200 Dolores: Existing
While the developers had planned to demolish the dilapidated 1904 parish building at 200 Dolores in order to build more housing back in 2003, 115 neighbors rallied citing historical and potential archeological significance (“This would include doing a thorough study of both the building and the double lot to make sure there is no Native American burial ground there”).
In June of 2007 (no, that’s not a typo) the Planning Department responded to the developers’ proposed project requesting a Environmental Impact Report in light of a potential “historical resource impact.”
It’s now late 2009 and the developers’ amended project proposal and Planning Department’s “Intent to Adopt” are online. From the new proposal:

The proposed project would involve the renovation of a vacant, 40-foot-tall, 3½-story, 4,400-square-foot residential building (a former parsonage constructed in 1904) and the construction of a new residential building on a vacant area adjacent to the existing building. A 2-story, 280-square-foot portion of the rear of the existing building would be removed.

The existing building would contain three condominium units after renovation. The new building would be 19,083 square feet in size, would be 40 feet (4 stories) tall, and would have 10 condominium units. The renovated and new buildings would total approximately 23,243 square feet and would contain a total of 13 units.

The new building would include construction of a one level, 16-space, 7,900-square-foot underground parking garage below the existing and proposed buildings.

As far as we know no trace of a Native American burial ground was found to exist.
200 Dolores: Preliminary Environmental Impact Report [SFGov]
Petition To Save Parish Building at 200 Dolores [missiondna.org]

66 thoughts on “Designs For 200 Dolores Six Years In The Making (And Why)”
  1. I live around the corner from this site, and it won’t be developed a moment too soon. It is simply mind-boggling this site has remained vacant and blighted for so many years, but then again, this is SF…

  2. Surely they could have guessed that trying to demolish anything pre-earthquake was going to be very difficult if not impossible.
    The design incorporating the old building seems a fine compromise, and the old/new thing can look pretty cool. Why didn’t they try that in the beginning?

  3. What’s going on with the balconies on the 2nd and 3rd floors (which appear to abut each other between the two buildings)?

  4. no Native American burial ground? I think they should take a second look and come back with a new report in 2012
    OK, I am being sarcastic. The point is that you can’t blame the neighbors for trying to impede development. For whatever reason they believe that it’s in their best interest (albeit at the detriment of the community) and they act accordingly, using whatever levers and avenues are at their disposal.
    What is outrageously shameful is that Planning would not throw out such a frivolous request on day one. That tells a lot about how intellectually corrupt they must be over there.

  5. What’s going on with the balconies on the 2nd and 3rd floors (which appear to abut each other between the two buildings)?
    If you look at the drawings (Preliminary EIR link above), they are shared (connected and not private) exit balconies with a staircase in the far back corner for access all floors.

  6. Too much parking IMO. If you work in a walkable/bikeable/transitable distance there is no need to have a car in this neighborhood. Also there are tons of carshare cars right behind this place. Less parking, more (and more affordable) units please.

  7. I’m looking forward to this lot moving on. Sick of passing the blight every day. Property value has already gone up amidst the looming Whole Foods at the next corner.

  8. I want credit for not making a snarky post about requiring all new buildings to be built with max one parking space only. For a Zip Car.

    Oops!

  9. Why does every unit need at least one parking space? We live in a city that has under one car per household. Clearly, there are a large number of citizens already living fine with out a car. This is not the burbs; we live in a dense, walkable city with adequte mass transit.

  10. Parking spaces add $100k+ to the value of a unit. That’s approximately $600psf for what is essentially a cement floor unfinished space. Talk about profit!
    In fact, a multi-story building made up entirely of parking spaces in a high-density neighborhood with limited parking like this one could be a great financial success.
    You gotta think creatively in a recession, you know.

  11. Why control how many parking spaces going in? If buyers don’t want the space they won’t pay for it.
    Not everyone is a fit hipster who can get around. I live one block away — I wish they would 4-5 spaces per unit!

