Francisco’s unique architecture, said his organization has pushed for the theater’s redevelopment for at least 15 years. The local historian said he’s tired of seeing the Alexandria Theater in a state of disrepair and wants to see it redeveloped.

“The whole idea was housing in the back, and swim center in the front,” LaBounty said. “At what point are we supposed to believe that the owners don’t have the money to build it because it’s a historic landmark? The owners have had two approved projects, and they haven’t done anything.”…(more)

By Megan Fan Munce : sfchronicle – excerpt

The developers behind a controversial project to build a 50-story condo building in San Francisco’s Sunset District have sued the city, claiming that officials misinterpreted and violated a state law meant to incentivize affordable housing.

California’s Density Bonus Law (DBL) is designed to incentivize the construction of low to moderate income housing by allowing developers to build more housing units in a project than local regulations normally allow if they agree to make a larger percentage of those units affordable housing.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the San Francisco Superior Court, the developers, 2700 Sloat Holding, which owns the site, argues that the city is misinterpreting the requirements of the law and also violating it by requiring developers to pay certain fees…

San Francisco Planning Director Rich Hillis said he had not reviewed the exact details of the complaint, but said he believes the developers of the project have misinterpreted how far beyond local regulation the density bonus law allows developers to build.

“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,” Hilles said. “We think they’re wrong in their interpretation of what’s allowed under the zoning.”…(more)