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OCII approves plan amendment to allow 400-foot tower on Transbay Block 1, citing 40% on-site affordability
Summary
The commission approved a plan amendment and CEQA addendum that increases Block 1's maximum height from 300 to 400 feet, a change staff says will add 73 homes overall and raise on-site affordability from 35% to 40%. Commissioners voted 4'1 (1 absent) to pass items 5B and 5C after extensive public comment both for and against.
The Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII) Commission voted to approve a plan amendment that would raise the maximum height on Transbay Block 1 from 300 feet to 400 feet and adopt related environmental findings under the California Environmental Quality Act. The vote on items 5B and 5C passed 4'1 with Commissioner Mondejar absent.
Staff said the 400-foot alternative would increase the overall number of homes on Block 1 from 318 to 391 and raise the share of on-site below-market-rate housing from 35 percent to 40 percent, adding 73 additional units overall and 44 more affordable units. Marie Munson, senior development specialist with OCII, said the development program includes a 39-story tower, two 65—80-foot podium buildings, townhomes, shared underground parking and roughly 9,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
Jose Campos, OCII's manager of planning and design review, presented urban-design visualizations and a CEQA addendum that focused on shadow and wind effects from a 100-foot height increase. Campos said visualization studies from central city vantage points showed the 400-foot massing would be minimally visible from most distant views and would be most noticeable from the water. He said a detailed shadow analysis of six open spaces found the largest change in potential annual sunlight on any studied park was about 0.49 percent and that Rincon Park would experience up to 28 days per year with some new shadow and a worst-case added duration of about 45 minutes on the single most-affected day.
Public comment was split. Housing advocates and many prospective buyers backed the upzone, arguing the added height is necessary to produce more homes at middle-income price points and that the developer's package contains significant public benefits, including the interspersing of below-market-rate units throughout the tower and a developer subsidy to cover podium BMR construction. Rob Poole of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition described the 40 percent on-site BMR as "unprecedented" for a single residential tower. Several labor and public-safety speakers, including representatives of the firefighters union, said the project would help retain city workers.
Opponents' remarks focused on neighborhood impacts: residents of nearby Infinity and Lumina developments, members of the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association and others raised traffic, shadowing of Rincon Park and loss of neighborhood character. Speakers also questioned whether the city was getting full market value for the OCII-owned parcel (staff estimated the OCII-owned lot at about $19.2 million) and whether the 5 percent net increase in affordability beyond the district requirement represented sufficient public benefit.
Staff and the developer answered detailed questions on project economics, unit pricing, HOA dues, parking ratios and compliance steps. OCII said the developer would make a $2 million good-faith deposit on the owner participation/disposition and development agreement; OCII estimates it will provide subsidies at about $275,000 per podium BMR unit under the terms in the packet and that the proposed transfer price reflects fair market value. OCII staff and the Planning Department explained why the 400-foot alternative is not expected to increase traffic or other impacts beyond those analyzed in the 2004 Transbay EIR, and they described the addendum methodology used to evaluate the incremental height change.
The commission took two separate votes consistent with staff's request: item 5B (approve report to Board of Supervisors and forward the plan amendment) and item 5C (adopt CEQA addendum findings and refer the amendment to the Planning Commission). Both motions were made by Commissioner Singh and seconded by Commissioner Pimentel. Roll call for each vote: Pimentel —Yes; Mondejar —Absent; Singh —Yes; Bustos —Yes; Chair Rosales —Yes. Each item passed with 4 ayes, 1 absent. The Board of Supervisors will receive the staff report and will hold additional hearings prior to any final adoption.
Next steps: If the Board of Supervisors approves the plan amendment, OCII staff said they will return with a development agreement and schematic design approvals and will work with the Planning Commission on conformance with the general plan. The board will also consider the statutory redevelopment report required under redevelopment law before property transfer.
Source: OCII staff presentation and hearing testimony. The commission's approval was recorded on the January 19, 2016 OCII meeting agenda (items 5B and 5C).
