Scott Wiener

Democrats reject 8 Washington

Zelda Bronstein
-
51
Democrats reject 8 Washington

The San Francisco Democratic Party has voted to oppose the 8 Washington project and to endorse the ballot measure that would halt it.

By a 15-4 margin, the Democratic County Central Commitee, which makes policy for the local party, endorsed a No vote on the fall referendum that would negate the height limit increase developer Simon Snellgrove says he needs to build the ultra-luxury condos. The units would be the most expensive in San Francisco history.

The supervisors approved the height limit last fall. The referendum puts the issue directly before the voters, and foes of the project need a “no” vote to reject it.

“This was a huge victory,” Jon Golinger, who is running the campaign against the condos, told me. “The Democratic Party is a huge endorsement in San Francisco.”

That’s particularly true in a low-turnout election — and since there aren’t any high-profile races on this November’s ballot, I would guess only the most serious voters will make it to the polls.

The Sierra Club — another group that carries a lot of clout — has already come out against the project.

Snellgrove’s forces first tried to delay the vote until late summer, arguing that the committee needed more time to get all the facts. But Sup. David Chiu, a DCCC member, noted that this project has been discussed and analyzed and fought over for so long already that there’s nothing new anyone could possibly learn by delaying.

The motion to delay failed. Only Bevan Dufty, Sup. Scott Wiener, Sup. Malia Cohen and Kat Anderson voted in favor of the project. Voting against were Bill Fazio, Trevor McNeil, Kelly Dwyer, Leah Pimentel, Hene Kelly, Alix Rosenthal, Carole Migden, Rafael Mandelman, Matt Dorsey, Petra DeJesus, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, State Senator Leland Yee, Chiu, Sup. David Campos, and Sup. John Avalos.

 

Commission approves soccer project but pushes the city to restore habitat

Sasha Cuttler
-
43
Commission approves soccer project but pushes the city to restore habitat

The California Coastal Commission today upheld San Francisco’s plan to replace the Beach Chalet grass soccer fields at the west end of Golden Gate Park with artificial turf and high stadium lights after an emotional five-hour hearing, but not before voicing concerns about the loss of natural terrain and urging the city to do wildlife habitat restoration work on adjacent land.

The soccer project has been repeatedly approved by city agencies despite strong opposition from some neighbors and environmentalists, who say it conflicts with a Local Coastal Plan that calls for it to be a “naturalistic” setting. Their appeal to the commission — which enforces the California Coastal Act of 1976 and regulates development in the coastal zone statewide — was supported by commission staff, giving hope to opponents.  

But the dearth of playing fields in the city and bad conditions on this often soggy, gopher-ridden site drove the local approvals of the project, and advocates for soccer and youth dominated public testimony at today’s hearing, which was held in San Rafael. Supportive speakers made arguments ranging from the exodus of families from the city to the need to combat youth obesity and diabetes to concerns that the woods surrounding the field is now “a fornication playground for gay men, it’s a shooting gallery for drug users, and it’s a toilet for the homeless,” all ills they say the turf and lights will help dispel.    

“I urge you to reject the appeal and allow San Francisco to manage our park system,” Sup. Scott Wiener testified to the commission, adding, “San Francisco has a crisis in that we are losing our families and losing our children.”

Former Sup. Aaron Peskin took the opposite position, calling the commission’s staff report “well-reasoned” and telling commissioners they have an obligation to protect coastal areas on behalf of all Californians: “It is the role of the commission not to succumb to political pressure.”

After public testimony and before a lunch break when he needed to leave, Commissioner Steve Blank made a motion to adopt staff recommendations and deny the city’s project, rejecting the various arguments made by supporters as irrelevant to whether this project complied with the Coastal Act and should be built so close to the ocean.

“Our review is based on the needs of 38 million Californians. One of the reasons our coastline looks the way is does is because of this commission,” Blank said, later adding, “This project looks like an industrial sports facility which is the antithesis of a naturalistic setting.”

He acknowledged arguments that the site has been soccer fields for more than 60 years and that many San Franciscans want them there. But he analogized it to the city’s one-time embrace of the Embarcadero Freeway before decades later realizing it wasn’t an appropriate waterfront use and tearing it down.

After a lunch break, the commissioner who seconded his motion, Esther Sanchez, continued Blank’s arguments against the project. “Our purview is different than the city and county of San Francisco,” she said. The commission’s role is ensuring compliance with the Coastal Act and LCP — which was developed by the city and approved by the commission decades ago — and its call to “emphasize naturalistic land use qualities of the western part of the park for visitor use,” saying the city should use other parks if it wants artificial turf fields.

But Commissioner Steven Kinsey called for the commission to defer to the city process and argued that turf and lights don’t necessarily violate the vague language in the LCP. “Grass alone does not make the site naturalistic,” Kinsey said, making a motion to approve the city’s project.

Commissioner Martha McClure then strongly sided sided with Kinsey and the city, and Commissioners Robert Garcia and Wendy Mitchell followed suit, saying how they personally liked turf more than grass. “It’s great for the environment, it’s water reducing, it stays green,” Mitchell said, noting that she’s replacing the lawn at her Southern California home with turf, calling the staff report “arrogant,” and saying, “I’m disappointed that we’re hearing this item.”

Garcia said the project will improve the public’s access to the coastal zone, which is something the Coastal Act also encourages.

“Artificial turf has become a savior for us, we can keep all our fields in play,” Commissioner Carole Groom, a member of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, later said, making her the fifth solid vote for the city’s project.

That left four swing votes on this 11-member commission who all said this was a difficult decision. They were inclined to let the project go through, but they were bothered by converting seven acres of real grass to artificial turf and wanted to mitigate that loss of wildlife habitat.

Chair Mary Shallenberger took issue with Mitchell’s comments. “I think they is absolutely properly before us,” she said. “This is how the process is supposed to work. Staff ended their presentation by saying this is a judgment call,” commending project opponents for filing the appeal.

“This was a very hard one for me,” Commissioner Dayna Bochco said, raising doubts that “seven acres of plastic would be a natural and healtful condition.”

Commissioner Jana Zimmer shared the concern and seized on a comment that SF Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg made earlier expressing a desire to restore as a naturalistic setting a long-neglected four-acre site next to Beach Chalet that used to be the city’s old wastewater treatment plant, noting that $6.5 million in the city’s last parks bond was set aside for habitat restoration in Golden Gate Park.

“I’d like to find a way to link the finding here to that requirement,” Zimmer said, asking Ginsburg whether he could make that commitment.

Ginsburg said that would be the top staff recommendation for the bond money, but that a public process and environmental review would be needed and he couldn’t make the commitment.

“I do believe mitigation is required here,” Bochco said. “We’re taking away seven acres of habitat and I want it replaced with something.”

A majority of commissioners, those for and against the project, strongly urged Ginsburg to follow-through on his pledge to pursue habitat restoration on the adjacent site. But with concerns expressed about tying the two projects together — which raised both legal and local control issues — the motion to do so failed on a 5-6 vote.

With Ginsburg’s pledge and the writing on the wall, the commission then voted unanimously to approve the project, clearing the way for the city to break ground as early as this summer.

Condo bypass legislation now before the full board

Sasha Cuttler
-
196
Condo bypass legislation now before the full board

Controversial condominium lottery bypass legislation — sponsored by Sups. Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener but substantially modified by tenant group that strongly opposed the original legislation, with the help of Sup. David Chiu, Jane Kim, and Norman Yee — is finally coming to the full Board of Supervisors today (Tues/7, starting at 2pm).

Those involved in the negotiations say the legislation will likely to be returned to the Land Use Committee because of amendments being introduced today that the City Attorney’s Office has deemed substantial enough to require another public hearing. [UPDATE: The board voted unanimously to send this back to committee, which will consider it on Monday the 13th].They include a provision pushed by tenant groups that would scuttle the lottery bypass if the 10-year lottery moratorium is challenged in court. 

That moratorium was pushed by tenants and their supporters as a tradeoff for letting a backlog of around 2,000 tenancy-in-common owners buy their way out of the city’s lottery for the annual allowed conversion of 200 TICs into condominiums, which are more valuable and easier to sell and finance than TICs.

Farrell told the Guardian late last week that he was still negotiating with both sides and hopeful that he might be able to support the legislation, despite the hostile amendments that Chiu made which were opposed by Farrell and Wiener in committee.

San Francisco Tenants Union head Ted Gullicksen told us that the tenants’ side was willing to accept a couple of the technical amendments that Farrell proposed during negotiations with them, including exempting from the bypass fee the 19 building that have awaited conversion the longest and allowing some owner-occupier changes as the bypass is phased in over six years.

He said Farrell also proposed that if less than 2,000 condos opt for the bypass, then the difference in numbers would be added to the allowable number of condos in the first year that the lottery is restored, which the tenants’ groups haven’t yet agreed to.

Farrell and Wiener are also expected to offer other amendments, but the tenant groups have said they’ve gone as far as they’re willing to in allowing any increase in condo conversions, and they seem to have six solid votes lined up on the board.

Yet it’s still an open question how new amendments might affect those political dynamics, how the real estate industry (which simply wants as many condo conversions as possible) will respond, whether Mayor Ed Lee (who has avoided taking a position on the legislation) will sign or veto whatever emerges, and whether whoever is left unsatisfied by this deal will try to go to the ballot.

In other words, there may be some tricky political maneuvering ahead, so stay tuned. 

The warriors arena: How are you going to get there?

