Spot Zoning Part V

Reading about the events of last week at the Planning Commission, it is obvious that American Apparel can learn a thing or two about doing business in the city. Check out this post from Beyond Chron.

A Tale of Two Commercial Corridors

It was the best of times (for well connected developers on Mission Street and anti-formula retail activists on Valencia Street) and the worst of times (for folks interested in restoring the New Mission Theater as a true community serving institution, affordable housing advocates, and fans of good planning and clean government). Valencia has become iconic for its high-end eclecticism, it's hipster saturated streets and pricey restaurants. The demographic on the street is young, hyper-educated and affluent. Mission Street is, well, Mission Street, full of brown faces, families with kids, recent immigrants, grime, and all kinds of cheap apparel stores up and down the corridor. Two streets that sit side by side running parallel through the Mission District, only a block away but worlds apart.

Our last post gave you the result of the vote to override the veto on the New Mission Theater, let's just say it didn't go our way. The press and blogger attention this story got was minimal, to put it kindly. Compare that to the incredible amount of heat and press coverage that the spectre of American Apparel coming to Valencia has generated, it's truly mind boggling given the relatively small impact that this store would have on the neighborhood as a whole. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom helps Gus Murad, the glad handing owner of "the Douchiest Bar in San Francisco," execute an end run around the Planning Department and the Board of Supervisors to build close to 100 high-end condos and Medjool Part II where a beloved and historical theater sits, and all those angry Valencia Street activists and bloggers have shown about as much interest in this anti-gentrification battle as they would in going to a close out sale at Lane Bryant.

In part, its lack of outreach on our part to bring in the folks that are now activated by the AA campaign. However, its no secret that the Mission has been overrun with gentrifying development projects throughout the past decade with a noticeable lack of outrage from most of the folks jumping on the anti-formula retail bandwagon.

The takeaway is that (duh) money rules and community consciousness often doesn't extend past race and class lines, even when similar battles are happening literally one block away from each other.

To have a real shot at preventing big money developers from continuing to call the shots in the Mission all of the different sectors of the anti-gentrification movement have to come together. Its one thing to drive off a sleazy, mustachioed formula retail vendor out of a neighborhood that's already hating on chain stores. Its quite another to fight off sophisticated developers with ready access to City decision makers and deep pockets to fund politician's election drives.

I'll leave you with a silver lining, the New Mission Theater battle is far from over. The project still has to go through the Planning Commission to receive permission to move forward and, if we lose there, will come before the Board of Supervisors again on appeal. We shall see if the anti-AA forces are willing to extend their concern for preserving the Mission one block east. We sincerely hope they do.

Spot Zoning Part II - A strange series of events

Advocates of the community planning process were happy to learn that Sandoval’s spot zoning legislation died at the Board of Supervisors. We believe Sandoval’s legislation died because the merits of raising the heights on just two properties were never vetted through the planning process. Interestingly enough, one Supervisor who supported his legislation at committee did not support it at the Board. This would be the first strange event in a series of strange events.

On Monday November 24th, the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan was passed by the Land Use Committee. The height limits along Mission Street are an aspect of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan. While the Committee voted to keep the height limits along Mission Street as they have been, but nor below 55ft, the text of the actual legislation had the height limits set at 85 feet. The text carried a previous proposal, rejected by the Committee, to set the height limits along Mission Street at 85 ft.

On Tuesday November 25, the Plan was scheduled to be heard at the full Board of Supervisors. Given that the Plan was approved late Monday evening, there was not enough time to change the actual text of the legislation for the Board meeting to reflect what was passed.

The Board followed the Committee’s recommendation on height limits along Mission Street. As for the the height limits on both the El Capitan and New Mission theatre, they stayed where they are at, 55 feet and 65 feet respectively.


Are you with me so far?


The next strange event happened sometime in the week of the 24th when the Planning Department staff in charge of actually changing the text in the legislation to reflect the Board’s decision made a typographical error. They were making the changes they did not have time to do on the 24th.

The height limits on paper for the New Mission Theatre remained unchanged @ 85 ft instead of 55ft, but the height limit for the El Capitan Theatre was amended to reflect the Board’s decision at setting it at 55ft.

So of all of the parcels to get wrong, the planning staff gets wrong the one that is owned by a well connected restaurateur/developer. A part of me believes that it was an honest mistake because there is no evidence to the contrary.

When the Board approved the heights along Mission Street on the second reading on December 9th, as I stated in a previous post, they did not know that there was a typo regarding that one parcel.

This is where the problem begins. The planning staff made a typo that is caught too late, and the Board essentially votes the typo into law.

In a not so strange event, at the same hearing another Supervisor again tries to assist the well connected restaurateur /developer by trying to exclude his parcel, and that of the El Capitan Theatre, from the legislation. At this point the Supervisors are still unaware of the typo in the legislation. This move, if supported by the Board, would have essentially allowed the well connected restaurateur /developer to circumvent the planning process.

