Ideally, the role of a planning commission is not to rubber stamp, but to review, refine, and scrutinize — in order to ensure that the projects that earn its approval are of high quality.  The commission should also ensure consistency with applicable General Plan policies.  In San Francisco, that includes the City’s policy to encourage the development of housing accessible to a spectrum of incomes; to expand a robust and successful city economy; and to make land use decisions that discourage dependence on the automobile, in part by limiting parking for projects near convenient transit options.

When it comes to implementing these general policies in the context of specific projects, the San Francisco Planning Commission has disappointed on more than one occasion.  But particularly with respect to parking, one cannot help but notice how Michael Antonini — a Republican originally appointed to the Commission in 2002 by Willie Brown, and then later reappointed by Gavin Newsom — has often singled himself out as the epitome of this phenomenon on the Commission.

As long as as the proposed project meets the bare minimum test of adding any housing or retail to a parcel where none existed before, Commissioner Antonini will probably stand ready to cast his approving vote — unless, of course, the amount of suggested parking seems somehow “inadequate.”  In that case, he has cause to object.  And so much the better if the project includes larger family-sized units, because then the Commission has the opportunity to bend over backward by signing off on the inclusion of extra parking.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction premised on this assumption: the probability that a family will get around town without a car ranges anywhere from unlikely to inconceivable.

Rendering of the Santa Clara 49ers stadium proposal.

It’s not too surprising, then, to find that Commissioner Antonini offered this little gem to the Examiner regarding Santa Clara’s proposal for a new 49ers stadium, which will be put to the test when Santa Clara citizens evaluate Measure J in the June election:

“[The Santa Clara site] is so small and there’s no place to park,” Antonini said. “It would be a circus to have a Super Bowl there.”

Candlestick Park, which seats about 70,000 attendees, has parking capacity for 8,800 vehicles.  Santa Clara’s proposed stadium, which is comparably sized, would seat 68,500 attendees, with an option to expand to 75,000 seats for the Super Bowl.  Although fewer than 3,500 parking spots would be made available in a proposed structure and parking lots immediately adjacent to the stadium site, as many as about 38,000 existing parking spots located within a 20-minute walk of the stadium could be leveraged for use on event days.  Although it’s not yet clear just how much of that parking will be available on a given game day, it’s smart practice to recycle parking spots for different uses at different times of day, rather than build an independent parking supply dedicated to each use.  And that parking total even far exceeds the need, if travel patterns to the Santa Clara stadium resemble travel patterns to Candlestick.

But in advocating to keep the 49ers in San Francisco, is Commissioner Antonini really mocking Santa Clara for trying to manage transportation demand (both by taking advantage of existing parking supply and emphasizing the various transit options near the stadium site)?  And is he really implying that a Hunters Point stadium would be superior to the Santa Clara stadium because it could provide more parking?

How refreshing it is that decision-makers in this transit-first city are so eager to set a fine example for the benefit of our suburban neighbors.

Let’s run through the specs.  Cool, modern, glassy Saitowitz design in Hayes Valley? Check. (More or less: Curbed has been tracking this issue here and here.)  Replace underutilized space, including 70 surface parking spots, with higher density uses? Check.  A decent mix of units? Check. (There would be 32 studio + 48 one-bedroom + 45 two-bedroom = 136 total units, with 16 units [12%] affordable.)  Mixed-use project, with ground floor retail to activate the street environment?  Check.  Planned supermarket space to increase neighborhood livability, walkability, and self-sufficiency?  Check.  102 residential parking spots, plus two car-share spots and 91 spots for the grocery store — summing to a grand total of 195 new parking spots?

Rendering of 555 Fulton Street, courtesy of Stanley Saitowitz.

195 parking spots.  That can’t be all that “transit-first” — can it?  In the Hayes-Gough NCT, no off-street residential parking is required whatsoever, and a ratio of 0.5 parking spots per residential unit is allowed by-right.  No more than 0.75 spots per unit may be built, and then only with a conditional use authorization.  For a 136-unit development, the 0.75 ratio yields exactly 102 parking spots.  555 Fulton, then, is applying for the maximum amount of residential parking permissible under the code.  Moreover, that parking would be provided in a full two-level below-grade garage.  While it is preferable to have the parking located below-grade, the project sponsor has not proposed to use mechanical stackers for any of the parking, including the 34 residential spaces provided above and beyond the 0.5 threshold.