Zelda Bronstein
-
51
The warriors arena: How are you going to get there?

The Warriors and the all-star lineup of nearly every political consultant in town launched a new public relations offensive this week with the release of a new, spiffy set of drawings and a rewritten plan for a waterfront arena. And opponents of the project pretty much shrugged and said: So, what?

Sure, it looks nicer than it did before. Sure, there’s a pedestrian walkway around the arena. Yeah, there’s glass on the inside that will give spectators a nice view of the Bay. Oh, and there’s room for a cruise ship terminal, to give the whole thing a veneer of maritime use.

But the problems with this project have never been the architecture of the 12-story structure or the inevitably dubious links to the water. “The design was never the point,” Randy Shandobil, a spokesman for the Waterfront Alliance, told us. “Is this the best place to put a big arena?”

The new plan calls for a slightly smaller arena — 125 feet high instead of 135 — with slightly less retail space and seating inside. The glass sides will not only allow fans to look out, but allow people walking around the outside to view in and see something going on inside. The scoreboard will probably be visible; the actually play on the floor less so.

The visuals presented by the architects, Snøhetta and AECOM, indicate that the arena will perch on a large pad raised significantly above the level of the current Piers 30-32. From the ground level, the arena looks like a giant flying saucer, taller than AT&T Park, that’s plopped down below the Bay Bridge.

Craig Dykers, a representative of the architects, told a Board of Supervisors committee May 6 that the arena will fill a need for some sort of project along the open stretch of waterfront from the Ferry Building to AT&T Park. His presentation made it sound as if that undeveloped area was by nature a blight; thousands of joggers, walkers, bicyclists and people enjoying the unimpeded views of the Bay might disagree.

In fact, the project will change more than the two piers; it will create a busy residential and commercial shopping district that will increase foot and vehicle traffic even when there are no games or concerts scheduled.

This is, by any standard, a very different project from what the Warriors first proposed back in November, 2012. That’s why the Waterfront Alliance is asking that the scoping sessions for the environmental impact report on the project ought to go back to square one.

No matter what you think about the design, or the views, or the impact on the city’s priceless waterfront, there’s a problem that’s glaringly obvious, and Sup. Scott Wiener made the point very clearly:

This absolutely has to be a transit-first arena. There’s no way that part of the city can handle even half of the 5,000 cars that have been counted at the Warrior’s current home, Oracle Arena in Oakland. And much of that impact is going to fall on the subway, or light-rail vehicle system.

“It absolutely has to have good LRV service,” Wiener said.

The problem: “Our current system is not even meeting our current needs. I have a lot of constituents who say, when there’s a Giants game you just don’t take the subway because there’s not going to be any capacity. We’re close to a breaking point now, even past it. and our ten-year capital plan puts to the side most of Muni’s unmet capital needs.”

Jennifer Matz, the Mayor’s Office point person on waterfront development, said she agreed with Wiener. “I recognize this challenge,” she said. “There needs to be more of a holistic approach.”

But Wiener wasn’t backing down. Adding the capacity that will be needed to serve the new arena, and the new Giants development, and the new residents moving into the waterfront neighborhood, is not going to be cheap. “Where,” he asked, “is the money going to come from?”

Peter Albert, who works for the Municipal Transportation Agency, is looking into the number of passengers that will be riding Muni — and BART, and Caltrain — and the capacity those systems plan to add. But he had no answer to Wiener’s question.

That’s because there is only one answer: The taxpayers will have to come up with something in the range of a billion dollars to solve Muni’s capacity problems in the next few years — or else the developers will. And right now, there’s not a lot of political will at City Hall to ask for either.

A win for the tenants

-
44

EDITORIAL In a stunning victory, tenant advocates have managed to derail a terrible piece of condo-conversion legislation — and replace it with a compromise that actually improves the current situation and could help slow the wave of speculative evictions.

The supervisors need to support the revised version of the bill — and if Mayor Lee wants to have any credibility at all with tenants, he needs to sign it.

For some 30 years, San Francisco has had a strict policy limiting the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums. Only 200 units a year get permission, through a lottery.

But thanks to the popularity of tenancies in common (a backdoor way around the limit) and the state’s Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict all their tenants and sell the units as TICs, there’s now a long waiting list.

TIC owners say it’s unfair that they have to accept (somewhat) higher mortgage payments and reduced value on their homes because the wait for a conversion permit has grown to ten years or more. Real-estate speculators see huge profits in clearing buildings of long-term tenants with rent-controlled apartments and selling the places as TICs.

When Supervisors Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell first proposed allowing more than 2,000 tenancy-in-common units to bypass the lottery, tenant advocates began organizing to defeat the bill. Nobody thought a compromise was possible — particularly when the landlord-backed Plan C refused to negotiate in good faith and look for a solution everyone could accept.

But with the help of Supervisors Norman Yee, Jane Kim, and David Chiu, the tenants were able to craft a deal that clears up the backlog — and then prevents any further conversions for at least a decade. That’s fair: If the limit is 200 a year, and TIC owners want to clear up a backlog of 2,000 all at once, a ten-year moratorium makes sense. The tenant package also bars conversion of any buildings with more the five units and includes more protections for existing tenants.

If this proposal is really about helping TIC owners who face a long and uncertain time on the conversion list, then the compromise ought to be fine — and indeed, many TIC owners support it. The real-estate speculators who want to see evictions continue at a rapid pace hate it — this would make TICs less appealing and less valuable. But that’s fine: Buying a TIC has never been, and should never be, based on a future promise of condo conversion. And if this slows down the horrifying epidemic of evictions and displacement, it will be a very positive change.

Wiener and Farrell didn’t accept the compromise, but it was amended into their legislation anyway. The new version will come before the supervisors May 7. The supervisors should see this for what it is — greedy speculators against everyone else — and vote yes.

Hearing on event security as SFPD pushes police state

Sasha Cuttler
-
17

Just a few weeks ago, Sup. Scott Wiener, civil libertarians, and I were raising concerns here about the SFPD unilaterally expanding its video surveillance reach. Then came the bombings at the Boston Marathon, which the SFPD used to seriously up the ante in the police state pot, asking for real time video surveillance up and down Market Street and banning backpacks at Bay to Breakers.

Now, I’m not one to stand in the way of reasonable security precautions. But we shouldn’t just defer to the SFPD on whatever it says it wants because then we’ll have cameras on every corner, spy drones overhead, stop-and-frisk, and an ever-greater portion of our tax dollars going to expand the police state. Because the cops will always want more tools to police us, tools they will always say they need to protect us – it’s just in their nature. But it’s up to the rest of us to strike the right balance and not lose our heads every time some whack-job resorts to violence.

That’s why it’s good to see that Sup. Eric Mar has called a Neighborhood Service and Safety Committee hearing for this Thursday at 2pm on security measures for large events, to which he’s invited the SFPD, Planning Department, Recreation and Parks Department, and Entertainment Commission. Let’s talk about this before acting too rashly.

For example, is it really reasonable to ban backpacks at Bay to Breakers just because the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly carried their homemade bombs in backpacks? Is it possible for police to ensure that nobody in or around an event that draws more than 100,000 people has a backpack? Is it even legal to prevent me from riding my bike near a race that bisects San Francisco if I happen to be wearing a backpack?

I’m always amazed at Americans’ capacity for fear and overreaction. One nut decides to put a crude explosive in his shoe and suddenly we all have to remove our shoes every time we board an airplane (a silly measure most other countries don’t require). Even as horrible as the 9-11 attacks were, the 2,977 people they killed that day is a small fraction of the death toll that we inflicted in response (6,693 US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis killed), and I don’t think anyone can credibly claim that we’re any safer today as a result.

Fearful people will accept anything police say will make them safer, and that’s how the slide into police states throughout history always begin, pushed by tyrants of all ideological stripes. But isn’t that just giving in to terrorism? After all, we’re all far more likely to be killed by a distracted motorist than we are a terrorist, but I’m not hearing calls for big crackdowns on drivers, even in the face of good evidence this would keep us safer than banning backpacks.

Our country was founded by people who were more wary of soldiers and cops than they were random kooks, and I think we’d do well to remember what people like Benjamin Franklin had to say about irrational fears: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Bay to Breakers: Go naked, everyone!

Zelda Bronstein
-
15
Bay to Breakers: Go naked, everyone!

I realize security is a serious issue after Boston. And I’m all for public safety. So if the city is going to ban backpacks at Bay to Breakers, (just for runners, or for spectators, too? How can that be enforced?), we might as well take the next logical step:

More naked runners.

Run naked and you can’t hide a bomb. Run naked and you are no security threat to anyone. In fact, public nudity is one of the best defenses against terrorism; have you ever heard of a naked terrorist?

Let’s go all the way. The runners. The spectators. The casual passers-by, the folks who happen to live along the route …. banning backpacks is just a start. Ban clothes. All day, all along the 7.5 miles. A naked city is a safe city.

Scott Wiener can stay home.

“Street Fight” examines the politics of mobility in San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler
-
16
“Street Fight” examines the politics of mobility in San Francisco

Ideology plays a bigger role in shaping San Francisco than most people realize, as we’ve discussed in this space before. Nowhere is that more true than in the politics of land use and transportation, as my friend Jason Henderson, a San Francisco State University geography professor, discusses in his insightful new book, Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco.