  12. Less parking, more (and more affordable) units please.
    Affordable units underground? The parking is below grade — where it SHOULD be, out of sight and out of mind.
    I wonder if you’d find less-than-one-car-per-household if you surveyed those who own units in the City or among those likely to buy in the near future. I seriously doubt it.
    we live in a dense, walkable city with adequte mass transit.
    I wish Londoners would stop posting here…

  13. “I wonder if you’d find less-than-one-car-per-household if you surveyed those who own units in the City or among those likely to buy in the near future. I seriously doubt it.”
    From census 2000, just over 94,000 of San Francisco’s roughly 330,000 households do not have cars, specifically:
    Own: 11% have no car
    Rent: 38% have no car
    Citywide: 28% have no car (both owning and renting households combined)

  14. That 11% is almost certainly legacy owners and the elderly who can no longer drive. Probably less than 5% of new buyers are willing or able to give up their car.

  15. “Talk about profit!”
    Yeah, profit provided by the taxpayers who fund the rest of the automotive infrastructure.
    A parking space alone is worthless. It only becomes valuable if connected to relatively uncongested streets as well as three or so other parking spots available at the endpoints of possible journeys.
    In a congested environment like SF, every residential parking space created degrades road conditions (a common resource) and puts pressure to create more parking at offices and retail centers. Who pays for that ?
    If developers had to pay the total cost of adding another car to the transportation system, it wouldn’t look very profitable anymore.

  16. Thank god. This corner sucks, and has become so trashy. Finally time for some development here, and not a moment to soon!

  17. NIMBY reform required. If the neighbors insist on using frivolous reasons for halting development (burial grounds, my ass), should we have those neighbors asking for this kind of report pay for the results if they come back negative?
    Seems fair to me.

  18. “This is not the burbs; we live in a dense, walkable city with adequte mass transit.”
    *****
    I see we have a comedienne.
    Sure, the place is dense.
    Walkable? In many areas, yes, though certainly not all parts.
    Adequate mass transit?
    Ha! Not in my lifetime.

  19. The spot this lot occupies is indeed in a dense and walkable — it scores a 97 of 100 on Walkscore. It’s a few blocks from *both* Muni and Bart lines. If EVER there was a place not to enforce a 1/1 ratio for parking, this is the lot.
    The 2010 Census will show even fewer SF homeowners who have cars. Why — because cars (read: gas) have become more expensive, bike and pedestrian infrastructure is significantly better, and things like Zipcar and Citycarshare simply didn’t exist in 2000.
    I’m fine with underground parking, as shown. I’d rather have another layer of housing though. And see us stop building cheap tract houses all the way out to Yosemite Valley because citified homeowner NIMBY’s keep blocking increased density around their multibillion dollar, taxpayer-paid (and subsidized) transit infrastructure.

  20. Parking spaces add $100k+ to the value of a unit. That’s approximately $600psf for what is essentially a cement floor unfinished space. Talk about profit!
    Well, from the article, it’s a 7900 sf garage with 16 spaces, or 500sf/space (I’m guessing something like 200 sf for the space and 300 for the ramps and such. That makes $200 per square foot, assuming the $100k increase. Considering it’s underground (and under an existing building!), construction costs are probably not terribly cheap. Doesn’t seem like a big money-maker to me.

  21. How does an underground parking area destroy the pedestrian enviroment above? I would rather have cars parked out of site, than parked up on the sidewalks, or blocking driveways and crosswalks as is often the case in this area.
    The trouble with MUNI/BART is that it does not help if you work in parts of the city that are not MUNI friendly. If my job is at the Presidio and I lived here, driving a car would be 5 times faster to work than trying to take MUNI up there. MUNI only works if you use the Market Street corridor. Our transit system is far from standards and expectations most other urban dwellers around the world have come to expect in their own systems.

  22. Maybe if the developer had offered to let Native Americans provide a valet parking service for the building it would have had an easier time getting the permits.

