When San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener went before the Planning Commission in November proposing to attach a deadline to some California Environmental Quality Act appeals, he was met by 90 minutes of strong opposition from public commenters and commissioners, who told him to come back with a better plan done with more public outreach.

Thirty-four amendments later, Wiener will be back at the commission Thursday hoping to change an appeals process that he calls unpredictable and chaotic.

“If you’re not a land-use lawyer, it’s completely opaque. It’s unclear even when the deadline is to file the appeal,” Wiener said.

San Francisco is one of few cities where smaller projects that don’t require environmental impact reports aren’t subject to a set deadline for appeals to the Board of Supervisors. Wiener wants to establish a deadline so that any appeal of the state environmental quality act would be made within 30 days of a project’s approval.

Currently the city attorney determines on a case-by-case basis whether an appeal is timely.

“The bottom line is we’re not taking away anyone’s right to appeal the CEQA decision,” said Planning Director John Rahaim, who supports Wiener’s efforts. “What this does is establish some very basic rules around deadline appeals.”

Simplifying process

Gabriel Metcalf, the executive director of San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, said that the city’s planning code is thousands of pages long and that Wiener’s legislation would simplify things without resulting in material changes for bigger projects.

“We have a system that is designed for maximum confusion and maximum frustration,” he said. “The amendments we’re talking about here would help clear up a little bit of the confusion and a little bit of the frustration for a small set of projects.”

Wiener stresses that his legislation is focused on smaller projects that can least afford to have an unpredictable environmental process, as opposed to large developers who can afford to wage long, costly legal battles.

“This isn’t about the Parkmerceds, the Treasure Islands and America’s Cups of the world,” he said. “This is the much larger category ranging from small park projects, to pedestrian projects, to people doing work on their homes.”

But some groups wary of development say they do believe the legislation puts unreasonable constraints on the appeals process.

“Scott Wiener’s legislation puts forward a time frame that will hamper our ability to effectively file an appeal,” said Michelle Myers, the director of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay chapter.

Eric Brooks, an organizer for the Our City activist group that opposed past efforts by supervisors to streamline the CEQA process, said he also shares Myers’ concern about a provision in Wiener’s legislation that would allow some appeals to be heard before a board committee instead of the full Board of Supervisors.

“Basically what the legislation is doing is taking some small problems in the current law that do need some fixing and using them as a vehicle to completely gut the public’s ability to use CEQA to support San Francisco and its neighborhoods from bad real estate developments,” Brooks said.

Miss appeal window

He also worried that project opponents would miss the appeal window if the legislation is approved.

Brooks and Myers said they are working with Supervisor Jane Kim on alternative CEQA legislation that would involve the full board in appeals and push back the appeal deadlines, which Wiener said would make the process worse than it already is.

Other neighborhood leaders say they welcome clear rules for appeals on smaller projects. Raymond Holland, president of the Planning Association for the Richmond recalled that when ATT started adding utility boxes on sidewalks in his neighborhoods a few years ago, there was a debate over whether it was too late to appeal.

“It was real unclear when the decision of the exemption was made and secondly when the clock started to run,” he said. “It’s been sort of a free-for-all whenever you have an appeal, so I think codifying makes sense.”

Once the Planning Commission makes its recommendation Thursday, there will be several more public hearings before the legislation is voted on by the Board of Supervisors.

Neal J. Riley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nriley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @realdealneal

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Supervisor-s-2nd-try-to-change-environmental-4352827.php

If we hadn’t been told over and over that it is an evil word that should never be uttered in San Francisco, even cynics would say it is the g-word:

Gentrification.

And it’s happening with surprisingly little grumbling.

“Or,” says 30-year real estate veteran Joske Thompson, “I think it is a different kind of grumbling. Even the long-termers in neighborhoods are appreciating the changes. Those people in the Mission like the fact that they can walk the neighborhood and feel safer.”

The difference this time is that the push is coming from the bottom up. Rather than fat-cat developers promoting ugly skyscrapers, the demand is coming from young techies who work here or in the Silicon Valley and want to preserve the feel of unique neighborhoods. Their presence is being felt not only in the Mission, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg now has a home, but to areas that were once considered downtrodden.

“Young people with talent are the new movers and shakers in the city,” says Thompson, who says the city sells itself. “Last weekend I had some clients who were looking in the Mission. We drove by Dolores Park, and it was packed. They said, ‘Is there a street fair?’ “

Nope, just another afternoon in trendy town.

“This is a small city of 800,000 people,” says Supervisor Scott Wiener, who chairs the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Development Committee. “And 2 to 3 million people want to live here. We just need to make sure we don’t kill that quirkiness and uniqueness.”

Displacement in ’70s, ’80s

While the city experienced a similar boom in the ’80s, the concern then was “Manhattanization” – and that’s when gentrification became a dirty word.

“In the ’70s and ’80s there was massive displacement of residents in the Haight, Noe Valley and the Castro,” says Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “But now you are seeing a massive influx of upper-income people into previously unoccupied areas.”

This boom has its share of concerned activists, but we have yet to see the stop-any-kind-of-development movement we saw in the ’80s.

Still, higher rents are higher rents, and if monthly rates top $2,000, that will affect the entire rental stock.

