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A building that currently houses service and light industrial uses converted to market-rate SROs? A Planning Commission policy that requires one for one replacement of rent controlled units when a SoMa residential property is demolished? A low-intensity entertainment permit that allows DJs where they’re currently not allowed? Coming up next week — Wednesday, May 17, 2006,
6:00 PM at The Arc of San Francisco, 1500 Howard Street — at the SoMa Leadership Council meeting:
207 Ninth Street currently houses a glass company and a typesetter. The owner would like to add an additional floor to this three story structure and convert the entire building to housing. Using the SRO provisions in the Planning Code that apply only to South of Market, he’d like to build units no larger than 350 square feet, with kitchen and bath facilities included, and take advantage of the relaxed density and exposure standards, less stringent rear yard and open space requirements and a lower parking ratio.
Under the current code, all this is legal, and the project received a categorical exemption from MEA last Fall. The only thing holding things up are some variances. That’s where Sue Hestor and I came in. It seems we’ve both used that typesetter before and we expressed strong concerns at the Zoning Administrator hearing.
It is clear beyond any doubt that these SRO provisions were put into the code to encourage the replacement of low income housing that was lost because of the 1989 earthquake. But affordability standards were never written into the law.
In the owner’s defense, he does own the glass company and will gladly move it. The typesetter has already considered finding a smaller location. But what kind of neighborhood are we going to be left with if every building that contains PDR (production, distribution and repair businesses) eventually gets converted to housing?
Would it make a difference if the first floor retained a PDR use? What if the units were locked in as rental housing instead of condos? Do market-rate projects deserve variances beyond what the code provides? Is it time to put affordability caps on this type of housing?
Zoning Administrator Larry Badiner continued this item until the project sponsor had time to meet with the community. Next week’s meeting is an opportunity for this developer to make his case and perhaps for the SoMa Leadership Council to take a position on the project.
In a curious nod to common sense, the old Planning Commission — the Willie Brown-appointed one with Anita Theoharis and Hector Chinchilla — established a policy that said that the demolition of any rent controlled housing in South of Market would require one for one replacement of the lost units with comparable housing. (Man I’d like to get my hands on whatever it was they were smoking that night)! This has scared off almost every developer who ever considered residential demolitions in SoMa.
I walked through an abandoned property on Natoma yesterday that was in deplorable condition. Much of it was from neglect but severe settling had the two story building leaning about seven inches. Lots of mold and the back porch was falling off.
The current zoning would only allow a four unit replacement building on that site. If the Planning Commission policy requires two “comparable” units, what is comparable? Same rent as when the units were last occupied? 30-60% AMI? Can a for-profit developer make such a deep level of affordability pencil out?
The current owner bought the abandoned property about three years ago, unaware of this Planning Commission policy. With a dearth of comparable demolition data, folks at the Planning Department are scratching their heads trying to figure out what it all means. Let’s help.
Make no bones about it … the entertainment industry really screwed things up for themselves in the mid-’80s when they came charging into South of Market boasting about turning this community into the next Broadway nightclub strip. Residents smacked them down so hard that they’ve been stuck in the current zoning as a non-conforming use, forbidding any expansion or intensification, ever since. Not that this prevented the development, for better or worse, of a thriving dance and music scene. The 1990 rezoning is a distant memory and nighttime entertainment is an established part of the community.
DJs are considered entertainers and as such the venues that feature them must obtain a Place of Entertainment permit. In SoMa, if the location was not grandfathered in in 1990, a POE is not permitted. But clubs and restaurants have opened since then and many of them offer DJs spinning a variety of music.
Short of revisiting the entire question of the status of entertainment in South of Market, some have suggested that another type of permit — one that allowed only soft background music played by a DJ — might be enacted, thus allowing some expansion of entertainment opportunities in SoMa without opening the floodgates to more noise and nuisance.
Of course, the current noise ordinance already requires that clubs must be able to contain their noise and that their music is not to be audible in any surrounding residence. Theoretically, if a place is poorly insulated, they’ve got to keep the volume down and if it built like a concrete bunker they can do whatever they’d like. Of course, it rarely works out that way.
In the worst of times, neighbors have exhibited a kneejerk reaction to the slightest hint of expanded entertainment opportunities. The late ’90s saw lawsuits and open warfare between neighbors and nightclubs. I remember one case where neighbors opposed the reestablishment of a dormant permit, not because the noise had offended them — it was a physical impossibility for them to have heard anything coming from the club — but only because they knew it was loud in there. Their opposition was based on the suspicion that somebody was having fun.
But anytime it is suggested that a venue restrict their music in any way — non-amplification, for example — the entertainment industry’s lawyers and lobbyists line up to wave the Constitution and ballyhoo the rights of private enterprise. Is it possible to create a permit that would allow a non-intrusive expansion of entertainment in SoMa?
There are a couple clubs that are just flagrantly acting out of line right now. Their timing could not be any worse. While reasonable representatives of the entertainment industry seek incremental change, others continue to remind us why zoning restrictions were enacted in the first place. The SoMa Leadership Council was formed to ensure that neighbors and nightclubs remain at the same table and deal with community concerns as partners, not adversaries. I hope this continues.
The Western SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force’s Business and Land Use Committee will begin to look at the role entertainment plays in South of Market on Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 6:00 PM in Room 421, City Hall. Everyone is welcome.
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Jim Meko is a South of Market activist, currently serving as chair of both the SoMa Leadership Council and the Western SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force and is a member of San Francisco's Entertainment Commission. Here at the Bulldog, of course, he's expressing his own personal opinions. He can be reached at jim.meko@comcast.net.