Editor:
In an abandonment of its responsibility to protect the coast, the California Coastal Commission (CCC), voted 10 to one, on April 16, to approve high-rise, market-rate, residential buildings on the coast in the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset.
The City asked for an amendment to the Local Coastal Plan (LCP) to allow developers to build eight- or even 12-story buildings near Ocean Beach. The City claims this is needed to respond to the Regional Housing Needs Allocation imposed by Sacramento, thanks to our state senator, Scott Wiener.
According to the presentation given to the CCC, “…the City considers these areas to be important opportunity sites for additional infill housing and the proposed amendment is intended to facilitate such development.” Important opportunity sites? What is that? I think it means a site where real estate developers can get top dollar for luxury units with ocean views. Never mind the neighborhood or the local residents, there’s money to be made.
It wasn’t too long ago that former Supervisor Joel Engardio and Sunset Dunes supporters were loudly proclaiming that local zoning laws would protect the Sunset from from high rise development along Sunset Dunes. That protection was gone in a wave of the hand thanks to the collusion between the City and the CCC staff.
The CCC staff presentation to the Commission was like an infomercial in favor of the City’s plan and how could it be otherwise when Joshua Switzky, deputy director of Community Planning for the San Francisco Planning Department, begins his presentation by saying, “I wanna start by thanking the Coastal Commission staff, who have been diligently, uh, spent very many months, working with us, and helping us prepare this local coastal plan amendment, reviewing the plan, to get us to this recommendation for you here today.” I wonder what the recommendation would have been if staff had spent months diligently working with the opponents of the amendment? In short, most of what the CCC staff report says is opinions and generalizations designed to give real estate developers a free hand to build market-rate housing, displace long-term residents and gentrify the coastal zone.
How is it that our precious coastline has suddenly been reduced to an “important opportunity site” for high rise development? Further, a development that will do nothing to solve the affordable housing crisis and will, in fact make it worse. Only 13% of the proposed development at 850 La Playa is to be reserved for affordable housing with incremental increases in the percentage with increases in building height. Every study made by housing experts in recent years shows that increase in density, due to increases in market-rate housing, makes housing less affordable. (See: “…two Federal Reserve researchers have just published a paper that adds to the clear evidence that “constraints” on the supply of private-market housing have little to do with the lack of affordability in cities like San Francisco.” Tim Redmond, 48 Hills Feb. 12, 2026. https://48hills.org/2026/02/is-the-tide-finally-turning-on-the-abundance-agenda/)
David Romano
Categories: letter to the editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
David, you hit the nail on the head! Several D4 residents lobbied hard, made public comments at the Planning Commission, the Land Use and Transportation Committee, the BOS, directly to the Mayor, who claimed that his upzoning plan would not turn Ocean Beach into Miami Beach. That was false, and he knew it to be false. The legislative code of Lurie’s upzoning plan and the amendments to the City’s General Plan introduced a local zoning ordinance to the Coastal Zone. In addition, state density and height increases can also be tacked on.
I had also heard from City Hall insiders that the CCC had drafted the language so there was no doubt it would pass.
San Francisco is no longer the leader in protecting the environment. This zoning change undermines the CA Coastal Act. Last year, the City and County of San Francisco sued the EPA, took it all the way to the USSC and … won, thereby undermining the clean water act not only here in San Francisco, but across the nation. Senator Wiener, no friend of the environment, has eliminated the need for CEQA to build housing.
SF needs to take a hard look in the mirror.
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This is insane. Add to this the facts that the entire Outer Sunset is landfill and its infrastructure (water, sewer) is stretched to its breaking point, and we have a true environmental and residential nightmare on our hands.
It looks like it took exactly one year and four months for Lurie and every City employee to completely sell us out. Where does Wiener end up after all this? On some desert island where he has all the developer money in the world, but everyone hates him? I guess that doesn’t matter if you don’t care about other people in the first place.
Also, let’s just document here that the Sunset Dunes folks are a registered nonprofit (registered multiple business names in 2022, long before the Rec & Park naming ‘contest’) supported by billionaires, yet they solicit donations from the public. And they are also a political action committee, since they worked with one GrowSF political consultant and a former GrowSF employee (Engardio) to create Prop K and submit it at the last possible second (a political tactic). I never thought I would find myself praying for an earthquake to come and shake some sense into people.
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Worldwide, this type of hi-rise housing has utterly failed both middle income young people and those in need of truly affordable housing. Those who think otherwise in the CCC should be better informed. Those 10 commissioners who voted yes should be absolutely ashamed of their votes: their failure to protect our coastline and our coastal communities, and their agreement to disenfranchise local voices and local communities. Scott Wiener and his proxy should be disallowed from public office for his completely bogus Regional Housing Needs Allocation numbers (RHNA), destroying our environmental protections that had spared San Francisco from the hi-rise plague that has beset coastal communities worldwide, and for making it impossible for local citizens to come up with their own solutions.
What are the allegations of influence on Coastal Commission votes? 1) Lobbying and ‘Pay-to-Play’ (special interest groups use campaign contributions and sponsor travel to gain access to policymakers); 2) Ex Parte Communications (private meetings between developers and Coastal Commissioners which allow for direct influence on decisions); 3) Legal Pressure (lawsuits from developers over building permits and legislative efforts to limit CCC authority–gratis Scott Wiener and proxy); 4) Pro-Development Shifts (the CCC recently altered its stance on some projects in order to be seen as supporting housing, including reducing the burden on affordable housing projects which aligns with developer goals. Citizens of San Francisco, we have just seen the biggest bamboozle of the century, and it’s a sad, sad day.
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