555 Fulton is an upcoming example of an emerging trend.  On the one hand, Planning acknowledges the need to integrate good parking policy into the process of approving new developments.  Indeed, San Francisco’s General Plan demands it:

Transportation Element, Policy 34.1: Regulate off-street parking in new housing so as to guarantee needed spaces without requiring excesses and to encourage low auto ownership in neighborhoods that are well served by transit and are convenient to neighborhood shopping.

Transportation Element, Policy 34.3: Permit minimal or reduced off-street parking supply for new buildings in residential and commercial areas adjacent to transit centers and along transit preferential streets. (*)

On the other hand, this principle is sometimes given lip service and then essentially discarded in practice.  There have been, for example, increases in parking approved by the Planning Commission and provided as part of larger residential projects located South of Market.  Another project of interest last year was 299 Valencia, whose conditional use was appealed to, but not overturned by, the Board of Supervisors.  The outcome of that case raised the question of whether a precedent — not a legally binding precedent, but a de facto precedent, nonetheless — had been set, in which the 0.5 NCT parking ratio limit had been replaced, practically speaking, by a 0.75 ratio.  But 299 Valencia is just a single project, and 555 Fulton will add a new data point.  Yet another data point is 200 Dolores, which may cut the opposite direction.  In that case, the Planning Commission has initially denied a conditional use to construct thirteen parking spaces (for thirteen units, a 1:1 ratio).  But the item was continued, and even that motion passed narrowly (4-3), with Commissioners Antonini, Lee, and Miguel dissenting.

In concept, the 555 Fulton project deserves support.  Well-designed, elegantly dense urban infill projects that add homes and neighborhood-serving retail near transit and employment is the exact flavor of development that we should be building everywhere that is appropriate, including throughout San Francisco.  But as more and more project sponsors are authorized to build more parking than the amount permitted by-right, a nagging concern is what the cumulative effect on air quality, neighborhood livability, street safety, and transit performance will be over time.

Some San Francisco neighborhoods are comprised primarily of older, relatively large apartment buildings that provide little to no parking.  And yet, these buildings still have no difficulty attracting residents.  In fact, they teach us a valuable lesson about parking: If you don’t build it, they still come, but most will come without cars.

Suppose that the Planning Commission decides to sign off on many future conditional use authorizations begging for more parking, but without sufficiently scrutinizing them — perhaps justifying them on the speculative ground that the parking allowed by-right is insufficient to encourage families to live in San Francisco.  Suppose also that on appeal, the Board of Supervisors either agrees with the Planning Commission, or fails to collect the votes needed to overturn the Planning Commission.  If that is the pattern for how things play out, then at what point can the General Plan’s good parking policy — even if genuinely applied to projects by Planning staff — enter this deliberative process successfully, with sufficient force to persuade decision-makers?

More generally, why did we bother spending the better part of a decade crafting the Market-Octavia Plan, only to ultimately betray the spirit of that planning effort on a case-by-case basis?  We hope that the Planning Commission will take these considerations to heart when it considers 555 Fulton and all future projects in the pipeline.

(*) Strictly speaking, Policy 34.3 does not apply to 555 Fulton, because the relevant segment of Fulton Street is not a TPS, nor is the project site directly adjacent to a designated transit center. However, both provisions summarize the City’s stance on developing new residential parking. Also, even Policy 34.1 taken by itself supports the notion that additional parking merits additional scrutiny.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has introduced, and the Board has subsequently discussed, legislation concerning garages in certain parts of Chiu’s home District 3.  The legislation does not address existing garages, but rather, future garages that have yet to be proposed and installed.  The need for this legislation is perhaps epitomized by the Ellis Act eviction sought against low-income seniors at the building on Jasper Place, in which one tenant committed suicide, and the advertisement for the property boasted of the property’s “potential for parking” — a cold swap of human being for automobile.  But Jasper Place is just one case study of the more prevalent issue in parts of District 3, as well as other locations around the city: Ellis Act evictions, followed shortly by applications for garages to be carved out of the newly-vacated space.  Examining Department of Building Inspection and Rent Board records more closely, it was determined that of at least 166 Ellis Act evictions carried out in recent years that were followed by garage applications, roughly half of them were located within District 3.  And that is the problem that inspired this legislation.