He’ll be discussing his work this Friday, April 19, from 7-9pm during a book launch party hosted by Green Arcade Bookstore across the street at the upstairs loft space of McRoskey Mattress, 1687 Market. Or if you miss that but want to join the discussion, you can catch Henderson’s forum on May 15 at SFSU or what will surely be other local events on this pivotal topic.

Henderson chronicles the seminal events in San Francisco’s history with “automobility” and related transportation issues, from the freeway revolts of the late ’50s through 2000 to today’s continuing political struggles over parking, bicycles, livability, gentrification, and the form, function, and financing of Muni.

Yet the lens that Henderson brings to understanding all of these issues and struggles is ideology, which he breaks down into three major categories: progressive, neoliberal, and conservative. Whether we realize it or not, we can all be fairly easily placed in one of those three categories when it comes to how we think about automobility, or the primacy of cars in modern life.

“A progressive framework conceptualizes mobility as a systemic problem that requires deep social commitment and responsibility. How we get there matters. It posits that there can be too much mobility, as exemplified by high levels of [Vehicle Miles Traveled] in the United States, and that excessive mobility results in both environmental degradation and major social inequality at a local, state, and global scale. The main problem, obviously, is that automobility is part of a wider, systemic moral and social problem of over-consumption and disproportionate materialism,” Henderson writes, sounding themes that I echoed in this week’s cover story.

On the other end of the ideological spectrum are those with conservative views on mobility, who see driving as a basic right, which is the dominant mindset on the west side of supposedly liberal San Francisco. “Unlike progressives, conservatives do not think about responsibility as relating to broader systems such as the economic structure of society. Instead, they think in terms of direct causation and of each individual being responsible for the consequences of his or her actions. For example, poverty is a result of individual shortcomings caused by personal and moral characteristics, not of structural themes like socioeconomic forces beyond an individual’s control. Getting to work on time and providing one’s daily needs are not collective concerns but the responsibility of the individual,” he writes.

Of course, these conservatives still rely on government to build and maintain their transportation infrastructure, which they believe should be centered around cars. “Government should guarantee and accommodate automobility, not seek to discourage it or make it more expensive. Government-sponsored road building and other explicit policies that encourage motoring reflect an optimal use of government to stabilize conservative social relations centered on automobility,” Henderson write of the conservative mindset.

Between those two poles are the neoliberals, who have come to dominate City Hall, particularly in the last few years with the ascendancy of Mayor Ed Lee, Board President David Chiu, and Sup. Scott Wiener, who has taken the lead role on transportation issues. Neoliberals rely on market-based solutions to almost any problem, and they end up partnering with either conservatives or progressives in the politics of mobility depending on the issue.

“Neoliberals, consistent with the broader agenda of the privatization of space and market-based pricing of public access to space, envision a mobility system shaped by pricing and markets rather than by regulation and collective action. Unlike progressives, neoliberals feel the built environment must be allowed to develop with the efficacy of the market. Movement, paid for by the individual user, should be unrestrained. Yet such efficacy can include a commodification of nonmovement or slower movement or the package of quality-of-life goods surrounding the ‘walkability’ and ‘livability’ of the city, a package reserved for those who can afford to enter. To that end, neoliberal mobility includes the aggressive use of government to both enhance mobility and rein it in, but only inasmuch as government policy helps realize the goals of profit and facilitating economic growth and development,” Henderson writes.

It’s fascinating to explore how these three distinct mindsets have shaped San Francisco in recent decades, and how they interact today to create the city that we’ll be moving through in the future.

The Chron gets the condo deal wrong

Zelda Bronstein
-
23
The Chron gets the condo deal wrong

It’s kind of a surprise that the Chron actually likes the (possible) condo conversion deal. That paper typically opposes anything that is good for tenants and supports anything that the landlords like. But it’s annoying that the editorial writers made it sound as if Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell engineered this whole thing. You need to get beyond the silly paywall to read the full editorial, so I’ll reproduce the key part here:

This week a deal may be struck to end the stalemate. A plan by Supervisors Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener will give owners of tenancies in common the chance to convert under a one-time deal. The yearly lottery will be suspended, the apartment owners will pay from $4,000 to $20,000 each into a subsidized housing fund, and those in the conversion pipeline can go forward. It’s essentially a one-time offer with the lottery system swinging back in place in 10 years.

Actually, Farrell and Wiener weren’t the ones who came up with the proposal that might make this legislation possible. That work was done by tenant and housing advocates — Sarah Shortt of the Housing Rights Committee, Ted Gullkicksen of the Tenants Union, Peter Cohen from the Council of Community Housing Organizations, Gen Fujioka of CCDC — and Sups. Norman Yee, Jane Kim, and David Chiu. The landlord group Plan C didn’t make any effort to negotiate anything in good faith, so the tenant and housing people went and put this together on their own.

It was never included in the Wiener/Farrell bill; if anything, it was prepared as a hostile amendment. Realizing that, with Yee on the side of the tenants, there wouldn’t be six votes for their original plan, Wiener and Farrell had no choice but to accept the tenant alternative.

A lot of hard work, and a lot of give-and-take was involved — but the credit for that goes first and foremost to the activists who fought the original Wiener-Farrell proposal. Let’s be fair here.

Making CEQA work

Andrew Lam
-
10

OPINION In San Francisco, a single person can file an 11th-hour appeal under the California Environmental Quality Act to stop a park, library, transit, or affordable housing project that has broad public support. It’s actually worse: that single person can file the appeal long after the project has been approved and even after it goes into construction. When the appeal is filed, the project must stop construction — creating huge costs — until the Board of Supervisors gets around to ruling on the appeal.

This is government dysfunction at its worst, and it needs to be reformed. Supervisor Scott Wiener is sponsoring legislation to do just that: to allow full public participation and challenges to projects while implementing the common-sense rule that for any project, there must be an end to the process and a clear deadline for filing CEQA appeals. Public participation in decision-making is important, but at some point, the decision is made, the process comes to a conclusion, and the project begins. Open-ended CEQA appeals with no deadlines — San Francisco’s current system — are anti-democratic.

Passed 40 years ago, CEQA is an important state law that requires environmental analysis before approving projects. CEQA has helped stop or modify environmentally problematic projects in our state. Pretty much every project in San Francisco — whether a mega-development or a smaller project, such as a homeowner replacing a rotted-out porch handrail, a playground or library renovation, an affordable housing project, or a bike or pedestrian-safety upgrade — must undergo CEQA evaluation. These myriad CEQA evaluations are then appealable to the Board of Supervisors. Yes, if you are replacing that rotted out handrail or working with your neighbors to renovate your local playground, those projects can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors under CEQA if a single person doesn’t like what you’re doing.

We support CEQA and support the right to appeal projects. What we cannot support is having no firm deadline to file those appeals. We’ve seen excellent projects, with broad public support, get delayed and have dramatically increased costs because of our bad process. A small group abused CEQA to fight the North Beach Library for years. After the Dolores Park renovation underwent dozens of community meetings and attained broad community support, a single person appealed the project, arguing that the dog areas of the park would lead to childhood obesity. San Francisco’s bike plan was delayed for years, costing millions of tax dollars.

By setting a clear deadline to file CEQA appeals — 30 days after the project is approved — and by improving notice to the public, Supervisor Wiener’s legislation will provide opponents every opportunity to challenge a project, but they will have to do so before the project goes into construction. That is a common sense rule, and as a result, the legislation has garnered broad support from affordable housing builders, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk SF (our pedestrian safety advocacy group), SPUR, labor unions, and neighborhood associations and leaders.

Supervisor Jane Kim has introduced an alternative to Supervisor Wiener’s legislation. Supervisor Kim’s legislation would make our dysfunctional process even worse. It would allow for multiple CEQA appeals of projects instead of just one and would continue to allow CEQA appeals long after projects are approved and even after they go into construction.

It’s time to bring rationality to our CEQA appeal process. Supervisor Wiener’s CEQA appeal legislation is the right approach and deserves to be passed.

Scott Wiener is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Pat Scott is Executive Director of Booker T. Washington Community Service Center in the Western Addition, which provides services and affordable housing to families and youth.

 

CEQA change moves faster in SF than Sacto

Zelda Bronstein
-
13
CEQA change moves faster in SF than Sacto

So the Guv says he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to gut CEQA this year. I think he’s right: The party he supposedly leads (but doesn’t tend to follow him) won’t go for it, any more than the party Obama leads will got for cuts to Social Security.

It’s partly that both are hard-fought pieces of progressive history. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a good time for the environmental movement — Congress passed both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, and Nixon signed both. The California Legislature passed CEQA in 1970, and Gov. Reagan signed it. Back then, even Republicans thought it was a good thing to be on the side of protecting the planet.

But there’s more — and it’s interesting that the state Leg, typically not known as a bastion of progressive thought, is better on this issue than San Francisco, where some sort of changes to CEQA are almost inevitable.

Some background:

What NEPA and CEQA did, first and foremost, was eliminate the problem of “standing” that had plagued environmental lawyers for years. If I couldn’t prove that a horrible development project on the San Francisco waterfront would personally injure me (which would typically mean I had to own adjacent property), I had no right to go to court to oppose it. CEQA mandates a valid, complete environmental review of any major project, which gives anyone the right to sue; I may not be able to describe specific financial damages from a project, but as a citizen, I have a legal right to an adequate Environmental Impact Report.

Likewise, anyone can appeal a development in San Francisco to the Board of Supervisors on the grounds that the EIR was inadequate.