“In over 30 years of doing this, I have never seen rents like this,” says Delene Wolf, executive director of the city’s Rent Stabilization Board. “My surmise is those Google buses must be fueling that. The whole demographic has changed. I just think about what people on the low end of the economic ladder are feeling.”

Tenants feel at risk

Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Council of San Francisco, says the booming rents create a climate that encourages landlords to drive out rent-controlled tenants.

“I am hearing from people who are feeling like survivors in isolated pockets,” she said. “Don’t be fooled. There are still big-money real estate developers creating that market.”

But, those changes are largely happening in neighborhoods that have made the progression from urban blight to uber-hot.

Take Dogpatch, an obscure right turn off Third Street south of ATT Park. Until recently, it was best known as home to the clubhouse of the San Francisco chapter of Hells Angels.

In 2002, Arienne Landry moved her Just for You Cafe from Potrero Hill, but not before she parked her truck on the street for a few days to check out the vibe.

“It was pretty sketchy, almost industrial,” says Landry, who had to shoo drug users away from the cafe entrance after she opened.

Now there’s a line out the door for weekend brunch, and she says weekdays have gone from “whatever to craziness.”

Susan Eslick, an artist, has lived in Dogpatch since 1996. Now she can walk down 22nd Street and call out the changes on every corner. There’s Chocolate Lab, a local chocolate maker, Rickshaw Bagworks, which makes custom messenger bags, a cheese shop, a gourmet ice cream store and Olivier’s, a French butcher shop. And perhaps most important to the transformation, Puccino Restaurant. It opened in 2006, attracting both foodies and good reviews.

“When I got here, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a woman pushing a baby stroller,” says Eslick, vice president of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association. “Now we have three preschools and a baby gym. It all happened around the time Puccino opened.”

Dogpatch hasn’t lost its funk. The Hells Angels are still there, and they’re active members of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association.

So don’t try to tell her that upscaling of the neighborhood is a bad thing.

“The term gentrification is loaded,” she said. “I say bring it on. It just has to be designed well. There’s no tolerance for schlock.”

People mean change

There are surely more changes to come. The Tenderloin’s Shaw says the neighborhood has been relatively untouched by the surge, but thousands of residential units near Eighth Street are under construction, and with the arrival of both Twitter and Dolby Labs, it seems impossible that area won’t be transformed.

Those who have already ridden the wave say it is best to go with the flow. Now that her cafe has become a hot spot, startup millionaires stop by for lunch regularly.

“We just ignore them,” she says.

C.W. Nevius is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His columns appear Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. E-mail: cwnevius@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @cwnevius

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Gentrification-no-longer-a-dirty-word-4302093.php

Up to two people will be allowed to live in the micro-apartments, which legislation sponsor Supervisor Scott Wiener said would help those who want to live alone but can’t afford most of the studio apartments on the market.

“To confront San Francisco’s rising housing affordability crisis, we must be creative and flexible,” Wiener said in a statement. “Allowing the construction of these units is one tool to alleviate the pressure that is making vacancies scarce and driving rental prices out of the reach of many who wish to live here.”

But for the legislation to pass, Wiener had to agree to cap the number of micro-apartments at 375. Under the legislation, the City Planning Department will analyze the effects of the new units once 325 of them are built.

“Family-sized housing is important and its development should be encouraged,” Wiener said. “But many – including seniors, students and transition age youth – do not need as much space or cannot afford it. These units will be a viable alternative for those who don’t want to live with roommates.”

The SoMa neighborhood and other densely populated city locations would be the likely location for the new units, which include a living room, kitchen and bathroom. Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents SoMa, said that neighborhood’s population could increase by 32 percent as a result of unlimited micro-apartments.

The cap seemed to satisfy skeptics who say that micro-units are not the solution to the city’s housing problem. Supervisor David Campos, who supported the measure, said he visited one of the proposed units and was struck by how expensive rent would be for such a small space.

Concern about rents

The micro-units are estimated to go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month. The average studio apartment in San Francisco rents at $2,075 a month, according to real estate service RealFacts.

“It’s not a lot of space for $1,500,” Campos said, adding that he was concerned it could raise rents across the city. “If 220 square feet is going to rent for $1,500, what does that do for the rest of the places in San Francisco?”

Supervisor John Avalos was the lone vote against the proposal, arguing that the city should be more focused on keeping families from moving.

“This doesn’t make a lot of sense for the San Francisco I know,” he said.

Mayor Ed Lee, who still must sign the measure, told reporters after his monthly question-time session before the board that he hadn’t taken a position on micro-apartments yet.

“I’m always concerned whenever people are changing the standards, but I do think there might be good policy reasons,” he said.

When the Planning Commission reluctantly approved a cap on the number of units last week, some commissioners worried that limitations would confuse developers. But tenant and affordable housing advocates said the cap was crucial to their support.

“We still have concerns, but this way, the impact would be softened if those problems came to fruition,” said Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco.

Looking at tenants

Ted Gullickson, director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, said he hoped the Planning Department study conducted before the cap is reached would shed light on who is moving into the units.

“If they become urban crash pads for high-tech employees, then we fear they could have a gentrifying effect on the neighborhoods as they get built,” he said. “We do have a strong need for family-size housing as well as affordable housing, and we have limited development sites in San Francisco.”

Neal J. Riley is a San Francisco staff writer. E-mail: nriley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @realdealneal

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-supervisors-back-micro-apartments-4055493.php