Board sends 430 Main environmental exemption back to planning after residents’ air-quality concerns

The Board of Supervisors voted to return the Planning Department’s community-plan exemption for a proposed development at 430 Main Street / 429 Beale Street to planning for further review after residents and independent experts raised questions about air-quality impacts to an enclosed courtyard at the adjacent Baycrest residential complex.

An hours-long hearing on the project's exemption under the Rincon Hill plan included testimony from neighbors, meteorologists and air-quality consultants. Appellants representing nearby residents argued the project’s placement and the merger of two lots created site-specific impacts that were not evaluated in the Rincon Hill program-level environmental review and that the developer’s modeling and the Planning Department’s conclusions were incomplete.

Opponents emphasized…