CEQA review slows down projects and costs money. If you “streamline” the process, you make life easier for developers. But there’s a hefty price to pay — because while Sup. Scott Wiener talks about homeowners fixing rotting handrails, very few CEQA suits or appeals are ever filed over that kind of thing. Yeah, there are exceptions; year, one lone bike-hater slowed down the city’s bicycle plan. Yeah, NIMBYs will sometimes slow down affordable housing projects.

But most major CEQA lawsuits and appeals are over big projects, ones that, in San Francisco, tend to slide through the official approval process no matter how horrible they are. Mayors of this city for most of the past half-century have liked developers; mayors appoint the majority of the Planning Commission, and they appoint commissioners who like developers. There’s big money in San Francisco real-estate development, and the savvy builders spread enough of it around that they typically get their way.

CEQA gives the rest of us a way to fight back. Most of the time, it doesn’t work: A CEQA appeal, for example, didn’t stop the atrocious 8 Washington project. CEQA hasn’t stopped developers from building about 50 million square feet of office space in the city since the 1970s. CEQA didn’t stop that hideous Rincon Hill tower. Oh, and it hasn’t stopped a single affordable housing project.

In a city where developers rule and bad decisions are made all the time, for all the wrong reasons, you have to look at tradeoffs. Is it worth accepting a delay in the bike plan and the Dolores Park plan because lone nuts are using CEQA — if that means we can force big commerical projects to mitigate some of the damage their doing? CEQA isn’t perfect, but “reforming” it to make appeals harder is, on balance, a bad idea.

Have at me, trolls. I am a backward-thinking luddite who hates success and never wants anything in the city to change. I am an old curmudgeon. I am whatever you come up with next.

Or maybe I’ve just lived here long enough to see that much of what passes for “progress” in this town does more damage than good.

 

Proposal would halt condo conversions for ten years

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
77

San Francisco Supervisors Norman Yee, Jane Kim and Board President David Chiu gathered with a cluster of tenant advocates at City Hall April 15 to unveil a proposal billed as a more equitable alternative to a highly controversial condominium conversion legislation that’s fueled a months-long battle over affordable housing.

Crafted with the input of tenant advocates, the new plan seeks to amend controversial legislation proposed earlier this year by Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell to allow a backlog of approximately 2,000 housing units to convert immediately from jointly held tenancies-in-common (TICs) to condos.

The proposal would effectively shut down the city’s condo conversion lottery for a minimum of 10 years, a measure aimed toward ending the cycle of real estate speculation that tenant advocates say has given rise to a spike in evictions in San Francisco’s supercharged housing market.

The proposal would still allow a current backlog of TICs to convert to condos without having to wait in a lottery system created to limit the number of units lost from the city’s rental housing stock. The board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee, which is currently in session, will take up the legislation and proposed amendments later this afternoon.

The 10-year suspension on condo conversions would allow time for permanently affordable units to be built in place of the rental units that would be lost in the one-time conversion, proponents of the alternative legislation said. “If more affordable housing isn’t produced, then units don’t get to convert,” Housing Rights Committee executive director Sara Shortt told the Guardian. 

Chiu stressed that the proposal was crafted to “ensure that as we expedite condo conversions … we protect tenants by suspending the lottery for at least 10 years.”

The 10-year minimum suspension is based on current regulations capping condo conversions at 200 per year. It would last a decade because an estimated 2,000 units would be converted, but could last longer than that.

“For example, if 2,200 units are converted,” Chiu explained, “the suspension would last for 11 years.”

Meanwhile, the proposal would require the conversions that would be intially allowed to be staggered over the course of three years.

The plan “puts the Board of Supervisors on record that we strongly believe in preserving our affordable housing stock,” said Sup. Yee, adding that the package of amendments seeks to “address the risk of speculation that will ensue with a large number of TICs being converted to condominiums.”

The Wiener-Farrell proposal spurred a months-long opposition campaign led by tenant advocates, who said it would permanently remove affordable rental units from the city’s housing stock and incentivize evictions of long-term tenants at a time when Ellis Act evictions are already on the rise. 

“Condo conversions are the number one reason why people are being evicted from the city,” San Francisco Tenants Union executive director Ted Gullicksen said at the April 15 rally and press conference.

Wiener and Farrell’s proposal was presented as a way to remedy TIC owners’ complaints that onerous shared mortgages had left them financially strapped.

But Sup. David Campos, who also appeared at the rally, commented that the real challenge “is for the renters who are finding it very hard to live in San Francisco.”

Campos seemed dubious that a one-time condo conversion should be allowed to move forward at all. “If anything, I think we should be doing more to protect tenants,” he said. “My hope is … if it’s something we cannot live with as a community, we will make sure it dies,” he added, referring to the original condo conversion proposal. 

In an earlier attempt to strike a compromise between TIC owners and tenant advocates, “negotiations broke down quickly,” Shortt said in an interview. At the rally, she said this alternative was “drafted in a way that’s not trying to meet any political agendas.”

For many elderly and low-income tenants who have few options if they are faced with eviction, “there is no price tag that you can put on their units,” said Matt McFarland, a staff attorney at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, who spoke at the rally. “Their most valuable possession is the long-term rent control on their property. For these tenants, it’s basically a death sentence when you get these eviction notices.”

ABC shows more concern about expanding police video surveillance than Mayor Lee

Sasha Cuttler
-
15
ABC shows more concern about expanding police video surveillance than Mayor Lee

The SFPD has quietly expanded its reach and authority to obtain video surveillance from in and around bars, clubs, and markets through a condition it has begun recommending on new liquor licenses, as I reported in today’s issue, effectively bypassing controls on city-operated surveillance cameras established through extensive public hearings in 2005.

But the Mayor’s Office doesn’t seem concerned about the new trend, echoing SFPD’s point that it is the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control that decides whether to heed the SFPD’s request to include the video surveillance condition. “There is no new policy. SFPD makes recommendations as far as I know, not requirements,” Mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey wrote to me in an email responses to our questions.

Certainly, everyone from bar owners to the ACLU to Sups. Scott Wiener and David Campos – who have called a hearing on the policy for later this month – consider it a new policy, or at least one that the public has just learned of after it was adopted internally right after the idea was shot down in public hearings in 2011.

ABC spokesperson John Carr had told me the department “routinely denied requests for conditions by SFPD per section 23800(e) of the Californian Business and Professions Code, occasionally these denials include the surveillance condition,” but he wasn’t able to provide me any examples of that happening by press time.

But today, he was able to find one. On Oct. 3, 2012, ABC rejected the SFPD’s request for video surveillance at Bush Market at 820 Bush on a quiet residential block of Nob Hill, noting that state law requires such requests be supported by “substantial evidence” that problems exist at the site that would be mitigated by the condition.

“I regret to inform you that the Department is unable to impose conditions pursuant to your request because no evidence was provided to establish that a problem exists at the premises or in it immediate vicinity,” ABC District Administrator Justin Gebb wrote in what was essentially a form letter.

Carr shared an identical letter that the ABC sent to the SFPD denying some of its requested conditions for another liquor license transfer on Feb. 12, this one for the Space 550 event venue at 550 Barneveld Ave. But in that case, the ABC decided to support the SFPD’s request for video surveillance “that is able to view the inside and outside of the premises” and which must be given to the cops “upon demand.”

As I wrote in this week’s paper, the ACLU considers that kind of extrajudicial expansion of the SFPD’s ability to require and obtain video surveillance to be unconstitutional, and we furnished a copy of the article and the issues it raised to try to get a more substantial comment from the Mayor’s Office, which seems to be less concerned with the civil rights of San Franciscans than the bureaucrats in Sacramento are.

“Balancing public safety with vibrant cultural and nightlife activities is a concern of mayor. He expects the Police Department to work in partnership with the neighborhood and its businesses to lawfully collect evidence that can help keep the public safe and neighborhoods active,” Falvey wrote.

So I had a few follow-up questions, for which I’m still awaiting answers, and I’ll update this post if and when I get them: “The ACLU’s position is that this is not a lawful way to collect evidence, and that it violates the state constitution’s privacy protections and the rules San Francisco established in 2005 regulating when and how the SFPD may request and use video surveillance. Does the mayor reject those concerns and has he sought any legal advice to support his position? In the absence of any judicial review, shouldn’t the city have some guidelines and policies governing this expansion of SFPD’s video surveillance authority? Does the mayor believe the 2005 guidelines should no longer apply? And does the mayor agree with Sups. Wiener and Campos that it would be appropriate to have a public hearing on this issue, particularly given the strong public opposition to requiring expanded video surveillance by bars two years ago?”

Why CEQA matters

Andrew Lam
-
3

By Arthur Feinstein and Alysabeth Alexander

OPINION Is now the time to significantly weaken San Francisco’s most important environmental law? When our world is facing the greatest environmental threats ever experienced, why is there a rush to diminish our hard won environmental protections?

That’s the question we should all ask Supervisor Scott Wiener, who has proposed legislation that would significantly weaken the city’s regulations that enforce the California Environmental Quality Act.

Global climate change and extreme weather events are sending a clear message that the world is in trouble. Unprecedented droughts threaten our food supply and drinking water, while floods and sea level rise threaten our homes (the Embarcadero now floods where it never has before). The ozone hole still exists, threatening us with skin cancer, and the critters with whom we share this world are experiencing an unprecedented extinction rate.

Recent region-wide planning efforts, such as One Bay Area, expect San Francisco to provide housing for more than 150,000 new residents, bringing even more impacts to our city.