At its February 9, 2010 meeting, the Board of Supervisors passed the ordinance on its first reading, with 7 ayes (Campos, Chiu, Daly, Dufty, Mar, Maxwell, Mirkarimi) and 2 noes (Chu, Elsbernd).  The ordinance is expected to be finally passed at the Board’s February 23 meeting.

So what exactly does this legislation do?  The first thing to remember is that it is limited to specific sections within Chiu’s District 3.  Generally speaking, the legislation aims to address the problem of evictions that result in new garages — at once protecting affordable housing supply, while encouraging a livable city and supporting sound urban design principles.  At the same time, it eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements in various parts of District 3.  Here are the highlights:

1. Requires a conditional use authorization to install a garage in an existing building. This is really the centerpiece of the legislation.  Someone seeking to install a garage in an existing building will have to seek a conditional use authorization in order to do so, and the conditional use then becomes the mechanism to ensure that the big policy goals are met.  Section 303 of the Planning Code sets out criteria that apply to conditional uses generally.  However, in addition to Section 303, this legislation imposes an additional list of hurdles that garage proposals must meet in order to be authorized.  Garage proposals may not displace a residential unit, and there must be a record of no no-fault evictions for the past ten years.  Curb cuts should be oriented to minimize the loss of on-street parking, and the new garage shall not take more than two on-street parking spots.  The sidewalk must remain inviting for pedestrians and cannot deteriorate on account of the garage; specifically, it must be at least 6 feet wide, and may not introduce a slope greater than 2%.  Sidewalks on transit preferential streets and neighborhood commercial streets may never be narrowed.  The garage must also comply with other historic resources and design requirements, as applicable.

The legislation requires Planning to consult DPW and MTA (the other city agencies implicated in the garage approval process) about specifics of the garage proposal and ensure there are no glaring problems with it before the Planning Commission grants any conditional use authorization.  Finally, please note that this more exacting conditional use process for garages only applies to certain areas: the North Beach NCD, the Broadway NCD, parts of Chinatown, and a new special use district also defined in this legislation (see #2 below).

2. Creates a Telegraph Hill-North Beach Residential Special Use District for the purposes of requiring a garage conditional use authorization (see #1 above), as well as to eliminate minimum off-street parking requirements (see #3 below).

3. Eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements and revises parking controls in Chinatown, the North Beach NCD, the Broadway NCD, and the new residential special use district (see #2 above).  In Chinatown, the North Beach NCD, and the Broadway NCD, up to 0.5 parking spaces per unit is permitted by right, and up to 0.75 is allowed with conditional use.  In the residential special use district, the controls are more relaxed: up to 0.75 is permitted by right, while up to 1.0 is allowed with conditional use.

4. Prohibits driveways altogether on important commercial and pedestrian street frontages: Columbus Avenue (between Washington/Montgomery and North Point), Broadway (between Mason and The Embarcadero), as well as alleys in Chinatown.

Both the new obstacles to garages, as well as the elimination of minimum off-street parking, are good moves in Chinatown and North Beach, because they push back and scrutinize attempts to build more storage space for cars.  This is especially critical in dense District 3 neighborhoods, whose already clogged streets can scarcely take the hit to livability brought about by policies that encourage car use and ownership.

In some sense, there is nothing new about the good policy underpinning this legislation.  Numerous provisions of San Francisco’s General Plan, coupled with recent City efforts at comprehensive neighborhood land use planning, have explicitly recognized that garage entrances and exits must be placed carefully, so as to minimize their interference with active neighborhood streets and maximize safety to pedestrians.  But in another sense, this legislation is new — simply because many city neighborhoods do not yet enjoy the protection afforded by this more sensitive treatment of garages, even if they would benefit from such protection.  The City’s approach to garage planning has basically been to not plan them — at least, not in a systematic fashion that reaches citywide.

