Rules committee refers Central SoMa plan changes and special tax financing to Land Use

San Francisco The Board of SupervisorsRules Committee on July 9 referred a package of measures tied to the Central SoMa area plan to the Land Use Committee for detailed consideration, leaving the draft administrative-code changes and special-tax technical amendments without a recommendation at Rules.

Planning Department officials told the Rules Committee the Central SoMa plan would add roughly 16,000,000 square feet of development capacity, provide roughly 8,300 housing units and create a public benefits package the department estimates at about $2.2 billion over the plans buildout. Staff said the plan is designed to deliver 33 percent of residential units as permanently affordable housing and to preserve industrial and production, distribution and repair (PDR) space so there is no net loss of those uses.

The measures before Rules included amendments to administrative code section 35 intended to protect PDR and similar uses from spurious nuisance complaints as residential and hotel development comes into the area. Planning staff said the section 35 changes would add hotels to a list of uses that cannot bring…