The best tool available to city commissioners, supervisors, and the public to understand and effectively reduce negative environmental effects of new projects is CEQA, which requires analysis and mitigation of unavoidable environmental project impacts. CEQA mandates that the public be informed of such impacts, and requires decision-makers to listen to the public’s opinions about what should be done to address them. It allows the people to go to court if decision-makers ignore their concerns.

Without an effective CEQA process, the public is helpless in the face of poor planning, and planning based only on the highest corporate-developer-entrepreneur return on the dollar with no regard for environmental consequences, including noise, night-lighting, aesthetics, and transportation — all issues of concern to urban residents. And with current tight real-estate economics, worker safety is at risk if developers cut corners on environmental review, especially with projects built on toxic and radioactive waste sites like Treasure Island, which potentially endanger construction workers and service employees who will work in these areas after projects are completed.

Wiener’s legislation, introduced at the Land Use Committee April 8, makes it much harder for the public to appeal potentially damaging permit decisions, by shortening timelines and establishing more onerous requirements for such appeals. In many instances it would also steer appeals away from being heard by the entire Board of Supervisors, instead allowing small committees to rule on these crucial issues.

A broad coalition of environmental, social justice, neighborhood, parks protection and historic preservation groups, allied with labor unions, is challenging Wiener’s attack on our environmental protections.

Supervisor Jane Kim recently stepped forward to champion these efforts, and work with these groups to draft a community alternative to make the CEQA process more fair and efficient while carefully protecting our rights to challenge harmful projects.

The supervisors need to reject Wiener’s damaging legislation and consider Kim’s community-based alternative in seeking to truly improve our local California Environmental Quality Act process.

Arthur Feinstein is chair of the Sierra Club Bay Chapter. Alysabeth Alexander is vice-president of politics for SEIU Local 1021.

 

Sneaky surveillance

Andrew Lam
-
19
Sneaky surveillance

steve@sfbg.com

After public outrage stopped the San Francisco Police Department from instituting controversial — and unconstitutional, say civil libertarians — new video surveillance requirements in bars and clubs more than two years ago, the department quietly began inserting that same requirement into new liquor licenses, a move met with concern at City Hall last week.

In late 2010, the SFPD proposed a draconian set of new security requirements for drinking establishments in the city, including requirements that they do video surveillance and take an image of all patrons’ identification cards and make them available to police upon request, without a warrant or any other controls (see “Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?,” 12/7/10).

That proposal ran into a wall of opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union, California Music and Culture Association, progressives on the Board of Supervisors, and others, who said such a blanket policy violates privacy protections in the California Constitution. The Entertainment Commission held a hearing on the proposal in April of 2011 and voted unanimously to reject the proposals.

At that point, they seemed to just disappear, but they didn’t. Instead, SFPD internally decided at that time to begin asking the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to insert a video surveillance requirement in most new liquor licenses in San Francisco, which escaped public notice until Sup. Scott Wiener raised the issue at the April 2 Board of Supervisors meeting.

“If you have an establishment that perhaps has a track record of bad things happening, that’s one thing. But absent that, I don’t believe that this is justified,” Wiener said as he voted against the requirement in a pair of new liquor licenses. Although Wiener was alone in opposing those applications, Sup. David Campos said he shared Wiener’s concern and the pair called an upcoming hearing on the new policy.

Two days later, at the board’s Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee meeting, Wiener again raised the issue and sought to have the new requirement removed from a pair of proposed liquor licenses: Cesar’s Ballroom on 26th and 3rd streets, the latest project of veteran local club owner Cesar Ascarrunz, and Nosa Ria, a market in Hayes Valley that will import gourmet food and wine from Spain.

“It’s the exact opposite of some kind of rowdy bar or nightclub where people are going in and getting drunk and really bad things are happening,” Wiener said of Nosa Ria, for which he persuaded fellow Sups. Eric Mar and Norman Yee to vote to remove the video surveillance condition before approving the application.

That condition stated: “The petitioner shall utilize electronic surveillance and recording equipment that is able to view the outside of the premises, including all entrances and exits, and that is actively monitored and recorded. The electronic surveillance shall be utilized during operating hours. Said electronic recording shall be kept at least 30 days and shall be made available to the Department or Police Department upon demand.”

Mar said he agreed with Wiener that “a broad discussion of electronic surveillance requirements would be important for this committee,” but Mar then voted against removing that condition from the Cesar’s Ballroom application, saying, “I think we need surveillance in certain spots on a case-by-case basis, and I think this is an area that needs surveillance.”

SFPD IS WATCHING

When SFPD first sought new video surveillance tools — back in 2005, when the department asked for 71 video cameras at high-crime intersections around the city — it was rigorously debated in public hearings for months. And when they were finally approved by the Board of Supervisors, they included an extensive set of controls on when SFPD could request footage — the department wasn’t even allowed to control the cameras directly — how it could be used and when it must be erased.

The legislation also required a follow-up study of their effectiveness in deterring and prosecuting crimes. Conducted by the University of California’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) in 2008, the report found the cameras had no impact on violent crime rates but a small deterrent impact on property crimes in the filmed areas.

As a tool for prosecuting crimes after the fact, “There has been limited success with the cameras acting as a ‘silent witness,’ with footage standing in for witness testimony; some anecdotal evidence suggests that the existence of CSC program footage can actually deter witnesses from cooperating under the assumption that the cameras have caught all necessary evidence,” the report said, also noting that twice in the 120 police requests made by 2008, footage resulted in charges being dropped or downgraded.

But today, SFPD apparently believes that times have changed, and that the rigorous oversight and evaluation of video surveillance tactics and their implications on people’s privacy rights — or even the need to notify the public that SFPD is seeking new ways to watch citizens — are no longer necessary.

“Over the last few years, we’ve increased the number of recommendations for video surveillance, for a few reasons,” SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy told the Guardian, citing how cheap and ubiquitous the technology has become and the role that video footage can play in solving crimes.

Yet attorney Michael Rischer with the ACLU of Northern California, who actively opposed the SFPD’s proposal in 2011 and was dismayed to hear the department secretly and unilaterally expanded its video surveillance reach after its proposal was rejected, said that reasoning is exactly why there are legal controls on the expanding police state.

“Both of those justifications are exceedingly troubling and they demonstrate why the San Francisco Police Department should not be doing this in some room sealed off from the public,” Rischer said. “The police have this totally backward. The ease and cost of doing this is a reason why these protections are in place.”

PRIVACY PROTECTIONS

Unlike under federal law, Californians have an explicit constitutional privacy guarantee and a body of case law defining that right in great detail. But the SFPD doesn’t seem to be aware of the nuances of that case law, such as the distinction it makes between people’s expectation of privacy on public streets versus in private businesses.

“When you enter a bar or restaurant, you don’t have an expectation of privacy,” Shyy told us.

But Rischer said that just isn’t true under the law. He noted that people do indeed have a reasonable expectation that they can enter a gay bar without being outed, for example, or that police won’t be able to demand video from a gathering in a bar where subversive political ideas are being discussed. And those concerns are exacerbated by SFPD’s policy that bar owners must simply turn over footage “upon demand.”

“The notion that the government is requiring a business to conduct surveillance of its patrons and to turn it over to the Police Department without any judicial oversight or even rules is deeply troubling and probably unconstitutional,” Rischer said.

Shyy said SFPD will “only request them when a crime has been committed,” but he also admitted that the conditions it is requesting on liquor licenses don’t set that limit and the policy hasn’t been reviewed by the Police Commission or other local oversight bodies.

ABC spokesperson John Carr told us his department doesn’t have a position on video surveillance and hasn’t tracked whether other jurisdictions are seeking the condition. As for whether it routinely includes SFPD’s recommended conditions, he said, “ABC reviews each application on a case by case basis.”

There are indications that SFPD sometimes resorts to bullying bar owners into turning over video surveillance without legal authority to do so. Jamie Zawinski with DNA Lounge last month blogged about Officer Simon Chan telling the club that it was required to keep video footage and turn it over upon request, which club operators informed the SFPD wasn’t true. “It’s just another sneaky, backdoor regulation that ABC and SFPD have been foisting on everyone without any kind of judicial oversight, in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Zawinski wrote.

Regarding that incident, Shyy would only confirm that most bars aren’t yet required to keep and turn over video footage. And he said SFPD will cooperate with the hearing Campos and Wiener have called. “At this point, we don’t believe we’re violating people’s constitutional rights, but we’re willing to have that discussion,” Shyy said.

Wiener said that on April 3, he discussed the issue with Police Chief Greg Suhr, who indicated a willingness to cooperate with public hearings on the policy. But Wiener said he’s bothered by the fact that SFPD seems to have put this new policy in place right after being unsuccessful in doing this through a public process in 2011.

“I and others expressed opposition to this and I and others thought the Police Department had backed away from it,” Wiener said at the April 4 hearing, noting that “I’m not philosophically opposed to surveillance,” only with how SFPD instituted it. “I have an issue with the Police Department deciding to insert this on its own without a broader policy discussion.”

No progress in condo conversion standoff, despite the Chron’s spin

Sasha Cuttler
-
93

Perhaps it was just an unfunny April Fool’s Day joke or some wishful political spin, but the San Francisco Chronicle’s April 1 article about how tenancy-in-common owners and their political supporters are pushing legislation that would allow them to bypass the condo conversion lottery seriously misrepresented the city’s biggest current political standoff.