In regard to that last point, this legislation is no different.  The area of applicability contains a disproportionately high number of Ellis Act evictions that later result in garage production — but geographically, the area is indeed quite small: not even one full supervisorial district, but only parts of one.  It is, as Supervisor Chiu put it, “narrowly tailored” to address a particular problem in a particular place.  But even though the legislation does not take the City’s current piecemeal garage policy and transform it into a unified, coherent, citywide policy, it at least adds a dose of sanity to, and sets a model for, the garage discussion.  My hope is that it will instigate a continued discussion throughout the city, and in the Planning Department, about the value of protecting affordable housing supply and making it difficult to allocate space for automobiles, all in one fell swoop.

While the legislation at issue here aims to block certain conversions of living space into garage space, there is a distinct, but related discussion also worth having, which is the mirror image: the conversion of existing garage space into housing units.  Both discussions are valuable, because both potentially lead to legislative solutions that promise a less auto-dependent, more vibrant city.

The prize for the wonkiest park(ing) spot may have to go to the San Francisco Planning Department, which set up shop behind Caffe Trieste, at Gough & Market. The Planning Department corner featured a “build your own urban environment” exhibit that even attempted to get visitors excited about transit and the density bonus:

A park(ing) spot of wholly different character in the Tenderloin, featuring bales of hay on Leavenworth between Turk and Golden Gate:

A crowded lunching spot on New Montgomery — and around the corner from that, the park(ing) spot at SPUR’s new Urban Center on Mission Street:

And finally, North Beach, where merchants lost no time in appropriating the extra sliver of captured street space to expand the seating capacity of their cafes and restaurants:

The last post discussed the SFCTA report on Geary BRT, so here is a roundup of other recent news:

SFMTA Budget is up for debate: To close a $128.9 million shortfall, the SFMTA Board adopted a budget that raised the adult and paratransit individual fares to $2 and adult fast passes to $60 on January 1, 2010. The budget also raises some parking fees, but it eliminates several lines altogether and institutes considerable service cuts on many other lines. As promised, Board President David Chiu will introduce a motion (PDF) at today’s Budget and Finance Committee meeting to veto the MTA-adopted budget. If you’d like to attend, the meeting is in the Board chamber, 2nd floor of SF City Hall, at 1:30 pm.
Update: At the Budget and Finance Committee, the vote was 4-1 (Carmen Chu dissenting) against the MTA’s budget, and Chiu has the seven votes needed to overturn the budget at the full Board.

New parking lot in Oakland defeated: Last night, I learned via Twitter that the Oakland City Council rejected the Redevelopment Agency’s proposal for a temporary surface parking lot on Telegraph Avenue in Downtown Oakland, next to the Fox Theater. The City Council requested that staff investigate the possibility of art installations instead, which would be a considerable improvement over a parking lot. Whatever use is ultimately installed will be temporary, to be dismantled in 2011 when construction will begin on the second phase of Forest City’s Uptown project.

Caltrain to declare a fiscal emergency: Despite ridership gains in 2008 and already having raised fares 25 cents on January 1, Caltrain is scrambling to close its budget shortfall, in light of the lost STA funds; it plans to declare a fiscal emergency in order to exempt service cuts from environmental review.

High-Speed Rail: The controversy on the Peninsula over high-speed rail continues. Palo Alto has already demanded that trains run in a tunnel, and now Burlingame is following suit, though of course without offering suggestions as to how it plans to foot the bill. Palo Alto’s Vice Mayor Jack Morton is also calling for the High-Speed Rail Authority to be dissolved. But these Peninsula protests may be frustrated by Galgiani’s bill AB 289, which is making its way through the California legislature. AB 289 would exempt from CEQA review all grade separations carried out in connection with California High-Speed Rail. (Grade separations are of course what Palo Alto has already protested as being a divisive “Berlin Wall”, although it would increase safety to fully separate train traffic.) CEQA exemptions are often a thorny subject. CEQA, when placed into the hands of persistent NIMBYs, can be a powerful tool for indefinitely delaying projects, including very desirable projects like high-speed rail. But CEQA is, at its heart, about disclosure; so exempting any type of project from CEQA suggests that the lead agency will proceed without having as full knowledge of the situation as one presumably would have after preparing an EIR. It also sets a dubious precedent to establish CEQA exemptions on a project-by-project basis. In principle, it is preferable to exempt classes of projects, rather than individual projects, because individual exemptions that are not based on some sort of underlying rationale are a double-edged sword. Just one example of this: earlier this year, transit advocates were up in arms at the Governor’s budget proposal to exempt specific freeway projects from CEQA; but now, those same advocates may well relish the idea of fast-tracking high speed rail with a bypass of environmental review. It is indeed frustrating to watch CEQA — legislation whose purpose is to facilitate protection of the environment — be used in ways that delay or block environmentally-beneficial projects, like high-speed rail and the San Francisco Bicycle Plan. But simply exempting projects on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis does little to deepen our understanding of how to implement successful CEQA reform. That said, the AB 289 exemption is also not exactly ad hoc, because railroad grade separations are already exempt from CEQA; this bill explicitly extends that existing policy to construction undertaken by the CHSRA. Aside from the AB 289 CEQA bill, three other HSR-related bills are working their way through the state legislature: SB 783 (requires the CHSRA to prepare a business plan to receive bond funding), SB 451 (endows the CHSRA with certain eminent domain powers), and SB 409 (creates a Department of Railroads).

