Planning and Recreation & Park commissions raise downtown park shadow limits to advance Transit Center District Plan; Rec & Park allocates Transbay Tower shadow

SAN FRANCISCO

The San Francisco Planning Commission and Recreation and Park Commission on an item heard jointly approved changes to how downtown park shadows will be measured and managed under the Transit Center District Plan, clearing a procedural hurdle for development in the Transbay area while prompting objections from some residents and preservation advocates.

Planning staff presented an EIR-based park-by-park analysis and a recommended package of actions that would amend a 1989 implementation memo for Planning Code section 2.95 (the citysunlight ordinance) to raise absolute cumulative shadow limits for seven parks, adopt additional qualitative criteria (time of day, duration, location on the park and days of year), and incorporate CEQA findings.

"The plan represents a realization of downtown growth and is the first comprehensive plan of this scale since the late 1980s," Joshua Switsky, planning department staff, told the joint hearing. He described a funding and implementation program in which the plan could generate roughly $600 million in net new public revenue, with more than $400 million directed to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and about $160 million earmarked for downtown open-space improvements.

Scott Buell of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority said the district plan and related land sales are essential to keep the Transbay Transit Center and rail extension on schedule. "With the new transit center, San Francisco is going to be at the forefront of transit-oriented development," Buell said, emphasizing potential daily transit ridership gains and environmental benefits the agencies attribute to the project.

Staffpresentations quantified the shadow effects the plan would add to nine parks and proposed specific, mostly small percentage increases in the parks' absolute cumulative limits. For example, the presentation showed Justin Herman Plazawould move from about 37.6% of annual daylight hours in shade to roughly 37.7% after cumulative plan development; Union Squarewould see a proposed cumulative allocation near 0.19% of annual daylight; Portsmouth Squarewas shown with a proposed increase of about 0.41 percentage points. Staff emphasized that many of the new shadows would arise for short windows of a few minutes to an hour on a limited number of days each year, often early in the morning.

Public comment was lengthy and mixed. Supervisor Scott Wiener urged approval as critical to securing regional support and funding for the downtown rail extension. Labor and business speakers—Carpenters Local 22, Sheet Metal Workers Local 104, the Chamber of Commerce and the Transbay Transit Center Citizens Advisory Committee—urged passage, citing jobs and the plan's open-space and affordable-housing commitments. Community organizations including SPUR and the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition urged the commissions to weigh the plan's trade-offs in favor of housing, transit and new parks.

Opponents argued the joint action improperly relaxes voter protections in Proposition K and that some increases should require broader public review. "The transit center project is in violation of Section 2.95 of Proposition K," said Denise Diana of San Francisco Tomorrow during public comment, asserting the change would be a substantive alteration that should not be handled without voter direction.

Planning commissioners debated legal standards, how qualitative criteria will be applied to future projects, and how allocations would be reserved for developments inside the Transit Center District Plan. Staff and the city attorney confirmed the action sets an envelope and that individual projects still must return to the commissions for detailed entitlement decisions, including project-specific shadow analyses and CEQA findings.

Commissioner Antonini moved the Planning Commission resolution to raise cumulative limits for seven identified parks, adopt the qualitative criteria and incorporate CEQA findings; Commissioner Borden seconded. The planning motion was amended on the record to add technical errata and language limiting the increased ACLs to buildings "within the Transit Center District Plan as identified in the FEIR," read into the record by the deputy city attorney. The Planning Commission approved the motion 5', with Commissioners Moore and Segayo voting no.

On the Recreation and Park Commission side the joint resolution passed unanimously. The Recreation and Park Commission then took Item 2, specific to 101 First Street (the Transbay Tower), and adopted findings that the toweras analyzedwould not have an adverse impact on the six parks it might shadow, allocated the tower's quantitative shadow budget to those parks, and adopted the separate CEQA findings; that vote was unanimous.

The approvals set new maximum envelopes for future allocations but do not constitute entitlements for individual towers or other projects. As staff noted, future project-level hearings will require project-specific shadow analysis, design iteration to "sculpt" buildings to minimize impacts, and separate findings before final approvals and allocations are granted.

Next steps: the Planning Commission and Rec & Park staff said they will implement the errata read into the record, and the Planning Commission will also consider related entitlements for individual projects in upcoming hearings (staff indicated the Transbay Tower and related entitlements will be acted on in subsequent hearings).