Category: Update

By Mike Ege : frisko – excerpt

On the other side of the world, a state official holds up San Francisco as a stark example of what not to do as the city girds herself for yet another protracted political fight over development

‘San Francisco and Sydney share many attributes, including beautiful architecture and natural harbours spanned by impressive bridges. Regrettably, both cities also share a housing crisis. While San Francisco teeters on what some claim is failed-city status, Sydney still has a chance to avoid a similar fate. But the window of opportunity to act is closing’’ — Sydney Morning Herald Op-Ed, February 5

On February 5, Daniel Mookhey, the state treasurer of New South Wales, addressed an urban policy summit in Sydney, warning that Australia’s premier city had only a five- to 10-year window to avert what he called a “landed gentry” situation, where people with little or no generational wealth would no longer have any foothold for living there. He deliberately cited San Francisco as an example where the city did not want to head…

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a campaign to claw back development policy reforms steered by Sacramento and aimed at increasing housing supply premiered last Sunday in North Beach at a town hall hosted by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, one of San Francisco’s most potent neighborhood groups.

The emerging campaign is essentially a backlash to newly passed housing laws, like Senate Bills 35, and 8 (which streamlined housing project approvals), Senate Bill 9 (which made construction of multiple units and subdivisions on single-family lots easier), and Senate Bill 10 (which streamlined the zoning process for multi-unit housing projects near transit). Most of this legislation has been shepherded by San Francisco’s own State Senator Scott Wiener, and supported by most of the city’s delegation to Sacramento.…(more)

By Chronicle Editorial Board – excerpt

We need residents in downtown San Francisco, not empty offices. Proposition C would help get us there.

It’s no secret; downtown San Francisco is struggling.

Nearly 36% of the city’s office space is empty, totaling over 30 million square feet. Workers would rather stay home than commute, and many of the businesses that relied on the patronage of those commuters have closed, leaving “for lease” signs on vacant spaces. Downtown is the engine that drives San Francisco’s tax revenues. Consequentially, these vacancies are the most significant contributor to the city’s projected budget deficit of nearly $800 million over the next two budget cycles.

Nearly everyone in San Francisco, it seems, sees a solution to this quandary in converting empty, unwanted offices into housing.

Rightly so…(more)

By Adam Shank : sfexaminer – excerpt

The City’s latest struggle over land use centers on its outermost edge.

The dispute involves Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and state Sen. Scott Wiener, with the former looking to protect California’s coastline from waves of development and the latter looking to spur desperately needed new housing in San Francisco.

And once again, San Francisco is under a magnifying glass, with the repercussions potentially resonating statewide.

The Board of Supervisors approved a resolution Monday that puts local legislators on record opposing a bill proposed by Wiener in the state legislature in January that would limit the California Coastal Commission’s role in reviewing development and protecting oceanfront access near Ocean Beach…

A small but critical sliver of land in San Francisco falls under the purview of the Coastal Commission, and an even smaller portion of that footprint consists of developed land.

The Coastal Commission was created in 1972 and enshrined by the state legislature’s passage of the California Coastal Act in 1976, with the purpose of protecting the state’s rapidly developing coastline for public use and environmental sustainability.

An impassioned Peskin excoriated Wiener for introducing the bill without consulting city leaders and warned his colleagues on Tuesday that the legislation would mark “the beginning of the end” of the California Coastal Act…

Engardio, Melgar and Dorsey provided the only votes against Peskin’s resolution.…(more)

If you missed the fireworks at the meeting and want to see them, here is the link to the recording of the meeting: https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/player/clip/45353?view_id=10&redirect=true&h=950e160dea915e52141de08ce1e13fca. Jump to Item 25, 240065.

by David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt

Volunteers and nonprofit workers fanned out across San Francisco on Tuesday night to count the number of homeless people on the streets, as the city does every other year. But hardly anyone, even Mayor London Breed, thinks they got an accurate number.