We have an election in two weeks: On May 19, Californians will vote on Propositions 1A-1F. Ideally, I would have a post for you on these propositions, but I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to write it. To get up to speed, check out the running analysis at Calitics, the California Budget Project, and the Courage Campaign, among many other sources.

J-Get Me to the Church on Time? Not so fast: For those who ride the J-Church regularly (or who perhaps don’t ride it, instead hiking to BART because your J train never arrived), it may not be too surprising to learn that the J-Church is once again Muni’s worst performing line, with a 65% on-time rate. And yes, Supervisor Bevan Dufty is eyeing another pilot study of the line.

These are just some topics in the news recently. Posting will necessarily be sparse for the next couple of weeks, so please feel free to continue using this open thread as a forum to discuss these topics, or whatever else is on your mind.

San Francisco is a transit-first city — officially, at least, according to its Charter — which means that actions taken by the city government, where they are related to transportation issues at all, should promote and prioritize public transit above driving. Given this background assumption, one might think that the Planning Commission would be disinclined to approve the inclusion of extra parking (beyond the stipulated limits) in development projects that it reviews. But the opposite is often the case, which forces citizens to step up to the plate and speak to the benefits of structuring planning decisions around people rather than automobiles. This particular defect of the Planning Commission is one that we have discussed here before, in the context of Folsom Street. The latest episode in the parking battle saga was fought yesterday over seven parking spaces at 299 Valencia, a 36-unit mixed use project slated for a surface parking lot at 14th and Valencia Streets. The five-story project provides four BMR units and about 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The project is located on the very edge of the Market/Octavia Plan area, on land zoned NCT-3, and the site carries a maximum parking ratio of 0.5, or one parking stall per two units. 18 residential parking stalls would be allowed as of right, but the proposal contained 27 residential parking stalls so that the units would be more marketable to high-end buyers. The additional parking requires a conditional use (CU) authorization. In November 2008, the Planning Commission did unanimously grant a CU, on the condition that two of the 27 stalls be changed to car share spots, leaving 25 residential stalls. This falls within the 0.75 ratio permitted under the CU scenario. The Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA), which was a key player during Market/Octavia planning, has been a voice for limiting parking and promoting walkable neighborhoods. HVNA filed an appeal (joined by a number of individuals and local organizations, including the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and Livable City) shortly after the CU was granted, and the appeal was finally heard by the new Board of Supervisors and its new President, David Chiu. In the end, the Board failed to collect the eight votes necessary to disapprove the Planning Commission’s conditional use (the vote was 7-4, with Supervisor Maxwell aligning with the six members of the progressive alliance).

We should first observe that 299 Valencia satisfies rudimentary urban design principles and is designed to mitigate the negative effects of the parking included in the project. The scale of the building is compatible with the neighborhood context, the parking is contained in an underground garage accessed via the side street Stevenson, and the ground floor of the building includes retail that would activate and visually enhance the neighborhood, particularly as compared to the surface parking lot that is there now. But the dispute is not about the project as a whole, which the pro-infill appellants actually support. Rather, the controversy concerns the seven additional parking spaces that trigger the conditional use. The project sponsor claimed that due to the expense of building an underground garage, reducing the parking to the 0.5 as-of-right maximum would necessitate an altered design without an underground garage, stripping away all but a fraction of the retail square footage. The argument revolves around two sections of the Planning Code:

• Section 151.1(f), which applies to NCT zones, requires that cars interacting with the project “not unduly impact pedestrian spaces or movement, transit service, bicycle movement, or the overall traffic movement.” The Planning Department believes this condition is satisfied by locating the underground garage access to Stevenson Street, which is the least trafficked of the three streets onto which the project fronts. The appeal, however, correctly pointed out that although egress and ingress is concentrated on Stevenson, those cars will still have to drive on 14th and Valencia. This could negatively impact bicyclists, in particular, because the project is located at the intersection of two major bicycle routes.
• Section 303(c)(1), which is a subjective provision that discusses CU approval, requires such approval if it is the case that “the proposed use or feature, at the size and intensity contemplated and at the proposed location, will provide a development that is necessary or desirable for, and compatible with, the neighborhood or the community.” The appeal emphasized the fact that many buildings in the immediate vicinity comply with the 0.5 ratio, and that 73% of nearby households are carfree, implying that the particular feature of the additional parking would be incompatible with the neighborhood. In addition, the appeal asserts that extra parking is neither necessary for marketability of the units, nor desirable in light of the city’s transit-first policy — and that the CU would fly in the face of several years worth of planning and discussion that went into crafting the Market/Octavia Plan. The Planning Department, on the other hand, emphasized that the extra parking itself need not be necessary or desirable, but rather, that the project as a whole be necessary or desirable — and it concludes that this mixed-use project, which would activate the street and add housing units (including four BMR units), is certainly desirable, and that its scale is compatible with the neighborhood.

We could spend more time spinning our wheels about ambiguities in the code language — about whether or not a project satisfies the subjective requriement of “desirable,” or whether or not its excessive parking outweighs its other desirable features. Even though the conditional use inquiry focuses on a particular project, it is worthwhile for us to consider the greater ramifications. In this sense, we may understandably be concerned about the precedent that the Planning Commission’s CU might set, particularly because the Market/Octavia Plan will guide the development of thousands of new units in its coverage area. The precedent might not be a literally binding one, but it may turn out to be an effective pattern that emerges; the adoption of the Market/Octavia Plan is still too recent yet for us to say. The Planning Department’s argument in favor of the CU authorization for 299 Valencia could apply to many other projects in which neighborhood-compatible mixed-use buildings are proposed for surface parking lots or otherwise vacant/underutilized property, unless other special circumstances detract from the desirability of those projects. Given that developers will often pursue the maximum allowable parking, the success of a parking CU at 299 Valencia could incentivize many other Market/Octavia project sponsors to request a CU for their projects, which could well be deemed just as desirable as 299 Valencia. If the Planning Commission were to grant a CU authorization for those projects, as it did for 299 Valencia, the cumulative result could be that areas zoned “NCT” run the danger of amassing new parking above the 0.5 maximum that the Market/Octavia Plan deemed to be the most appropriate target for NCT neighborhoods — and this undermines the spirit of livability that is central to the Market/Octavia Plan.

This year on Park(ing) Day, flowers bloomed from a parking meter in front of San Francisco City Hall:

And here are two other park(ing) spots — near Union Square, and across the street from the main branch of the public library:

For more: check out Flickr for lots of great photos of park(ing) spots in San Francisco. Streetsblog also put together its usual excellent coverage of Park(ing) Day in New York City.

The proposed buildings are both located in an area currently zoned RSD (South of Market mixed-use district), and it carries a minimum of one parking spot for every four dwelling units. That there is such a large disconnect between the minimum requirement and the proposed parking is in itself a strong argument for eliminating parking minimums citywide and replacing them with maximums. This much-needed change would be partially implemented under the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, which would rezone the 900 Folsom and 260 Fifth parcels from RSD to MUR (Mixed-Use Residential), since both parcels lie within the East SoMa portion of the plan area. Off-street residential parking provisions for land zoned MUR would be similar to the more recently adopted downtown controls — no minimum, up to a 0.25 ratio permitted by right, and up to 0.75 with a conditional use. (A draft table of the new Eastern Neighborhoods controls can be found here.) The Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, which is currently being presented at both the Land Use Committee and at the Planning Commission, has not yet been adopted and is still subject to changes from the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. So it does not yet govern at the time of this posting, but, looking ahead to the near future, provision of 1:1 parking clearly flies in the face of the City’s increasing desire to eliminate parking minimums and replace them with maximums that are less than 1:1. And for the interim period until the new controls are approved, the proposed off-street parking at 900 Folsom and 260 Fifth would still require a conditional use authorization. Since the goal is to create a lively, walkable neighborhood out of section of South of Market that is dominated by automobiles and is rather unfriendly to pedestrians, the prudent course of action would be to limit parking at 900 Folsom and 260 Fifth to a ratio more consistent with the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.

