Planning Commission endorses Polk Street and Pacific Avenue NCD code changes and asks Board of Supervisors to act

The San Francisco Planning Commission on July 13 voted unanimously to recommend that the Board of Supervisors adopt a package of planning‑code amendments for the Polk Street and Pacific Avenue neighborhood commercial districts. The motion, amended to align the district dwelling‑unit‑mix requirement with forthcoming citywide rules and to accept a technical staff fix, passed without dissent.

Planning Department staff, represented by Diego Sanchez, described the ordinance as a ‘‘trailing’’ set of local adjustments emerging from the Article 7 code reorganization and from neighborhood meetings with merchants and residents. The proposed changes would tighten controls to protect pedestrian‑oriented storefronts: they include a limited lot‑merger threshold (lots over 2,500 square feet would require discretionary review), conditional‑use findings for legacy‑business replacements, and recommendations on how eating‑and‑drinking concentrations are managed.

Lee Heffner of Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office said the draft reflects a bottom‑up process and neighborhood priorities. The department suggested several technical changes, including placing proposed off‑street parking controls in the citywide parking maxima table and asking that any limits on restaurant concentration be based on corridor surveys.

Public testimony was largely supportive, with neighborhood merchant and association representatives — including Steven Cornell of the Polk District Merchants Association and leaders of the Pacific Avenue Neighborhood Association — urging approval and commending outreach efforts. Livable City and other commenters urged careful attention to specific uses the draft would ban, such as urban agriculture, and warned the commission to preserve flexibility where the community had expressed interest in nontraditional active uses.

Commissioners debated whether to include a studio‑cap and how to reconcile short‑term vacancy thresholds for legacy‑business protections; the commission elected to adopt the staff‑recommended dwelling‑unit‑mix amendment and a technical fix and forward the recommendation to the Board.

The Board of Supervisors will receive the Planning Commission recommendation and has signaled further amendments could follow as the city finalizes the Article 7 zoning reorganization. For now, the commission’s action preserves the ordinance’s core intent — to sustain active small‑scale commerce and limit speculative storefront consolidation along Polk and Pacific.