  23. Lotsof people who work use cars. Lots of peolpe have a rich fatasy life where all people take public trnasportation. Between crap schools andthe need for kiddie pick up and drop off, to the few decent schools in town, most doulbe income familes with kids who live in town with kids have TWO, not one Car.
    Keep limiting parking in new construction then stop whining when affluent families flee to the suburbs.

  24. I’m usually quick to complain about car-centered development, but in my opinion they did this one right. The parking is below-grade, out of sight, and uses an existing curb cut, as far as I can tell from Google maps. To me, it’s far preferable to having a curb cut per housing unit.

  25. Ah yes, indian burial grounds. Just wait until we see what the new Landmarks Commission does – the ultimate NIMBY weapon to assure that nothing gets built anywhere in the city – and goes to the exurbs as sprawl. I read one staff report that a site was “across the street from a potential historic district consisting of 4 edwardian houses and two other non-historic houses.” Not in an historic district. Not across the street from an historic district. Not an historic house itself. No reason to think the 4 edwardians were any different from thousands of others in the city. The flimsiest of excuses…

  26. Parking spots are mostly valued between $50-75k, not $100k. And depending on the circumstances, they do not always yield a high rate of return for the developer.
    The prob is that planning dept forces 1 for 1 in most areas (although that changed/is changing for high transit corridors.) also, developers often feel that it’s hard to sell a new condo without a prkg spot, and ste inclined to include it whenever possible.
    The smart thing to do would be to give the developer a few options on parking. So in progressive, walkable areas, especially where the parking build out is expensive, the developer could forego 1 to 1, and could add a car share space instead. Developers can only maximize their returns when they ste giving the public the parking options it wants. If the planning dept was more flexible on the matter, we could do a better job of maximizing parking use, rather than be encumbered with a one size fits all approach.

  27. We have a few 3-4 br rental units in the mission and just rented them recently to 7 recent college grads. 5 of them have cars because they either work in another part of the city that’s not easily accessible by public transit, or they work outside the city. I see them driving around and around the neighborhood looking for parking — joining the other throngs of mission dwellers who drive round and round the blocks because the planning department won’t enough parking to accomodate the people who live here. It appears that a lot of the car traffic is CAUSED by limiting parking rather than vice versa.

  28. ^^^Ooooh, good point peted, because LA (where there’s plenty of parking built in every building) has no problems at all with traffic.
    /sarcasm

  29. Removing parking without upgrading transit and increasing neighborhood density just leads to worse and worse traffic and parking issues as peted alludes to. The fact that you *can* drive somewhere doesn’t mean you *will* drive if there are truly viable alternatives.
    For example I occasionally take Caltrain to work but if my schedule that day has me leaving the house too late for a Caltrain trip then I drive (it stops twice an hour in my town, on the :22 and :33). Why doesn’t Caltrain run every 15 minutes like a normal commuter train service (e.g. S-bahn in Berlin)? Lack of rail infrastructure.
    Those who imagine that LA traffic is significantly worse than the Bay Area should look at the numbers below. Traffic numbers like that are the result of anti-densification (Peninsula and City NIMBY-ism since the 1960’s) and a failure of urban planning policies, not 1:1 parking ratios in the Mish. The state is growing in population and you basically have two options: increased density or endless sprawl. We have unequivocally chosen (b) endless sprawl — and are now paying the price in terms of pollution and congestion on the roads.
    Some LA Freeways
    The 5@Santa Ana 358,000
    The 10@Los Angeles 345,000
    The 101@Encino 336,000
    The 91@Anaheim 315,000
    The 605@Santa Ana 312,000
    Some SF Bay Area Freeways
    The 680@Walnut Creek 307,000
    The 80@Emeryville 306,000
    The 880@Hayward 280,000
    The 101@San Mateo 262,000

  30. I wasn’t talking about freeway traffic, but traffic in dense LA neighborhoods like Koreatown (30k people/sqmi, but with SIGNIFICANTLY more traffic than the Mission – BECAUSE the neighborhood has significantly more parking). More parking = more cars. Without increasing the capacity of the streets (more lanes), you end up with more traffic. People circling for parking is an extremely minor amount of traffic compared to the amount created by adding more parking (and thus more permanent cars being used for dozens of trips a week).
    In peted’s example, if his units had seven parking spots, it is almost inconceivable that the people renting from him wouldn’t have at least seven cars (likely eight or nine) instead of the five that he mentions.
    Haven’t the last 60 years taught us ANYTHING about induced demand?