I might not have bothered to write a post only about this yet because there is still quite a ways to go in the process (notice for preparation of the EIR was issued last month). But this gravitation toward slightly more than 1:1 parking at 5th and Folsom resonates with another parking snafu from a Planning Commission meeting about a month ago that I never got to write about at the time. At that meeting, the Commissioners discussed the 631 Folsom (a.k.a. BLŪ) condominium project (pictured at right), a narrow 21-story tower that is currently being constructed on the western edge of Rincon Hill, just a few blocks from these other two proposed projects at 5th and Folsom. The Commissioners approved increasing the building’s parking allotment from 64 to 116 (still within the same physical constraints), 108 of which would be accessed by mechanical stackers. The parking is not to be bundled with the units, but that is still 116 parking spaces for a building with 114 units — once again, slightly higher than a 1:1 ratio.

Policy 30.1 from the General Plan’s Transportation Element stipulates that the following criteria (among others) be met before approving a new or enlarged parking facility:

• Generation of traffic from additional parking will not create a substantial adverse effect on the surrounding city streets;
• Additional parking will not discourage the possible diversion of current automobile users to transit;
• “Demonstrated demand” for additional parking in the surrounding area in relation to supply provided in the development; and
• The need for the additional parking must be “clearly established and not presumed.” (emphasis mine)

The Planning Department actually recommended disapproval of the additional parking, because the 631 Folsom site (along with Rincon Hill, in general) is transit-rich and already has many amenities within walking distance, with even more coming in the future as the new neighborhood takes form. This recommendation to disapprove is wholly consistent with Policy 34.1 of the Transportation Element, which states, in part:

Regulate off-street parking in new housing so as to guarantee needed spaces without requiring excesses and to encourage low auto ownership in neighborhoods that are well served by transit and are convenient to neighborhood shopping.

Despite the recommendation to disapprove, the Planning Commission unanimously approved the additional parking at 631 Folsom. The justification for the approval was the need to provide 1:1 parking so that families would not be discouraged from moving into this building, which consists of two- and three-bedroom units larger than 1000 square feet in area. Commissioner Antonini supplied a statistic that suggested that the number of children under the age of 14 decreased by about 1000 citywide between 2000 and 2007, but actually increased by about 400 in zip codes 94105 and 94107. This figure is potentially very misleading, because most of the buildings located in those zip codes are not newly constructed condominiums, which is the relevant subset of housing stock. The City has not formally tracked how many families are actually moving into the new South of Market condos, and we cannot assume that every multi-bedroom condo being constructed will house a family with children — so an assertion one way or the other is necessarily speculative. Therefore, a mere desire to encourage families to live in the new buildings falls short of “clearly establishing” a need for the additional parking. Upon realizing that it had no hard data to indicate whether the new larger units were actually attracting families, the Commission also required the compilation of a database that would track this information, with the recommendation that the database eventually be made available to other City departments. Project sponsors will be required to submit a report two years after the initial occupancy date, and every two years thereafter, indicating the number of children living in each household, any vehicles owned, and other information. This data will be valuable in studying the demographic trends of the new neighborhoods emerging South of Market — neighborhoods that have been planned on the premise that residents will walk and use transit rather than drive.

