By Thomas K. Pendergast

San Francisco’s proposed Family Zoning Plan cleared an important bureaucratic hurdle in April when the California Coastal Commission (CCC), the state’s quasi-judicial agency which has jurisdiction over the coastline, approved it with a 10-1 vote.

The vote proposed amending the CCC’s Land Use Plan and Implementation Plan to “encourage transit-oriented infill development and affordable housing; increase residential density allowances; establish a local density bonus program; and change allowable densities in urban infill areas of the City’s coastal zone.”

Although the area size of the coastal zone on the City’s west side varies, overall, it generally goes a few blocks inland from the Great Highway. City planners estimate these changes could potentially lead to 720 new housing units within the City’s coastal zone, with at least 15% “deed restricted” for affordable housing.

Using the California State Density Bonus Law definition, “affordable” generally means residential units 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% of 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 changes would modify two City policies to allow increased residential density and infill development.

“The proposed implementation plan changes would provide the development standards intended to achieve such infill development, such as increasing certain height limits near transit-rich areas and commercial corridors, encouraging transit-oriented development and including requirements that development be generally compatible with the area’s character, with heights generally being higher further inland and then lower as you get closer to the coast,” CCC coastal planner Luke Henningsen told the commission.

Henningsen said the amendment recognizes that many larger residential projects now rely on California’s Density Bonus Law (DBL) for deviations from local rules, to incentivize housing projects.

In response, the City proposes its own version of density bonus via its proposed “housing choice” program, which serves as a voluntary alternative to DBL for housing developers seeking to avail themselves of a different set of incentives. In particular, the City targets “transit-rich” areas for increased densities and affordable housing, with the intention being to expand housing supply in these areas while also seeking to expand and improve transit access.

“Under the proposed amendment, allowable base heights on Sloat Boulevard would be 55 feet, raised from a base of 40 feet. If a project were to also qualify for the Housing Choice program, the allowed height would be 100 feet,” he explained. “And if a project was also 100% affordable, then the allowed maximum height would be up to 130 feet.”

“The most notable public views in the City’s coastal zone are predominantly in the area seaward of the first row of buildings, meaning along the Great Highway corridor, taking in Sunset Dunes park, Ocean Beach and the ocean,” he said. “The first row of buildings is already a fairly substantial wall of structures, generally comprised of two-to-four-story buildings, behind which is the densely developed urban skyline of the City and the developed Sunset and Richmond Districts. This view corridor is already framed on its inland edge by a substantial amount of established development and the proposed increases in height are not expected to significantly alter the way in which the shoreline corridors are perceived and appreciated.”

The City’s Deputy Director of Community Planning Joshua Switzky also went before the CCC.

“The final plan is a reflection of the values not just of affirmatively furthering fair housing and environmentally climate-responsible smart growth but also of the Coastal Act itself in the coastal zone,” Switzky said. “All of the rezoning is located in already developed urban neighborhoods and infill sites inland of the coast. Height-limit changes are much more limited in the coastal zone relative to other areas of the City that were rezoned and generally step down towards the coast.”

One commissioner, however, was not persuaded to support the amendments.

“I’m from Florida; I know what Miami Beach looks like. We don’t want to be New York City. Maybe some cities do,” said Commissioner Ray Jackson, who represents Hermosa Beach. “The challenge is HCD (California Department of Housing and Community Development) … has imposed this one-size-fits-all mandate on all of us.

“Take my city, 1.4 square miles, we’ve got to put in 600 units,” Jackson said. “San Francisco, my God you’re dense. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to say ‘we are dense,’ but yet, you’ve got a mandate that says one-size-fits-all, you’ve got to do this.

“When you’re allowing potential buildings to go from 40-to-50 to 80-to-120 feet, that’s not a modest adjustment in my opinion,” he elaborated. “That’s a huge and fundamental shift in scale and community character.

“I don’t see that as thoughtful planning in my opinion. I think it’s overreach. I think it’s pushing coastal communities toward a level of intensity, again, the Miamification and the New York intensity that these cities were never designed to absorb,” Jackson said. “If affordability is really the goal, let’s be honest about it, 15% is not enough. And if you’re going to ask communities to absorb this level of change, I think the affordability requirements should be meaningfully higher.

“I am confident we can meet our housing goals without abandoning the principles that have protected and defined our coasts for generations and therefore I cannot support this.”

Yet the commissioner from San Francisco, Susan Lowenberg, took the lead speaking in favor of the proposed amendments.

She said she was the Chair of the Planning Commission under SF Mayor Frank Jordan and she proposed a plan very similar to the current proposal, yet it did not get approved “because there wasn’t the political will to do that then. Nor was there the affordability pressure. This isn’t political pressure; this is affordability pressure.”

“Either we as a society are going to address housing issues and affordability and create more housing, or let’s just stop talking about it,” Lowenberg said. “We’re being asked to approve the tiniest little sliver of San Francisco. … I have been saying for years we need to upzone Lincoln, Fulton, Sloat, Geary, all the transit corridors in San Francisco need to be upzoned.

“Look at New York. Look at what they did around Central Park,” she said. “There’s a way of doing it and doing it right. We’re not blanketly approving development here. We’re allowing people to plan and hopefully build.

“Seven hundred units? This is the ‘great potential’ that we’re talking about here? Either we get serious, or we don’t get serious.”

The CCC commissioners voted to approve the City’s amendments with Jackson as the sole “no” vote.