Nevermind the article’s over-the-top bias in favor of those poor, hard-luck TIC owners, like the featured Pacific Heights couple forced to raise their baby in a closet when all they really want to do is flip the apartment they bought for a profit. Or how the Chron all-but-ignored the fact that these TICs were rent-controlled apartments in a city where two-thirds of citizens rent. That kind of top-down view of the world is pretty typical for the Chron, even in its news stories, despite the paper’s strained claim to “objectivity.”

No, the article’s real sin was to get the basic facts wrong on where this political stalemate now stands, presenting the wishful spin of one side as if it were the latest news. Between the headline, “Owners seeking condo conversions may have shot” and the first deckhead, “Making progress” (which plays off this paragraph. “’I think we’re making progress in our discussions and negotiations,’ said [sponsoring Sup. Mark] Farrell, while noting the talks with tenant advocates, TIC owners, and real estate interests are ‘far from the finish line.’”) the article leaves the impression current negotiations may produce a compromise.

But the problem is that there aren’t any current negotiations between the two sides, and there haven’t been for weeks, according to tenant and other involved sources. In fact, they say there’s been no movement in this standoff since almost a month ago when I last reported that tenant groups and progressive supervisors were preparing a set of hostile amendments to the legislation.

They would allow a one-time condo lottery bypass for the nearly 2,500 TIC owners in the pipeline in exchange to shutting down the lottery for many years and preventing any conversions of rent-controlled apartments into condos until city builds a comparable amount of new affordable housing, and then probably restricting condo conversions to smaller buildings after that to protect large rent-controlled apartment buildings from real estate speculators.

That proposed compromise, which the article barely mentions before letting Farrell say “his legislation poses no threat to rent control,” would help the poor Pacific Heights couple at the center of the article. But the real estate industry and its conservative allies don’t really care about that couple as much as they do maintaining the flow of rental units into the real estate market, which is why the negotiations have broken down.

Instead, the Chron has Sup. London Breed – who is indeed a swing vote of the issue, but not one that tenant groups are counting on given how close she is to Plan C and the landlord lobby – citing a compromise proposal that would prevent the new condo owners from selling their properties for five years to discourage real estate speculation.

Perhaps that’s something the TIC owners and real estate interests that the article relies on think is a realistic compromise, but it’s not something that has been seriously discussed with tenant groups, mediating Sup. David Chiu, or the other interests that would be needed to pass this legislation.

Sara Shortt, the token tenant activist that the Chron talked to for the article, confirmed to us that there is no real compromise deal in the works and preventing the creation of new condos from existing apartments is a bottom-line issue that unites everyone who is now opposed to this legislation.

“The Plan C/Realtor etc. won’t concede on our key issue: restriction on future conversions in exchange for the bypass. We have given as much as we can give and they have given virtually nothing in return,” Shortt, executive director of the Housing Right Committee, told us by email.

Even Sup. Scott Wiener, who co-sponsors the legislation with Farrell, told us there has been “no change from before,” when negotiations broke down. But the legislation is on the April 15 agenda for the Land Use and Economic Development Committee – for the fifth time, with most hearings canceled because of the lack of negotiating progress.

If the Realtors and Plan C (which is dominated by real estate and banking interests) stick to their intransigent position – hurting this poor Pac Heights couple in the process, which the Chron fails to note – then tenants and progressive supervisors are likely to amend the legislation and call the bluff of those who claim this issue is simply about poor TIC owners stuck with shared mortgages.

Wiener to star in porn flick

Zelda Bronstein
-
22
Wiener to star in porn flick

Supervisor Scott Wiener has signed a contract to star in a new porn film satirizing the city’s ban on nudity.

Variety reports that Wiener accepted a deal “in the mid three figures” to play the fictitious Supervisor Scott Cox in “Cover Up,” a film by the legendary Naked Sword productions.

Wiener replaces porn star Dale Cooper, who has left the film “to pursue other interests.”

The film, shot on location in the Castro, would violate the ban on public nudity that Wiener sponsored – but since the producers obatined permits, Wiener said, wieners are permitted.

“Besides,” he told us, “penises and anuses and perineums are good for business. And what’s good for business is good for San Francisco.”

Wiener, who is exceptionally tall and shuns the dating scene, said he expects his appearing in the film to jump-start his sex life. “A six-foot-six naked guy is, well, a six-foot-six naked guy, if you know what I mean,” Wiener told us. “And I think you do,” he added with a giggle.

Outtakes will soon be available at sfgov.org/nakedsupervisorwiener.

The real CPMC story

Andrew Lam
-
10

OPINION The recently announced terms for the development of California Pacific Medical Center’s hospitals at Cathedral Hill and St. Luke’s generated front-page and lead stories in the local news media. But nearly without exception, only part of the story was reported. Missing from most accounts of the terms of the new deal, which dramatically changed last year’s failed draft development agreement negotiated by Mayor Ed Lee, was the decisive role played by a community/labor coalition, San Franciscans for Healthcare, Housing, Jobs and Justice.

Key details of the agreement have yet to be finalized, and provisions of the terms announced on March 5th need to be improved. But the new agreement, in virtually all respects, is an improvement over the old one. And on the same day the terms of the new deal was announced one of the union members of the coalition, the National Union of Healthcare Workers signed a contact with CPMC that protected union organizing rights, job security at Cathedral Hill and full employer paid health care — issues that had been unresolved over the last few years. Still missing is an ageement between Sutter and its nurses, a critical component of labor peace.

The basic structure of the current terms mirror almost exactly the positions outlined by the SFHHJJ over the last year, including a requirement for labor peace with all unions at CPMC. This was no accident; it was the result of the efforts of the community/labor coalition. When the old deal was stalled at the Board of Supervisors in early 2013 and it was clear that the Mayors Office had no idea how to proceed, the members of the coalition came up with a framework to get discussions going again. The key ingredient was the involvement of a skilled an knowledgeable mediator, mutually respected by all parties and the participation of Sutter Corp. in Sacramento — the real party able to make actual binding corporate commitments, not the subsidiary the mayor had dealt with.

The second step was to agree to a framework of issues that would form the substance of negotiations — and the coalition’s own comprehensive set of positions served as that framework.

The next step was to get a critical mass of supervisors to agree to participate in the negotiations. Two Supervisors, David Chiu and David Campos, agreed to the coalition’s framework and the use of a third-party mediator. They added a third supervisor, Mark Farrell, to their group in order to assure buy-in from the full board.

Finally, the mediator had to be found and in that the coalition (and the rest of the city) simply were lucky that Lou Girardo was willing and able to provide his own special skills and credibility.

The SFHHJJ is not the first community/labor coalition in San Francisco history. Such coalitions were present in both the District 1 and District 5 supervisors races last year with mixed success, and in 2008 a community/labor coalition fought for revenue measures, again with mixed success but real unity. A new labor/community coalition has emerged to oppose Scott Wiener’s ill-advised weakening of our local California Environmental Policy Act procedures.

As the Democratic Party transforms itself into ever greater political irrelevancy by becoming the home of moderate Republicanism at all levels of government, community and labor co-operation seems to be growing over an increasing number of issues, showing a level of political vibrancy impossible to ignore.

Calvin Welch is a longtime community organizer in San Francisco and is a member of the SFHHJJ CPMC Negotiating Committee

CPMC deal gets warm welcome despite some shortcomings

Sasha Cuttler
-
9

Even though the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the term sheet for the California Pacific Medical Center’s hospital deal this week, comments from the supervisors and the general public indicated there are still a few outstanding issues before the project returns to the board for final approval, probably in July.

As the Guardian recently reported, CPMC’s longstanding contract impasse with the California Nurses Association remains the biggest sticking point even for many labor-community coalition members who helped hammer out the deal that was announced last week. James Tracy of the Community Housing Partnership told the supervisors that he was almost ready to uncork the champagne and celebrate, “but I’m holding off until there is labor peace with the nurses.”

New District 5 Sup. London Breed went on extended tirade ripping into the hard-won compromise plan, voicing support for the nurses, wanting more specifics on how affordable housing money will be used, calling for more money for job training to support the plan’s local hiring standards (“I need to know how this is going to transfer into support for Western Addition residents,” and concluding that she’s generally supportive of the deal but “I will reserve final judgment.”

Calvin Welch of the Council of Community Housing Organizations echoed Breed’s concern that the $36.5 million in affordable housing funds will be paid into the Mayor’s Office of Housing’s general pot rather than be set aside for specific projects. “We are very concerned with how this multi-faceted program will unfold,” Welch said, asking that COCHO be included in decisions about how the money from CPMC gets used.

Sup. Scott Wiener decried how the new deal’s $14 million in transportation impact fees is 30 percent less than the ill-fated previous deal – the result of a significantly smaller footprint of the Cathedral Hill Hospital – saying, “Once again transit comes out on the short end.”

The change called for by more supervisors than any other is an increase in job training funds to support the guarantee that 30 percent of construction jobs and 40 percent of permanent entry level jobs go to San Franciscans. Even though job training funds were doubled to $4 million under the new agreement, some supervisors and activists say that’s not enough.

“That’s a big improvement, but it’s still not enough, given the type of training needed for low-income San Franciscans to be able to work in the hospitals,” Gordon Mar of San Franciscans For Healthcare, Housing, Jobs and Justice told the Guardian.

