Board affirms Planning Department’s Class 1 CEQA exemption for 435–437 Potrero Avenue despite neighbors’ generator, air-quality concerns

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday affirmed a Planning Department Class 1 categorical exemption for a proposed internet co-location facility at 435–437 Potrero Avenue, rejecting an appeal from nearby residents who said the project could worsen air quality and noise in an already impacted neighborhood.

At a three-hour hearing, appellants and neighbors described previous diesel-generator operations at the site and presented soot samples, noise complaints and medical letters they said show the generator emitted harmful particulates when the building last operated as a telecommunications hub. “The ill effects on health and the environment are known,” appellant Micah Ringle told the board, and he argued the project represents a change from the site’s former utility use to a commercial server/data center that would have different emissions and operating patterns.

The Planning Department’s environmental review officer, Sarah Jones, said the department considered the facility an existing use eligible for legitimization under the Eastern Neighborhoods program and that the…