  31. Sorry, anon, but people in LA have more cars than SF not because there is more parking, but because it is so slow and difficult to get around LA by transit. Yes, there is now one subway line, but unless one lives and works along the line, one is stuck using very slow buses to travel long distances. An LA Times reporter wrote a column on his attempt to get to LAX by mass transit (buses and trains). It took 2 1/2 hours! And in many parts of LA (e.g. the hills) mass transit is not even an option.

  32. Parking and profit, the two forces that move development in already crowded areas like Dolores Park. Geology, geography and history are pretty much ignored by developers and the planning commission. The project needs to be downsized to accommodate the ground it rests upon.

    Underground parking is going to have the same problems buildings in the area, including the the First Baptist Church (which an arsonist took out) and the remaining parsonage, have with their foundations: water. There’s an underground river that runs along Dolores Street and still, down deep, empties into the lake bed under Camp Street.

    About halfway into the project watch for the developer to ask for a variance to eliminate lots of parking underground due to water leaching into the walls. Still, it would be more dangerous to build it without recognizing or admitting to the problem. So the developer gets a big chunk of change, the area gets an unbargained for slew of vehicles looking for street parking.

  33. PeteD — You are completely correct. My job was transfered out of the City for a year — when I would get home to the mission, I would drive around and around for 30-40 mins — and it was dangerous — looking for spots is hard — and at dusk bikes and walker are at risk for drivers drinving the same 10 blocks for 40 mins.
    And it used a ton of gas! City driving after all…
    I just hope these guys are allowed to do 1/1 — there is no 1/1 “enforcement” rule here — it is the opposite — you are lucky if you are allowed to build 1/1.
    Also, I had a roommate who drove — paid parking here is roughly $200/month — he worked out a system in xls where he would track all of his parking tickets, time, place, badge number, cost. He would then limit his tickets to $100 or so a month — worked great for him — because it was cheaper than a parking spot…

  34. I just hope these guys are allowed to do 1/1 — there is no 1/1 “enforcement” rule here — it is the opposite — you are lucky if you are allowed to build 1/1.
    And for how many years was it the opposite? It still is in most of San Francisco, the zoning code requires you to build at least one parking space per unit. Why should people who don’t need it subsidize the drivers?

  35. “Why should people who don’t need it subsidize the drivers?”
    And why should be people who don’t need it try to keep the people who do from having one?

  36. And while we’re at it, why should people who don’t have kids pay taxes to support public schools?
    Why should people who are employed pay unemployment taxes that support people who are out of work?
    Heck, once upon a time I walked to work and the grocery store every day (when I lived in LA, ironically enough) … maybe I should get back the taxes I paid that were used to maintain roads and freeways that I didn’t personally use. I’m gonna write my senator right now!!
    Heck, we could go on and on … but that’s not what living in a society is all about, now is it?
    America is all about choices. And that includes the choice to buy or rent a parking if you want it. That’s what the zoning allows, that’s what the city has determined is reasonable in this neighborhood, and it is ridiculous that all you little twits go around second-guessing a system that is proven to work for generations.

  37. And why should be people who don’t need it try to keep the people who do from having one?
    Because we all need the streets to flow freely – for transit, taxis, personal autos, etc. Allowing too many parking spots causes problems for all of the current users. The power company won’t permit more users than its current capacity allows – why should the network of streets be any different? Rolling blackouts are looked down upon if caused by a stupid company allowing it to happen, but massive congestion is ok and the city (and residents) attempting to limit it is wrong? Ridiculous.

