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Commission hears plan to reserve core Transbay sites for jobs while accommodating new housing on periphery
Summary
Staff proposed reserving most prime sites in the Transit Center District for office (jobs) development, applying minimum commercial requirements for large sites, and relying on inclusionary and redevelopment-area rules to deliver affordable housing; commissioners pressed staff on market timing, TDR supply and the need for a physical downtown plan update.
The San Francisco Planning Commission reviewed staff recommendations to prioritize office space on the best remaining development sites in the Transit Center District while still accommodating new housing nearby.
Joshua Switsky, planning department staff, told the commission the proposal would reserve the bulk of prime core sites for commercial office uses and impose minimum commercial-to-noncommercial ratios on large sites (for example, sites larger than 15,000 square feet and over about 7:1 FAR). "We want to ensure that we don't give over large remaining development sites in the core of the transit district to not have any commercial office uses on them at all," Switsky said, explaining that the policy aims to preserve downtown's role as a regional jobs center served by extensive transit.
Staff reviewed downtown housing capacity and recent rezoning, noting plans adopted on the southern edge of the Transit Center District (Rincon Hill, Van Ness corridor and portions of South of Market) together account for thousands of housing units. Switsky said the Transbay redevelopment area includes state-mandated affordable-housing targets (reported in the presentation as 35%), and staff reported approximately 983 affordable units proposed on public land — roughly 37% of public-land units in the plan area — plus inclusionary requirements and jobs-housing linkage revenues.
Commissioners expressed two recurring concerns: the timing of development amid weak land markets and the availability of transferable development rights (TDRs) to support large projects. Commissioners questioned whether recalibrating TDRs into fees could undermine public trust in the historic-preservation objectives behind the TDR program. "To completely recalibrate that into fees... has a potential of creating it into something which becomes a development subjectively driven tool," Commissioner Catherine Moore said, urging careful public engagement and a physical plan update before significant regulatory change.
Staff said the plan would be consistent with the broader downtown plan, but that some portions of the downtown would be revisited or amended to reflect the Transit Center District proposals; whether the work would appear as a separate subarea plan or an amendment to the general plan remains to be determined. Switsky and commissioners emphasized that the EIR will be essential to test assumptions about growth, traffic and infrastructure requirements.
The commission did not vote on land-use policies during the session; staff will return with further detail in the draft plan and draft EIR.