“How are we supposed to tell whether or not they’re really unhoused?” Breed told The Standard after she spent several hours trawling the Tenderloin with the nonprofit Code Tenderloin as part of the Point-in-Time Count. “You’ve got a lot of folks out here who are unfortunately suffering from mental illness and addiction, and that’s a big difference from being homeless.”

The one-night count, conducted by every major city across the country, is required by the federal government to determine how much homelessness funding to allocate. Two years ago, 4,397 people were counted as living on the streets of San Francisco.

Funding—and political futures—are on the line. A significant jump in the number of people counted could mean more money for San Francisco’s shelter and housing efforts, but also political baggage for Breed and other incumbents facing re-election in November…(more)

As we suspected, the numbers are questionable and they spend way too much time counting designing programs and not enough time helping people who need help. People are not numbers. We like the one person at a time and first come first served approach that some neighborhoods have been able to use fairly effectively.

By Noah Baustin : sfstandard – excerpt

Photo by Dennis Minnick of one of many boat races that passes by the Marina Green.

A grassroots neighborhood movement to stop the construction of a yacht harbor in front of the Marina Green won a victory Monday when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee approved an ordinance that would block the contentious plan.

Marina District neighbors began organizing their opposition last winter after learning that the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department wanted to spend some of a $160 million settlement with PG&E to finance the harbor extension. The funds were intended to clean up the bay after decades of pollution from a former coal gasification plant.

Instead of just using the funds to clean up the pollution, the city proposed putting the money toward a wholesale redesign of the area’s waterfront. Most controversial, the proposal would expand the existing West Harbor in front of the Marina Green, a popular community green space.

If passed, the ordinance would prohibit the city from moving forward on any project that would extend the West Harbor Marina beyond the existing jetty, home to the Wave Organ, though other versions of the project would still be allowed…

Safaí authored the ordinance that sailed through committee Monday with a unanimous vote from Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Myrna Melgar and Dean Preston…(more)

We may have witnessed a first at City Hall. There were a lot of supporters and no one spoke against the ordinance.

• By Patrick Hoge :sfexaminer – excerpt (includes audio)

Streets and buildings along San Francisco’s Embarcadero — including the iconic Ferry Building — could eventually be raised up to 7 feet, according to a sweeping draft plan unveiled Friday that would spend an estimated $13 billion to defend The City’s urban waterfront against rising seas and flooding.

The massive infrastructure scheme, spearheaded by the Port of San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, sketches out potential measures for the 7½ miles of bayfront land under the port’s control. It is the result of more than six years of study and public engagement over how to protect a center of economic activity and more than $100 billion worth of property from flooding.

“We are celebrating a major accomplishment today,” said Port Executive Director Elaine Forbes at a waterfront press conference outside the Ferry Building on Friday…

At the highest level, the draft plan centers on a seismically engineered, raised shoreline defense to manage 1½ to 3½ feet of sea-level rise, as well as potential flooding from extreme storms and tides, along the coastline stretching from the south end of Fisherman’s Wharf south to Heron’s Head Park. The City’s waterfront would remain where it is currently. The levels of protection vary by location.

Other San Francisco agencies are working to develop strategies to address coastal flood risk outside of the Port’s jurisdiction.…(more)

By J.K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt

For nearly two years, San Francisco officials have been pitching a plan to add thousands of new housing units by allowing taller apartment buildings on transit corridors: wide boulevards such as Geary, Irving and Judah, where streetcars and major bus lines ply busy shopping strips.

So when Lakeside residents saw the proposed rezoning map, they were baffled to discover that nearly half of their neighborhood — an enclave of narrow one-way streets and single-family homes with lemon trees and white picket fences across 19th Avenue from Stonestown Galleria — was targeted for eight-story buildings.

Resident Barb Debaun, who attended a recent community meeting on the proposal, said she was shocked when she looked at the plan’s fine print.

“We were blindsided,” she said. “It was presented as if it were a done deal. What they are planning would have a destructive impact on the quality of life in this neighborhood.”.