If such data were available prior to the approval of the additional parking for 631 Folsom, then it would obviously be crucial in evaluating the strength of any argument that alleges a “clearly established” need for more parking. But without the data, this need has been only nebulously established, at best — and therefore is inconsistent with the Transportation Element. We need not fault the Commission for its desire to make more informed decisions, but given that we cannot force a new influx of families into South of Market high-rises who may not even want to live there, how about we deny requests for additional parking until data exists showing that there is a clearly established need for more? Or, what if we try this one on for size: the families who decide to live in these mid- and high-rise buildings actually manage to adapt their lifestyle to the city, instead of simply transplanting a suburban auto-oriented lifestyle into a dense urban setting? Although there are already some residential towers in the Bay Area, the whole notion of “high-rise living” and of a true high-rise neighborhood is a recent development, and it may just trigger unforeseen lifestyle changes. In fact, that is exactly what we have to hope will happen.

Commissioner Antonini, et al may be worried that parking limitations will discourage families from occupying the new units, but it would also behoove the Commission to be worried about the cumulative environmental impacts (and associated CEQA implications) of providing generous parking for new units constructed in a neighborhood that when all is said, done, and built, will have a population density akin to parts of Manhattan — and this in a neighborhood that is already disproportionately burdened by high traffic volumes and street gridlock associated with the nearby freeway. The large industrial blocks and wide one-way streets in South of Market, combined with the intrusive presence of a freeway slicing through the middle of neighborhoods, make this a difficult section of the city to plan well. But given South of Market’s proximity to downtown, dense development is not a question of “if,” but “when” — so any planning in this area of the City deserves all the effort and careful thought we can give. Being lenient with parking restrictions makes an already monumental task even more difficult. A strong commitment to limited parking is necessary if we want to encourage transit use and create truly successful, livable neighborhoods.

While on the subject of Market & Octavia, an additional topic we cannot neglect is the 55 Laguna redevelopment of the UC Extension site (pictured in the above two images), which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In December 2003, the UC Berkeley extension relocated off the 55 Laguna site, which lies near the geographic heart of the Market & Octavia Plan area. The AF Evans 55 Laguna development has been the subject of separate but concurrent discussions at City Hall.

A controversial issue was the need to rezone the site from public to a designation appropriate for a mixed use neighborhood. The project was protested and appealed on several bases — including compliance with CEQA, the National Historic Preservation Act, and NEPA on the basis of potential HUD funds for the affordable housing component — expressing concern that the demolition would constitute a substantial adverse change that would cause the site to lose historical preservation tax credit and to be de-listed as historically significant resource. But while the appellants disapproved of the project’s current incarnation, their contentions did not unearth any true inadequacies in the EIR, and so the requisite zoning amendments eventually passed through committee and onto the full Board, where they were first passed last week — creating a special use district bounded by Laguna, Haight, Buchanan, and Hermann Streets to facilitate the 55 Laguna project. This replaces the site’s public zoning, but merely zoning a parcel as public is no guarantee that the land will actually enjoy vibrant public use, as this site clearly demonstrates. The UC Extension’s blank walls have had a deadening effect on the surrounding neighborhood, giving the institution the feel of a fortress.

Fortress or no fortress, total demolition of this historic resource would be a highly significant loss; but the project plan is a far cry from total demolition. Although the plan calls for the demolition of Richardson Hall Annex and Middle Hall Gymnasium (the oldest building on campus), 83% of the historically significant square footage — located in Richardson Hall, Woods Hall, and Woods Hall Annex — will be retained and reused in the complex, which will also include seven newly constructed buildings. Unique features like the WPA-era Reuben Kadish mural, which was added in 1936, will also be incorporated into the new plan site. Meanwhile, the deadening retaining wall would be opened up to provide a retail frontage onto the street. Perhaps best of all, surface parking and chain link fences will be replaced with public amenities and a major housing component that received a booster shot of affordability from Mirkarimi: over 400 new rental units, of which 36-37% are affordable at 50% of AMI, including the Openhouse project, an eight-story building with close to 90 affordable units welcoming to LGBTQ seniors. In terms of public amenities, there will be about 5,000 square feet of commercial space, a 12,000 square foot community center in Woods Annex, and 35,000 square feet of public open space that includes a garden and a park bridging the two halves of Waller Street. Although Mirkarimi has expressed a desire for it to relocate in the near future, the UCSF Dental Clinic and its associated parking will also remain on the site.

On balance, the 55 Laguna project — which will inject higher density, active street uses, and publicly accessible amenities within immediate reach of Market Street transit — harmonizes well with the spirit underlying the Market & Octavia Plan.

Renderings courtesy AF Evans.