SFBARF field report: Notes from an anti-development meeting

On Tuesday, Sonja and I (Raf) went to a community meeting about a proposed building at 1481 Post St. The meeting was hosted by the Cathedral Hill Neighbors Association, MC’d by the PR firm BMWL and Partners, and sponsored by NCPHS, who own and run the building next door.

The panelists have done lots of development planning and political campaigning in SF. We wanted to see how political insiders fight against a project.

Wow, they were organized! They gave each of the more than 200 attendees a 5-page packet, Tips on Writing to the Planning Commission. The packet talked about how to write comments responding to the Environmental Impact Report, complete with an outline and an example letter.

The spokesperson from the PR firm BMWL, introduced the speakers: a community organizer, a land-use lawyer, a partner from the PR firm, a city planning consultant and a neighbor. Hopefully, SFBARF can afford a panel like this someday!

Marlayne Morgan, a leader of the Cathedral Hill Neighborhood organization, talked about how difficult it was to get groups across the city to oppose the nearby CPMC hospital. Many of them had told her something to the effect of “well, at least it’s not in my backyard.” She hopes that Prop 8 and Prop B are a sign of things to come: neighborhood groups coming together to oppose development no matter the neighborhood because “we don’t like how our city is changing.”

She described the project as a luxury building. She’s not wrong, but I think it’s only fair to point out that in SF “luxury” is just another word for “market rate”, what with the crazy-high market rate here in SF.

She went on to describe the dangers spot zoning. Because this project exceeds the zoned height limit, it needs the Board of Supervisors to pass a spot zoning measure. She said that if the city approves this spot zoning variance, it’s a slippery slope to spot zoning in other places. She urged residents of Pacific Heights, the Richmond, Hayes Valley, and Twin Peaks to be concerned. I was only a bit disappointed that she forgot to give a shout-out to Mission residents like me.

The second speaker, a land-use attorney named Steve Vettel, gave an overview of the planning process. He also noted that the planning committee must respond to all letters: more comments mean more replies, and more replies take more time and cost the developer more money, because the developer ultimately foots the bill for the EIR (Environmental Impact Report). Here’s a link to the 574-page EIR.



Sam Lauter, a partner at BMWL, spoke next. He noted the importance of writing letters. He also (half-jokingly, I think?) described his plan:

1. Neighbors write a lot of letters about the EIR. 2. He prints them out and stacks them up. 3. He puts the stack of letters in front of the Board of Supervisors before they vote on the spot zoning. “Look at all these voters––I mean neighbors––who oppose this!”

The other speakers finished with more about how to write effective letters.

The presenters had given insiders’ lessons on how best to influence San Francisco’s planning process, but we weren’t done yet. It was time for questions from the audience!

I couldn’t get them all down, but I’ve paraphrased my favorite ones. Questions in bold, answers in normal weight:

There were some skeptics:

Who paid for the EIR? The developer. Why should we believe it? Because the city planners have the last word on the report. I still don’t trust it. Believe me, developers don’t like EIRs.

You suggest that we write letters in favor of Alternative D [a shorter, smaller development]. I hate to sound paranoid, but what if that’s what the developer really wants? I can tell you that this developer wants the money from the taller, bigger development. Well, there are some people here in this room who don’t want any building at all. You are free to write whatever letters you want, but the developer does own the land, and the zoned height limit does allow the building proposed in Alternative D.

There were also some would-be coalition-builders:

I see from the shadow map [the presenters were showing the maximum-shadow map from page 306 from the EIR] that the building’s shadow covers my house in Japantown. Have you told my neighbors? Yes, we have. The Japantown neighborhood organization is meeting tomorrow.

The shadow map in question, which certainly shows a lot of shadows.

I bicycle on Sutter street, and I am concerned about the impact of having three different driveways. Have you reached out to the SF Bike Coalition? Maybe they will oppose this project. You should ask the Bike Coalition to write letters against this project.

Of course, eventually someone brought up the elephant in the room… parking!



What’s the difference between the plan and Alternative D? 262 units in the original plan, or 187 for the shorter Alternative D plan. Also, the plan removes 39 street parking spaces. *crowd gasps* [Actually, answering that “the plan removes 39 spaces” was inaccurate. The developer’s plan proposes to remove 18 out of 39 parking spaces on the block. The EIR that asks that the city to consdier removing all 39 parking space to widen the sidewalk.]

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You said that the building has too many parking spaces? Yes, we think one per unit is too many. We support transit-first development, especially on Geary. But, I don’t want people to park on my street! …or anyone else’s street.





