The San Francisco Board of Appeals is scheduled to review an appeal filed by the developer behind 2700 Sloat Boulevard regarding the zoning code interpretation by the city’s Zoning Administrator. The department argues that calculations behind the 50-story skyscraper in the Sunset District were an inaccurate interpretation of city code. In their appeal, CH Planning has provided examples of over a dozen approved projects that they say used similar methods of calculator.
2700 Sloat Boulevard massing evolution, illustration by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
2700 Sloat Boulevard podium view, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
According to plans published earlier this month, the 589-foot tower aims to create 680 apartments, of which 110 will be designated as affordable, retail, community space, and a new fitness center. Solomon Cordwell Buenz is the project architect. See our previous report for more details about the proposal.
CH Planning’s company, 2700 Sloat Holdings LLC, is being represented by Reuben Law. The primary focus of the appeal centered on the Zoning Administrator’s interpretation of the city’s Planning Code Sections 102 and 270 as published this March. The developer’s brief summarizes its three reasons for appealing the Zoning Administrator’s ruling as the following:
- It errs in creating a new bulk code limitation, unsupported by the language and intent of the Planning Code
- It abuses discretion by exceeding Zoning Administrator Authority under PC 307(a) and circumventing legislative process; and
- It violates the California Housing Crisis Act of 2019.
The brief also includes an illustrative list of previously-approved projects that could not be built based on the Zoning Administrator’s interpretation of the city code. These include the Oceanwide Center, One Rincon Hill, Infinity Towers, the proposed mixed-use Flower Mart, and the under-construction American Buddhist Cultural Society temple.
2700 Sloat Boulevard seen over Wawona Street, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
In a lengthy written response, the Planning Department concluded with the following:
To conclude, the Zoning Administrator did not err or abuse their discretion by making the bulk interpretation in question. The interpretation was based on the clear intent of the bulk controls pursuant to the General Plan, the plain language of the Planning Code, the relationship of the standard bulk controls with those controls found in more specific bulk districts and/or SUDs that plan for a multi-tower context, and a good faith understanding of State law.
As with any Planning Code provision that requires interpretation by the Zoning Administrator, future legislation from the Board of Supervisors may be helpful to clarify the intent and technical details related to the standard bulk controls in the future, and the Department is happy to participate in and contribute to that process.
For a full understanding of both arguments, the meeting is scheduled to start later today, Wednesday, July 26th, starting at 5 PM. The appeal for 2700 Sloat Boulevard is currently scheduled as the final item for review. The event will be held online and in person at City Hall, room 416. For more information about how to attend and participate, visit the meeting agenda here.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
‘Figuritly,’ burn this area of SF to the ground! I can’t say I have experienced a more pretentious neighborhood that simultaneously looks dumpy and is shamelessly pompous. They expect the city to bow to their needs, yet they are the first to mention SF’s terrible state.
They refuse development, gripe about increased traffic, and do all this behind a fake facade that they care about the world and society—the worst of the worst kinda posers.
This tower is undoubtedly extreme, and I view it more as a protest against the area’s refusal to add to the much-needed density of the Bay Area. 5-6 stories is a healthy density, begone with your single-family zoning. It’s wild how wasteful these blocks are in the heart of some of the best parks, and it’s just one family per unit. It’s just urban sprawl with a view.
Plus to make matters worse, the neighbors had previously opposed a much shorter apartment building that was proposed for this same property. They also claimed it would be “out of scale” with the neighborhood. This tower is definitely a “protest project”, but it has only been proposed because SF has made it so difficult to build anything.
@Drew: The Sunset district is more densely populated than 99% of the Bay Area, and despite zoning rules that were retroactively applied to the Sunset, it is not actually only filled with single family homes. Many of those homes have multiple units, and there are many apartment buildings as well. By census tract, the population density ranges from around 15,000 people per square mile to 30,000 per square mile. It is very densely populated by American standards (and has pretty good transit too, for the record, unless you’re some kind of anti-bus elitist). Chill out with your nonsensical hysterics about single family homes and suburbia, and how everyone but you is an idiot who needs to have their home burned down (you realize that you sound like a crazy person when you say things like that, right?). The average SF resident is not opposed to more housing on principle, and that includes Sunset residents, contrary to what you imply. And as a solid middle class neighborhood, the Sunset is far from the most pretentious neighborhood in SF (your comment however, is very pretentious). You seem to be taking the complaints of a few NIMBYs, and applying them to tens of thousands of people. Also, who exactly is a city supposed to represent, other than its own residents?
All that being said, it’s very possible to build more than enough housing, without building 50 floor towers along the beach (which are in violation of local zoning laws, and don’t conform to the state density bonus law). Or get this…we could build the 50 story towers downtown, where there are already tons of large towers, and plenty of space for more (even better transit access too).
Maybe you should whine about density in places like Woodside, Atherton, and Bakersfield, and 99% of the rest of America, before you go on unhinged rants about one of the most dense and pedestrian/transit friendly neighborhoods in the nation, and all of its residents.