Yet even with all these gripes and picking of nits, which will play out as the development agreement is prepared and goes through the Planning Commission approval process starting in May, the consensus across the ideological spectrum seems to be that this is a good deal for the city that is likely to be approved if CPMC can reach a contract with CNA

And all hailed it as a vast improvement over the deal CPMC cut last year with the Mayor’s Office, offering a lesson for city officials who are now negotiating other big deals, such as the Warriors Arena proposal. As Sup. John Avalos said at the hearing, “I remember a statement form the Mayor’s Office last year that this is the best we can get. I think we always need to challenge that.”

Supervisors approve Western SoMa Plan, rejecting expanded office development

Sasha Cuttler
-
145

The Board of Supervisors today approved the Western South of Market Community Plan, the first step to ending a development moratorium that has been in place since the citizen-based planning process that developed the plan began in 2005, but not before some supervisors made a last-ditch effort to allow more office development and nightlife.

“I have real concerns over the plan,” Sup. Scott Wiener said as the plan came before the full board for the first time, continuing an effort to modify the plan that he began a few weeks ago when it was before the Land Use and Economic Development Committee.

While some of Wiener’s colleagues echoed his concerns and those raised by the business and entertainment communities, most decided to defer to the area’s Sup. Jane Kim and the Western SoMa Task Force that developed the plan. It was approved on a 10-1 vote, with Wiener in dissent. It will guide development and set land use rules for the Western SoMa area after being approved on second reading by the board next week.

Wiener led the critique of the plan’s restrictions on office development in most of the plan area, particularly around the transit hub of 4th and King streets, concerns that were echoed by Sups. London Breed and Malia Cohen, likely indicating that the business community has been lobbying supervisors on the issue.

But Kim said she is concerned about the area’s artists, nonprofits, and light industrial businesses – dubbed Production Distribution and Repair (PDR) in the city planning code – being squeezed out if the area is opened up to more office development.

“Office space is hot right now and it’s pushing out PDR uses,” Kim said. “Zoning is an importance tool, otherwise everything will turn into offices in South of Market.”

Wiener, Breed, and other supervisors also sounded their support for the entertainment community that has lobbied for changes in the plan, winning greater protections for nightlife at earlier hearings – including a ban on residential development on the raucous 300 block of 11th Street and persuading owners of “the purple building” to switch from residential to office – pushing for removal of more of the plan’s restrictions on attaining limited live music permits.

“I also have some real concerns with how the plan treats nightlife and entertainment,” Wiener said, while Breed said, “As a big supporter of the arts, I’m concerned there are limited live performances in the plan.”

Kim noted that the plan tried to strike a balance in the conflict between nightlife and housing, and she said that expanding the ability business in areas zoned Regional Commercial District (RCD) shouldn’t be done in just in a part of town where there conflicts have often been difficult to resolve.

“If you’re going to permit it in the RCD areas, it should be citywide rather than just in Western SoMa,” Kim said, noting that she’s open to futher discussions after the plan is approved.

Sup. David Campos and other supervisors urged their colleagues not to tinker with the compromises and hard-won balance in the plan. “I’m not 100 percent happy with every aspect of the plan, but I do think some deference should be given to the district supervisor,” Campos said.

Wiener agreed that deference to the desires of district supervisors is an important consideration, “but there are times when this board does not vote the same as their supervisors,” citing as an example the board’s approval of the controversial 8 Washington luxury condo project over the objections of Board President David Chiu.

Afterward, Terrence Alan of the California Music and Culture Association, which had lobbied for expanded protections of nightlife, told us, “Entertainment as a whole fared well.” But he said that they would continue pushing for greater citywide nightlife protections, including supporting Wiener’s proposal to expand the limited live music permits to include DJs.

Condo conversion compromise in the works despite Realtors’ resistance

Sasha Cuttler
-
180

[UPDATED BELOW] Negotiations between tenant advocates and real estate interests (including the political advocacy group Plan C) over the controversial condo lottery bypass legislation haven’t gone well or found common ground. But sources tell the Guardian that Sup. Jane Kim and Board President David Chiu, who has been mediating the dispute, are preparing to introduce compromise amendments that have the support of the San Francisco Tenants Union and other tenant advocates if a deal can’t be worked out with real estate interests.

Details are still being hammered out with advocates and the City Attorney’s Office, so the hearing scheduled for this Monday at the Land Use and Economic Development Committee will likely be postponed until March 25. But the basic deal is to allow the roughly 2,000 tenancies-in-common now seeking to convert into condos to do so in exchange for a long moratorium on new condo conversions, possibly indexed to construction of new affordable housing for the renters who comprise nearly two-thirds of San Franciscans.

The original legislation by Sups. Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener is being strongly backed by both current TIC owners who want the ability to refinance and Plan C and other real estate interests that want to continue converting ever more rent-controlled apartments into condos, rather than abiding the city’s current limit of 200 per year, awarded through a lottery system. The SFTU has strenuously resisted opening up those flood gates, but it’s open to clearing out the backlog in exchange to shutting the gates for awhile (see my story in this week’s Guardian for more on the political dynamics surrounding this issue).

“We’re hopeful that a majority of the board will support amendments which will significantly protect tenants and which will allow a version of the Wiener-Farrell legislation to be approved,” SFTU head Ted Gullicksen told us.

Progressives on the board oppose the legislation as currently written, and the swing votes are thought to be Sups. London Breed (which Plan C supported in the last election in exchange for what it says was her promise to support more condo conversions, an assurance she denies making), Norman Yee (who was brought into the Chiu-mediated negotiations), and Malia Cohen, with just one of them needed to force changes to the legislation.

But the real estate interests – including Plan C, the Association of Realtors (whose government affairs director we left a message for and are waiting to hear back from, and we’ll update below if/when we do), San Francisco Apartment Association, and other downtown-based groups – who are pushing for more condo conversions are likely to strongly resist the amendments. They simply want more rent-controlled apartments turned into condos they can sell, period.

Their perspective is reflected in SF Apartment Magazine, put out by the San Francisco Apartment Association, which every month offers advice to real estate investors and apartment building owners on various ways to buy apartment buildings, evict tenants or increase their rents, and convert the buildings to TICs or condos.

It runs a regular column called “TIC Corner” with the latest tricks for financing acquisitions and getting rid of those pesky tenants. In the November 2012 issue, for example, attorney D. Andrew Sirkin wrote excitedly about a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule that will now allow owners to advertise the sale of apartment buildings as TIC/condo investments, which he said “will dramatically ease the regulatory burden for real estate entrepreneurs wishing to raise money for apartment acquisitions and make it much easier to find investors.”

Another feature story in the magazine, “The ABCs of OMIs,” teaches these investors all the tricks for evicting tenants from their buildings, while “Roommate Roulette” offers advice to owners of rent-controlled buildings for keeping new roommates of existing tenants off the lease so they can charge market rate rents as soon as possible.

And, of course, the magazine is filled with ads for San Francisco apartment buildings that are for sale and just waiting to be cleared of tenants and turned into amazing real estate investment opportunities. Gullicksen says it is this mentality, applied to what even Mayor Ed Lee has called the city’s “precious few rent-controlled apartments,” that has animated the opposition to the Wiener-Farrell legislation. SFTU had planned a rally for Monday called “Stop Rent Control Attack,” which has now been postponed until March 25.

UPDATE 3/11: Sup. Wiener got back to us and said, “I hope we can move to a compromise and I don’t want to prejudge that compromise.” Asked about the concept of approving TICs in the pipeline in exchange for halting on all condo conversions for some number of years, he said, “It’s definitely something to explore, a pause in the lottery, and I’m open to that. But the devil is in the details.”

Big waterfront projects prompt study of new transportation ideas

Sasha Cuttler
-
18

The massive development projects being proposed along San Francisco’s central waterfront – from the proposed Warriors Arena at Pier 30 through the Giants’ housing/retail project at Pier 48 down to Forest City’s sprawling proposal around Pier 70 – will create huge challenges for the city’s already overtaxed transportation system.

Nobody is more aware of that issue than Warriors President Rick Welts as he seeks approval to build a 17,500-seat arena with just a smattering of parking spaces. “We’re investing a billion dollars in this property, and if people aren’t comfortable getting to it and leaving it, we have a problem,” Welts told a gathering of the California Music and Culture Association on Tuesday night, responding to a local resident who raised the concern. “We have to get that right, it’s at the top of our list.”

With Muni and BART already at capacity during peak hours, and thousands of new housing units being built in the coming years both along the waterfront and from nearby SoMa down through the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan area, city transportation planners are trying to get ahead of potential problems created by the development boom.

“We’re now taking a step back and looking at the long-term needs from the Exploratorium down to Pier 70,” says San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency planner Peter Albert, who is leading a comprehensive waterfront transportation study that will inform the environmental studies done for each of these projects. “What we get is an environmental review that is much smarter because we have all this advanced planning….EIRs are important, but they aren’t really planning.”

Albert is looking at everything from working with various transportation agencies to beef up bus, train, and ferry services to the area; using these projects to complete the ambitious but underfunded and long-stalled Blue-Greenway bicycle path along the waterfront; accelerating capital projects that are already in the SFMTA’s queue; and exploring a dozen or so new ideas.

“What’s also coming out of this are new ideas we’re coming up with, things we weren’t even thinking of that may make sense,” Albert told us, noting that he’ll be doing his first presentation of some of these ideas to the SFMTA Board of Directors on March 5.

