San Francisco planning and health commissions endorse Health Care Services Master Plan, approve priority-processing incentives

San Francisco planning and health officials on Sept. 19 recommended a revised Health Care Services Master Plan that staff say will guide where and how medical uses are sited and how the city will encourage services for vulnerable neighborhoods. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to forward the plan to the Board of Supervisors and to adopt related CEQA findings; the Health Commission also voted to advance the draft.

Colleen Chavla, deputy director of health, opened the joint hearing by describing the plan as the product of a 40-plus-member task force and more than 100 community participants. “This represents really comprehensive data and [a] community-driven process that included a 40 plus member task force,” Chavla said, and staff presented a revised draft that incorporated public and commissioner comments from July hearings.

Planning staff outlined the scope and technical rules the plan would impose. Claudia Flores of the Planning Department said the ordinance (Ordinance No. 310) requires a consistency determination for medical uses that meet defined size thresholds: a change of use to medical use of 10,000 square feet or greater, or an expansion of an existing medical use by 5,000 square feet or greater.…