I love how you seperate youself from NIMBYs by suggesting the original comment is “taking the complaints of a few NIMBYs, and applying them to tens of thousands of people” and then 3 sentences later, literally use a NIMBY talking point yourself. Pretty funny.
What NIMBY talking point . . the more annoying posts are people that claim to know what they are saying by leaving an accusation unspecified to sound like they know better. That is just as pretentious as the target this posters are criticizing. The reality is this project is meant to provoke, not really solve anything. The best rezoning considers the scale across a whole neighborhood where the density is increased without trying to pile into a few sites.
I wouldn’t call the Sunset a “middle-class neighborhood” by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe it was affordable 50 years ago, but today, houses there all sell for more than $1 million. I’ve regularly seen listings for $2 million and above. Compare that to the East Bay or Daly City, where you see lots of properties for half the price. This tower is definitely an extreme proposal, but it’s simply the culmination of neighbors constantly opposing housing proposals on that site, including a much shorter 12 story building. Also this building will be right next to the L Taraval streetcar, which can get you downtown in half an hour, so it’s much more transit-accessible than the rest of the Bay Area (which is why adding density here makes a lot more sense than in Atherton or Woodside). Although I agree with you that those cities should also legalize more density and add more public transit.
Gosh, without taking sides, as someone who lives in one of the “tons of large towers” downtown (as cfb describes) I do have to agree with the small non-rant portion of Drew’s comment, where he says that “5-6 stories is a healthy density.” I acknowledge cfb’s observation that there are already lots of multi-family buildings in the Sunset, but the major commercial streets in the Sunset, Richmond, etc. could easily accomodate block after block of mid-rise residential buildings with retail and small offices on the ground floor (doctor’s offices, accountants, RE offices etc.). If we can all agree on that, we will all be much better off!
I’d rather have 200 buildings at “baseline” height, but it is what it is.
Agreed on the Sunset being NIMBY heaven. The issue here is that the multi family buildings were primarily built before the NIMBY apocalypse happened in the 1960s-70s. We’re expected to treat the low-rise blocks as sacrosanct. People should have the right to build mid-rise residential on their own land, and without a decade of neighbor lawsuits. And yes, the area is largely hideous, death by a thousand curb cuts.
What if there is a big quake. Is there bedrock under all that sand? Will the building have earthquake safety components? Will it go deep into bedrock? If the building should fail, it will fall on neighboring homes. Will the developers reimburse the homeowners for the damages and loss of life?
They’ve hired a structural engineer so they’ll probably use deep pilings. The Burj Khalifa is built on sand and manages just fine, and the West Side has a lot of high-rises (Parkmerced itself has plenty).
#1 This project will never get built…it doesn’t pencil. The costs far outweigh the revenue
#2. As such, the developer is trying to create a boogeyman to force the Nimbys to compromise and let the developer build a smaller yet still dense project that does pencil
Many residents of the Sunset moved there because it was less desirable and therefore cheaper than the neighborhoods on the other side of Twin Peaks, so it’s understandably hard for them to stomach the “elitist” tag. Similarly, with lot sizes considerably smaller than what is typical in the rest of the Bay Area and the country at large, the “opposed to density” tag rings false, too. How many attached homes do you find in LA, Portland, or Seattle? If Yimby’s should stop the name-calling and propose in-scale increases in density. This building is absurd.
I own a single family 1948 home in Portland, and a few years ago they changed the zoning to allow four-unit buildings on those single family plots. Most of us accepted that as a reasonable move to address the housing shortage. Is that being considered for the outer Richmond and Sunset/Parkside?
@Sjostrom – yes, that has happened. Through a couple of different actions, I believe that the entire westside of San Francisco has effectively been upzoned from SF to 4-plexes allowed on every plot. In addition, corner lots can have six units (going from memory here) and those along “major” streets (those that are wider and already permit retail/commercial and multiple use) were further upzoned. As is typical in SF there are lots of restrictions on who can make these changes, most notably banning real estate developers from buying a house and replacing it with multiple units (because that would, you know, make sense). Those changes have literally just happened in the past several years so we haven’t seen a huge number of conversions/additions but should gradually further increase density in these neighborhoods as you mention.
This battle is about the parcels where significantly greater density is permitted under both local and state laws, and whether that density has to be blocky low-rises or could be slimmer, taller towers. The neighborhood seems to prefer low and blocky but we’re all curious where this ends up.
> Also this building will be right next to the L Taraval streetcar, which can get you downtown in half an hour.
Nope, I commute on the L from that stop, it takes 45 to 50 minutes to get downtown, 25 minutes to get to West Portal, 20 minutes from West Portal to downtown and that’s when the L finally leaves, very often the drivers are on break as it’s the last stop so you can wait up to 15 minutes before it will leave.
I don’t get this logic that the Sunset is hideous, therefore let’s build towers there so other people can live there.
The developer apparently went to prison on fraud charges and the city does not deem this project to be compliant.
Meanwhile, 5-7 story multi family projects are actually being built right now elsewhere in the Sunset.
Time to just accept that this tower was never a serious proposal (even Scott Wiener opposes it), and these idiots ranting about it are not actually interested in building housing so much as expressing disdain for a neighborhood they don’t live in and don’t intend to live in.