By Thomas K. Pendergast

After plans for a 50-story building to replace the Sloat Garden Center collapsed under pressure from locals and the City, the developer is back with plans for a building about half that size.

Sloat Holding LLC has submitted plans to the San Francisco Planning Department for a 24-story structure providing 682 residential units in a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail commercial space.

The proposal would provide 427 studio apartments, 196 one-bedroom apartments, 33 two-bedroom apartments and 26 three-bedroom apartments.

It would provide 47 parking spaces and five car-share spaces in an underground garage. Plus, 285 residential bike parking spaces and seven retail bike parking spaces are in the new plan.

The developers are requesting certain wavers based on their offer to sell all the units at “affordable” prices.

Using the California State Density Bonus Law (SDBL) definition, “affordable” generally means they will be offered at 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) as calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In San Francisco, 100% AMI works out to $97,000 annually for a single person, $110,850 for two people, $124,700 for three and $138,550 for a four-person household.

The new project currently proposes to provide 550 units at below-market-rate (BMR) dwelling units affordable to households at 80% AMI affordable income levels for 80% of the units and at 120% AMI affordable income levels for the remaining 20% of the units. They propose the plan meets the SDBL affordability requirements associated with 100% affordable housing developments located within half a mile of a major transit stop and AB-2011 mixed income requirements.

The developers are asking for these wavers by arguing that the SDBL allows for enough increased height so that the eastern section of the building would be 243 feet tall, including the mechanical equipment screen, while the western section (measured from the midpoint of 46th Avenue) would be 255 feet tall, including the mechanical equipment screen.

Plans filed with the department claim the property is outside the California State area of the Coastal Zone, but inside the San Francisco portion of the Local Coastal Zone.

The property is also located in an area designated as a “High Resource Area” and within 60 feet of the Muni light rail transit stop for the L-Taraval streetcar line at the corner of 46th Avenue and Wawona Street. The L-Taraval line has recently undergone a $90 million upgrade. There is also a Muni bus stop at the property for the 23-Monterey and 18-46th Avenue bus lines.

The developers request a concession to increase the allowable floor area ratio for nonresidential uses including, but not limited to, the proposed parking garage, retail and hotel uses included in the project.

They further request a concession for hotel development and related cafe, bar, restaurant operations on the upper floors and roof of the two buildings (located above the ground and second floor). They also request additional building height to accommodate the hotel, unless building height with hotel is allowed per the SDBL requested waver for additional building height above the zoned height limit.

The Sloat Garden Center has been a neighborhood establishment serving westside residents for decades, so its loss will undoubtedly be noticed. The City, however, is under tremendous pressure right now to submit a plan to the state by the end of January that will add at least 36,000 units to the housing stock.

Yet, this is not the first time this developer has tried building there.

In 2020, the first proposal was for eight stories and 213 residential housing units. A year later, another plan for a new building raised it four more stories, offering 400 units of housing.

That is when an online petition against it began by some local residents opposing its 12-story bulk.

In 2023, however, the developer quadrupled-down by proposing a skyscraper 50-stories tall with 712 units of housing. Predictably, there was a corresponding rise in the number of neighbors opposing it with an online petition by the group Save Our Neighborhood SF (SON-SF).

At the time the San Francisco Planning Department agreed with SON-SF and rejected that plan.

The developer challenged that rejection at the San Francisco Board of Appeals.

Referring to a previous 2018 decision by a department zoning administrator, they claimed that administrator erred or abused his discretion in its interpretation of the Planning Code.

“It errs by creating a new bulk limit that simply does not exist under the existing code,” attorney Melinda Sarjapur, who represents the developers, CH-Planning, told the Board. “It’s inconsistent with how the City has applied the code for decades. It’s contrary to the intent of the bulk code and the General Plan policies, and finally, it will violate state law.”

But Zoning Administrator Corey Teague said it conforms just fine with the bulk limits of the Planning Code.

“The plain language of the code says that where the bulk applies, that there are maximum dimensions for that building above that height,” Teague told the Board. “And that maximum dimension includes every part of that building above that height. It’s very clear that the bulk controls apply to a building and a building that has a podium and a tower.”

In the end, the Board upheld Teague’s interpretation and voted unanimously to deny the appeal.

Less than a month later the developers filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco.

The city attorney’s office responded that “San Francisco proceeded in the manner required by all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations; did not act arbitrarily, capriciously or wholly without evidentiary support; did not abuse its discretion; and made all required findings, which supported San Francisco’s actions and were supported by substantial evidence in the record, and to the extent any error was made, such error was not prejudicial.”

In the end, the developers withdrew that plan and are now submitting this new proposal.