For the past two years, the Planning Department vision for upzoning transit corridors on the west side, and other neighborhoods, has been hashed out in commission meetings and at neighborhood presentations. But while revamping a city’s zoning mostly involves drawing lines on a map, the reality of those changes — how they might impact the look and feel of a neighborhood like Lakeside — is just starting to sink in…

“They just took a red pen and everything that touched 19th Avenue went from 28 to 85 feet,” said Katherine Petrin, an architectural historian and preservation planner who lives in Lakeside.

Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who represents Lakeside, said she was surprised that so many parcels in Lakeside were upzoned…(more)

Good reason to be careful who you elect to represent you in Sacramento. And become a lot more aware of who is fighting these battles and working on a ballot initiative to put zoning controls back in the hands of local government. That would be ourneighborhoodvoices.com

By Julie Johnson : sfchronicle – excerpt

The gray area above indicates the Coastal Commission jurisdiction along the San Franciscos Coast. (see 48hills article for more on this subject)

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, have dueling views of the need to protect the coastline amid development pressures.

Building housing is difficult virtually anywhere in California — but especially along the coast, where there can be an extra layer of permitting.

One of the Legislature’s strongest advocates for more home-building is trying to change that — and he’s starting with the coastline of San Francisco.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation this month that would chip away at the authority of the California Coastal Commission, the state agency charged with preserving public beach access and evaluating coastal development, over neighborhood areas along Ocean Beach. (See the recent allegations Wiener made at the Coastal Commission meeting that were denied by the Coastal Commissioners.)…

The Coastal Commission’s authority over San Francisco is already slim — very few homes actually fall into the coastal zone, which is mostly beach, bluffs and cliffs…

Senate Bill 951 would narrow the coastal commission’s domain by removing privately owned urban parcels along the city’s western edge from commission oversight. These parcels make up only about 5% of the coastal zone in San Francisco.

The Commission’s 12 members are charged with regulating the use of land in the coastal zone, which typically runs about 1,000 yards inland from California’s shoreline. That means the commission in some cases has final say over coastal developments. The commission has existed since the 1970s, after being created via ballot initiative and enshrined by subsequent legislation called the California Coastal Act.

Peskin and coastal advocates said they worry SB 951 is an opening salvo in a bigger battle over how much to continue protecting California’s coast amid the state’s frantic push for new housing.

See a sample letter to support Peskin’s Resolution to oppose Wiener’s SB 951: Download and edit this sample letter

“Once you do it in San Francisco they’ll be able to do it in San Diego and Crescent City, and it’s the beginning of the end of the model law that’s worked for California that’s the envy of the nation,” Peskin said …(more)

Interesting to note that when it suits him, Senator Wiener promotes the rights of local jurisdictions to override a state Commission. Does he feel that way about the CPUC that reset the state unity rates? If so let’s hear him say that. Of course the real reason Wiener wants to give the cities jurisdiction is because he already gave the state legislature the right to override local cities and counties. What is is doing is giving himself the right to dictate what happened to the California Coast. He appears to want to hand it over to the developers as he will do with every inch of state land that he can get away with.

The only solution to stopping Wiener is to vote him out of office, which we may do this year if he continues to drive people into a corner. First he wants to force density where is it not wanted. Then, he wants to remove cars and parking. Now he wants to install a new tracking system on our private cars and set up a surveillance system to track our every move SB961. Why does he want to turn ordinary citizens into criminals while not supporting bills like SB44 to relax some of the laws that prevent prosecuting serious offenders who are turning our streets into nightmares? Since we know the senator does not support his constituents, who is he working for? Who wants to turn our pristine Pacific coastline into Miami Beach West?

For a better understanding of how Senator Wiener is using his voice to undermine anyone who gets in his way, watch him in action at the Coastal Commission Meeting where he accused the Commissioners of taking actions they denied. (Link to article covering the meeting)