They include extending new streetcar service along the Embarcadero to the Caltrain station at 4th and King or possibly all the way out to the Anchor Steam Brewing-anchored project at Pier 48 (which would probably involve construction of new streetcar turn-arounds); better integrating the Central Subway project into Mission Bay and the Embarcadero with new bus and rail connections around 20th and 3rd streets; and expansion of the Embarcadero BART station to increase its peak capacity.

Welts said BART will be an important connector to the new Warriors Arena, noting that the walking distance from Pier 30 to the Embarcadero station is actually about the same distance as the Coliseum BART station is from the entrance to the Warriors’ current arena. He said that he’s excited about Albert’s work and wants to cooperate with helping the city meet its transportation needs: “We have a lot of process to go through and we’re embracing that process.”

Funding the needed improvements will be a challenge, particularly because new development projects generally don’t pay for their full impacts to the transportation system, as SFMTA head Ed Reiskin and Sup. Scott Wiener have told the Guardian. On Monday, Wiener amended the Western SoMa Community Plan to increase how much developers would pay in transportation impact fees.

Albert said funding for the needed improvements to the area’s transportation system would come from a combination of mitigation fees from the developers, reprioritizing the SFMTA’s existing capital budget, and securing state and federal transportation grants by developing impactful projects that are shovel-ready, thanks to this advanced planning effort.

These three waterfront development projects alone could have huge impacts. The Warriors Arena would host more than 200 concerts and sporting events per year, drawing anywhere from a few thousand to more than 17,500 people. The Giants’ Pier 48 proposal involves 27 acres of new development, including retail, office, Anchor Brewing, and about 1,500 homes. And Forest City’s proposal for Pier 70 involves about 1,000 homes, 2.2 million square feet of office space, and 275,000 square feet of retail and light manufacturing.

Addressing the waterfront’s transportation challenges, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu told the Guardian, “It is possibly the most difficult and important question surrounding the Warriors project, and I’ve encouraged all parties to make sure they get it right.”

Wiener’s dance mix: more DJs mixed with fines for “bad actors”

Sasha Cuttler
-
7

DJs could proliferate in San Francisco’s bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and plazas under legislation that Sup. Scott Wiener introduced today to include DJs under the city’s limited live music permits, but the legislation also includes new enforcement powers to crackdown on underground parties and other unpermitted events.

Limited live music permits – which are far cheaper and easier to obtain than the city’s full-blown Place of Entertainment permits ($385 compared to around $2,000 for the POE permits) – were created in 2011 by legislation sponsored by then-Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, allowing amplified performances until a 10pm curfew. But DJs were left out, despite their prevalence in San Francisco, something Wiener is now trying to correct.

“Entertainment and nightlife are an essential part of San Francisco’s cultural and economic vibrancy,” Wiener said today in a press release announcing the proposal. “This legislation fosters live entertainment while also heightening our ability to monitor and regulate bad actors.”

It’s that last part that doesn’t sit well with everyone, particularly given San Francisco’s pervasive culture of throwing underground parties, which are key fundraising tools for grassroots efforts such as Burning Man camps but which are the targets of periodic crackdowns by the SFPD and other agencies. It seems that when it comes to nightlife, we always have to take some medicine whenever City Hall offers a spoonful of sugar.

The legislation would give the Entertainment Commission the authority to levy $100 fines to those involved with unpermitted parties, either in established clubs or underground warehouses, whereas now the commission only has the authority to punish those who have permits for violating them.

“Punishing a DJ playing at a party in which the promoter didn’t get the proper permits (perhaps unbeknownst to the DJ), would be unfair and inappropriate, in my opinion,” was how DJ/Promoter Syd Gris from Opel Productions and Opulent Temple reacted to the legislation.

But Entertainment Commission Executive Director Jocelyn Kane told us she doesn’t expect to fine an DJs. While she asked Wiener for those enforcement powers, they are simply a way of encouraging promoters and business owners to get permits. “We’re not into punishment, we’re into compliance,” she said, adding that this is simply seeking authority to do administratively what the SFPD and California Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration can now to criminally and civilly.

Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and a DJ/promoter at the popular Hard French parties, told us “where I really want clarification is on the new enforcement powers for the commission,” although he agreed with Kane that the commission generally works cooperatively with the nightlife community, far more than either the SFPD or ABC.

“All in all, it’s a really good step in the right direction,” Temprano said of the Wiener legislation. “It seems really positive. As a DJ, allowing DJs to be used for limited live performances is just common sense.”

Kane said the legislation will allow music to flourish in the city, from outdoor plazas to small venues, many of which have used DJs illegally. “We’ll be able to legalize that and bring them into the fold,” she said. “There always have been places that use a DJ like a jukebox.”

In addition to the relatively cheap application cost compared to POE permits, limited live music perhaps are quick and easy to obtain and don’t necessarily require city inspections paid for by the applicant.

In his press release, Wiener praised the importance of nightlife to the city economy and cited a city study he commissioned last year which found that nightlife has a $4.2 billion impact on San Francisco, employing 48,000 people and furnishing the City with $55 million in tax revenue annually.

“We need to encourage a flourishing nightlife that not only marks San Francisco as a cultural capital, but also creates jobs and brings in revenue for essential City services,” Wiener said. “These amendments are part of that broader strategy.”

Western SoMa Plan changed to lessen development impacts to nightlife and Muni

Sasha Cuttler
-
14
Western SoMa Plan changed to lessen development impacts to nightlife and Muni

The Western SoMa Community Plan had its first hearing before the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee today, with dozens of speakers praising the eight-year citizen-based planning effort that developed it but with much of the testimony criticizing the plan’s emphasis on facilitating housing development to the exclusion of other goals.

As we’ve reported, the nightlife community has in recent months been pushing for changes to the plan that would better protect nightclubs from complaints and pressure from nearby residents, particularly along 11th Street. Area Sup. Jane Kim has supported that effort and those concerns were echoed by Sup. Scott Wiener, the committee chair and a strong nightlife advocate.

“I have had significant concerns about this plan…and I’m hoping we can address them over the course of this hearing,” Wiener said.

Wiener also opened another front of attack on the plan by noting that it doesn’t adequately pay for the impact that thousands of new housing units would have on Muni and other aspects of the transportation system. In particular, he criticized a policy in the plan that would let 13 large properties get increased density in exchange for higher affordable housing fees that would be offset by lower transit and other impact fees paid to the city.

“What are we doing to make sure our transportation system keeps pace?” Wiener asked of Planning Department staff, later asking again, “Where would we get the money to improve transit for these increased residents?” Wiener didn’t get back any answers that seemed to satisfy him, so he asked for a more detailed report when the plan returns next week for a second hearing. That concern was echoed by the third committee member, Board President David Chiu, who said, “Building housing without money for transit will lead to long-term problems.”

The concern seemed to revive a losing fight that Wiener led in December over expanding who pays the city’s Transit Impact Development Fee, which pitted transportation advocates against affordable housing activists. Fernando Marti of the Council of Community Housing Organizing rued the revival of that conflict. “We’ve been here before, pitting [transportation against affordable housing needs] as if it were a zero sum game,” Marti told the committee, noting the importance of policies to balance out market rate housing and calling it a “plan for stability in a neighborhood facing large-scale gentrification.”

Marti’s COCHO colleague Peter Cohen, who was closely involved with the plan’s creation, also urged the committee not to tweak the housing policies or the revenues it creates for affordable housing. “This is a major upzoning,” Cohen said. “In 20 years, perhaps all the market rate stock [of housing in the plan area] will be gentrified.”

But the issue raised most often during more than two hours of public testimony involved nightlife and the need to strike a better balance between housing development and entertainment, much of the input stirred up by the California Music and Culture Association, a industry-backed trade group that formed largely in response to crackdowns on clubs in SoMa.

“It’s often said San Francisco can plan more for fun, and this is a great opportunity to do that,” said Guy Carson, a CMAC founder who owns Cafe du Nord. Longtime nightlife advocate Terrence Alan took part in the Western SoMa Task Force for four years before resigning in frustration, and he told the committee, “We are bringing up issues we felt marginalized in bringing up earlier.”

But several people involved with the task force, as well as speakers representing development interests, urged supervisors to pass the place without significant modifications. “There are dozens or hundreds of compromises in this plan,” Cohen said, urging supervisors not to upset that careful balance.

Task Force Chair Jim Meko – whose leadership was widely praised in the testimony – detailed the extensive outreach and detailed work that went into the plan, and offered a simple plea to the committee: “Please pass this plan so we can get on with our lives.”

The committee unanimously voted to support the change made to the plan by the Planning Commission to ban new residential development on the raucous 300-block of 11th Street, but to reverse the commission’s decision to grandfather in one final 24-home residential project on that block, in the so-called “purple building” at 340 11th Street. A number of other small changes to the plan were also unanimously approved.

But Kim objected to Wiener’s motion to eliminate the plan provision that would reduce the transit and open space fees and raise the affordable housing fees that developers of those 13 large parcels would pay. “I don’t think it’s good policy to reduce transit impact fees when we’re increasing population,” Wiener said.

“This has gone through an extensive community process,” Kim countered, adding that, “I hate that we’re always having this discussion about transit versus affordable housing.”

But Chiu sided with Wiener and the amendment was approved on a 2-1 vote with Kim in dissent. Yet Chiu held open the possibility of changing his mind next week when the plan returns to committee for a final vote – the delay prompted by the other revisions in the plan – when Planning staff will provide more information on the fee structure and its impacts.

If the committee gives final approval to the plan next Monday, it could be before the full board for approval the next day.

1...456...15Page 5 of 15

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org