Transbay Blog
Zoning
Let them have parking lots
This week, the Oakland Planning Commission will consider a peculiar concoction brewed up by Planning Department staff called temporary conditional use permits (TCUPs). As explained by the staff report (41 MB PDF), the purpose of the proposed TCUP program is to help property owners maintain the economic viability of their vacant parcels, by allowing them … Continue reading
New parking controls in the works for South of Market and Mission Bay
As various neighborhoods in San Francisco have been rezoned in recent years to encourage density while maintaining livability, plans like Market/Octavia and Eastern Neighborhoods have called for minimum off-street parking requirements to be eliminated and instead replaced with parking maximums. This week the San Francisco Planning Commission will consider an ordinance that seeks to do … Continue reading
555 Fulton: When Parking By-Right Just Isn’t Enough
The San Francisco Planning Department has prepared an environmental document (mitigated negative declaration) for 555 Fulton (link to off-site 2.3 MB PDF). 555 Fulton is a five-story mixed-use residential and commercial project to be constructed on Fulton between Octavia and Laguna, in Hayes Valley. In terms of zones, the project site is in the Hayes-Gough … Continue reading
Board of Supervisors Hears Appeal of 299 Valencia
299 Valencia, present and future; courtesy of http://www.299valenciastreet.com. 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 … Continue reading
Eight Years, Four Neighborhoods
Courtesy of SF Planning Dept. I have mentioned the ongoing rezoning plan of San Francisco’s Eastern Neighborhoods a number of times here before, although somewhat tangentially. Eastern Neighborhoods amends the General Plan to include four new neighborhood plans that refresh outdated zoning in the Mission District, East South of Market, Showplace Square/Potrero Hill, and the Central … Continue reading
Excessive Parking Creeps Up Folsom Street
900 Folsom and 260 Fifth, two mixed-use projects that are currently up for consideration, would occupy adjacent parcels South of Market, at the corner of 5th and Folsom Streets, with the northern edge of the project just one-half block south of the new Intercontinental Hotel. Together, they promise 466 homes and 10,396 square feet of … Continue reading
Thumbs Up For Market-Octavia and 55 Laguna
A busy week prevented me from posting about this earlier, but better late than never: as you may have already read in the Chronicle, there have been favorable updates at the Board of Supervisors concerning the Market & Octavia Plan, which I addressed in a post a couple weeks ago. Supervisors Mirkarimi and McGoldrick had … Continue reading
Market-Octavia: Building a Vibrant Hub
Courtesy Stanley Saitowitz / Natoma Architects, Inc. For several years, the City of San Francisco has worked to develop the Market & Octavia Neighborhood Plan, studying neighborhoods centered on the pivotal intersection of Market and Octavia, bookended by Church Street on the west and Van Ness Avenue on the east. The plan was one part … Continue reading
Berkeley NIMBY Ordinance Holds the Elmwood District Hostage
Bolfing’s Elmwood Hardware, the famous hardware store which opened in 1923 and has since come to be a key fixture of the Elmwood District in South Berkeley, is in danger of closing its doors — and this only months after Telegraph Avenue lost Cody’s Books, a venerable Berkeley institution of 50 years. Why is Elmwood … Continue reading
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