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Planning staff outlines Central SoMa plan; residents, housing advocates clash over heights, jobs-housing balance
Summary
Planning Department presented the Central SoMa plan on Aug. 31, 2017, proposing increased development capacity, $2 billion in public benefits and a 33% affordable housing target; dozens of residents and advocacy groups urged either stronger protections against displacement or more housing, while some business and developer supporters argued for the plan’s jobs‑orientation. The commission asked staff for more analysis on timing, commute assumptions and public‑benefits delivery.
The San Francisco Planning Department on Thursday outlined the Central South of Market (Central SoMa) plan, describing a strategy to increase development capacity in a transit-rich area and to leverage up to $2 billion in public benefits, including a 33 percent affordable‑housing target and roughly $500 million for transit improvements.
Steve Wertheim, project manager for the Planning Department, told the Commission the plan is meant to absorb regional growth in a way that directs development away from already‑stabilized housing and toward larger key sites where the city can secure public benefits, preserve production‑distribution‑repair (PDR) space, fund open‑space improvements and expand transit. Wertheim said staff would use the city’s SF-CHAMP transportation model to project commute patterns and that the plan includes a no‑net‑loss policy for PDR space.
The presentation prompted a lengthy public comment period. Richard Drury, speaking for Central SoMa neighbors and the group SF Blue, said the plan’s environmental impact report understates traffic and other impacts. “The EIR says that this plan will have no significant traffic impacts. That’s simply preposterous,” Drury said, arguing the plan’s employment projections would bring tens of thousands of new workers into an already congested area.
Other neighbors and homeowner associations urged a mid‑rise alternative instead of the staff‑recommended higher heights. Gina Carriaga, president of the Homeowners Association for SF Blue, said the high‑rise option “abandons concern for sensible urban form and neighborhood context” and warned that tall towers have produced long vacancies in ground‑floor retail in nearby blocks.
At the same time, developers’ representatives and groups such as the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition and trade unions told the Commission the plan is an important opportunity to deliver housing and infrastructure near transit. Corey Smith of the Housing Action Coalition urged the Commission to tweak thresholds that determine whether large sites require nonresidential uses, saying a modest change would allow more housing on some large sites.
Commissioners pressed staff on several technical points: how commute‑pattern data were derived, the timing of housing delivery versus office build‑out, and how the plan’s public‑benefits package would be financed and distributed. Commissioner discussion focused on whether Central SoMa should skew more to jobs or to housing and on how the city can avoid accelerating displacement as new office space arrives.
Wertheim said the plan’s legislative package will identify eight key sites eligible for more design flexibility to secure public benefits, and he pledged to return with more detailed analysis on commute assumptions, infrastructure timing and how benefits would be phased. The Commission did not take a final vote on the plan at this hearing; it asked staff for follow‑up information and signaled that the jobs‑housing balance will be a continuing line of inquiry.
What’s next: staff will provide more detailed modeling and phasing information, and the Commission indicated it expects follow‑up hearings on jobs‑housing balance, funding of public benefits, and the plan’s effects on stabilized housing and PDR uses.
