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Committee refers Balboa Reservoir rezoning and General Plan changes after hours of debate
Summary
After hours of testimony, the committee forwarded General Plan and Special Use District amendments for the Balboa Reservoir project to the full Board without recommendation. The project proposes roughly 1,100 homes on 17 acres (50% on‑site affordability), childcare, parkland and educator housing; public commenters were split over sale of public land to a private developer versus 100% publicly owned affordable housing.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Land Use & Transportation Committee spent several hours on July 27 reviewing the Balboa Reservoir package: General Plan amendments and a Special Use District to allow a mixed-income, transit-oriented project on approximately 17 acres of SFPUC-owned land adjacent to City College and the Balboa Park BART station.
Project summary: The package would permit about 1,100 homes (roughly 1.3 million gross square feet of residential), including 550 deed-restricted affordable units (50% of the total) with a range of AMI levels (30–120% AMI) and a 150-unit educator-housing set-aside with first preference for City College employees and affiliates. Design elements include a roughly two-acre principal park, a 100-seat childcare center with subsidized slots for low-income families, extensive open space, and a transportation demand-management plan. The developer team (a joint venture that includes nonprofit affordable-housing partners) will provide community benefits; the city’s MOHCD has committed gap funding to reach the 50% affordability target.
Major points from staff and analysis: OEWD and Planning staff described a long CAC-led community process and repeated that the project implements city policy to leverage public land for housing. The controller’s office presented an economic-impact model projecting modest downward pressure on citywide housing prices (~0.4%), creation of hundreds of jobs during construction and ongoing local economic activity; staff explained the sale price to the developer was derived from an appraisal that assumed a high on-site affordability baseline for the residual land valuation.
Public comment: The hearing drew large and sharply divided public comment. Many neighborhood residents, renters, housing advocates and YIMBY groups supported the rezoning and emphasized the value of 550 on-site affordable units, educator housing, childcare and open space in a transit-rich location. Opponents argued the site is public land that should remain publicly owned and be used for 100% affordable housing under a ground lease to MOHCD/nonprofit developers; critics questioned the city’s deal terms, the $11.4M appraised land value, the share of developer versus public subsidy for the affordable units, and potential impacts on City College parking and construction sequencing.
Committee outcome and next steps: Supervisors discussed amendments — including use-it-or-lose-it timelines for developer performance, stronger language to preserve affordability in perpetuity, and a neighborhood-preference radius — and indicated pending refinements to the development agreement and an expected MOHCD funding plan before construction. Given the pending CEQA appeals and related fiscal items (development agreement and SFPUC purchase-and-sale) scheduled for Budget & Finance, the committee voted to send the General Plan amendment and SUD rezoning to the full Board without recommendation.
Ending: The referral allows the project’s land-use changes to advance to the full Board while related agreements and appeals proceed through separate channels. The Budget & Finance Committee is slated to hear the development agreement and purchase-and-sale on Wednesday; supervisors said they will pursue additional binding protections in those instruments.