The centrist block of the Board of Supervisors supported the move to sever the two parcels from the height limits legislation in an effort to give the well connected restaurateur /developer his desired height. I guess they are not really into the idea of a community planning process and are ok with bypassing the planning process for well connected individuals.

Fortunately his efforts failed.

During all this time parcel 3616-007 had the incorrect height limit. On December 16th, the Board voted to correct their mistake. The Board passed the issue on the second reading, fixing the typographical error. Supervisors Carmen Chu, Dufty, Elsbernd, Alioto-Pier opposed fixing the error. Why would four otherwise rational law makers vote against a non-controversial issue such as fixing a mistake?

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Mayor vetoed the legislation fixing the issue before he left to Washington DC. For President Obama’s Inauguration.

Spot Zoning Part I

Where did all the trouble with parcel 3616-007 (the site of the New Mission Theatre) begin? It really started with former Supervisor Geraldo Sandoval.

Under the guise of historic preservation, former Supervisor Sandoval introduced legislation that would have excluded the parcels where the El Capitan residential hotel and the New Mission sit from the height requirements, essentially giving the developers a variance.

Sandoval introduced legislation during the last Land Use Committee Hearing on the Eastern Neighborhoods on November 24th. Scores of hearings were held at both the Planning Commission and the Land Use Committee on the Plan, where proposed amendments were, for the most part, thoroughly vetted. The height increase proposed in Sandoval’s legislation was never discussed during the process.

The last minute introduction of this piece of legislation was an insult to the hundreds if not thousands of individuals who attended the Eastern Neighborhoods hearings at the Planning Commission and Land Use Committee. Only a few concerned citizens had the opportunity to comment on the legislation at the last minute.

Sandoval argued that any proposed developments on those two parcels should be allowed to go up to 85 feet, by right, in order to preserve the facades or marquees. We were not necessarily opposed to the merits of his legislation; we were opposed to the manner in which it was introduced.

It was our contention that Sandoval’s action to introduce legislation at the final hearing went against the spirit of the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process. While we have reservations about the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, it had unlike Sandoval’s legislation, been vetted during the last year by community organizations, community residents, the development lobby, the Planning Department, the Planning Commission, and the Board of Supervisors.

At best we considered the legislation to have been spot zoning, and at worst, to be a mockery of the planning process in San Francisco.

We argued for it to be treated as trailing legislation to allow for more community input and a more measured analysis by the Planning Department and Board of Supervisors.

Luckily for the community, the Board recognized the legislation as spot zoning and turned it down.

Unfortunately, other Supervisor were not content with its defeat, leading to a strange series of events that brings us to the February 3rd vote.

Say It Ain't So

According to post on the SFGate.com City Insider’s page, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed a piece of legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors that would have corrected a typographical error in the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan that was recently approved by the Board. Why would the mayor veto something that is essentially a non policy issue, but is just correcting a mistake? Before I answer that question, let me give you some history on the matter.

In December the Board of Supervisors voted to maintain the maximum allowable heights of buildings along Mission Street at their current levels, a change from the proposed allowable heights in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan.

In order to do this every parcel, several hundred if not thousands, had to be listed in the legislation at their correct heights. Every parcel has the correct height listed except for one. On that parcel happens to sit the New Mission Theatre and Giant Value store. The Supervisors believed that they voted to maintain the height of that parcel at 65 feet (approximately 6 stories), but the legislation carried the typo. The Board with out knowing voted to approve the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan with the allowable height at that particular parcel at 85 feet.

To their credit, the mistake was owned up to by the Planning staff. When informed of this error, the Board of Supervisors drafted and passed legislation to correct the mistake. What is funny is that some supervisors (Dufty, Alioto-Pier, Elsbernd and Carmen Chu) voted against correcting the mistake. Why would they vote against correcting a mistake? It is not even a policy issue.

The owner of the site, Gus Murad, (who is politically well connected and happens to assist with fundraising for a variety of San Francisco politicians) plans to build an eight story tower that would contain high-end condos and a nightclub. If the heights were correctly set at 65 feet he would need to apply for a zoning variance to be allowed to build an eight story tower. To my knowledge, he has had these plans in the works for years, but has yet to apply for a variance. We hope he develops a project that is an asset to the community.

The problem is that he has circumvented the planning process that all other developers have to abide by, most likely because he is politically connected. The Newsom veto allows him the additional height to build his project without having to provide any additional benefits for the community. In this day and age of Change, shouldn’t the politicians be called out for appearances of out-right voting under the influence of money.

No one is outright opposed to an eight story tall tower along Mission Street, but the developer should go through the proper channels to do it. Otherwise, this is spot zoning by the Mayor and the four Supervisors who supported the original amendment. This winter the community and the Planning Department completed a decade long planning process, just to have the Mayor allow one special character exempted from its requirements because of a mistake. All San Franciscans should be outraged at such blatant pay to play politics and call Supervisors Chu, Elsbernd, Alito-Pier, and Dufty to demand that they support the override of the Mayor’s Veto that is scheduled to be considered at the Board of Supervisors February 3.

MAC