  38. Sorry Dan, but availability of parking (especially cheap parking) tracks auto ownership rates much closer than availability of good transit does. That’s why you’ll see substantially higher auto ownership rates in Chicago’s north side compared to most anywhere in SF, despite that area of Chicago having far superior transit. Also why you’ll see high auto ownership rates in the Bayview, yet lower rates in the Marina or Russian Hill, despite all of those places not having great transit and the Marina and Russian Hill being significantly wealthier.
    Limiting parking limits cars. Period. Yes, some people will circle for hours looking for a spot, but most of the people that really need a car (and I’m not anti-car, just anti-congestion – cars should go where excess street capacity exists) will self-select to live in other areas. Likewise, those that don’t need a car will self-select to live in areas that are possible without a car. Building excess parking removes some of this natural selection – areas with billions in transit infrastructure are not used for their highest use, since some of their natural users are likely priced out by those that want th advantages of a car-light area without any of the disadvantages.

  39. I was talking about LA, not Chicago. Where I last lived in LA, street parking was harder to find than in my neighborhood in SF, but most people still had cars. I walked to work in LA, and put less miles on my car than in SF, but I still needed a car to live in LA, whereas for me in SF, a car is helpful but not absolutely necessary. That is because SF is much more compact than LA.
    Because there is minimal home construction in the SF neighborhoods away from downtown, whether or not these small buildings have parking or not will make little difference in terms of traffic. It’s more about an argument over whether or not people should drive than any real difference in the neighborhoods. Some people just think other people shouldn’t drive.

  40. For many decades, car drivers forced everyone else to subsidize their lifestyle, by demanding that every unit built include a parking space. They also demand “free” (paid for by other people) parking on the public roadways.
    I personally think that parking should be unbundled from housing, so that you can get as much parking as you are willing to pay for, but no free parking. But watch the auto-entitlement crowd howl when this suggestion is made.
    Public education benefits society, it is an investment in the future. “Free” parking only benefits the user, it has mostly adverse effects on everyone else, by encouraging more pollution and traffic.

  41. I agree with NVJ, that parking should be sold separately from housing in new developments, as it now is. And the city should charge more for residential parking permits.
    Car drivers in SF subsidize transit– MUNI gets only about 20% of its revenue from fares.

  42. Trying to figure out who subsidizes who at the local level is extremely difficult because of the massive distortions at the national level. For example, in the current way of collecting revenue, it is fair to say that drivers subsidize Muni, however, the city would simply cease to function if Muni went away. The chaos would be enormous. The question is how much value Muni adds to the economic output of the city – not how much money it burns through. That’s a tough question to answer.

  43. I agree with NVJ too — allow drivers to buy parking at whatever the market rate may be. Why impose any artificial limits (especially since the proponents of those limits are in effect trying to dictate how others live — where they shop, work, whether they can take a day trip out of the city on weekends etc. etc.). I lived without a car in Boston for two years and I found that to be extremely limiting in terms of when and where I went.
    Its not as though Muni is a 24-hour system. Suppose you want to zip down to Chinatown for some late-night eats? That’s a short drive in your car, and about a $20 cab fare each way. Might as well stay home.

  44. “the city should charge more for residential parking permits”
    Dan hit the nail on the head for the quickest, easiest move to make. Most off-street parking is tied to a housing unit, so any changes to that (e.g. for new units) would only affect the outer margins at best. But the $76 annual street parking permit fee is way too low given the market value of a parking spot. That should be at least tripled with the additional funds going to Muni or other transit uses to increase the transit options for those priced-out of a parking spot (and thus, a car). And second, third, etc. permits for a home should be tripled again for each beyond the first. It is silly to give away this scarce public commodity at such a bargain rate of a bit over $6/month.

  45. ^ wrt parking at market rate. We sort of have that now. Only new developments have prkg requirements, and outside of soma and HP, there is little bulk new dev in SF. But there is continuous renovation of existing bldgs. And the decision to add a garage to an existing structure is mostly a market based approach. So if the cost of adding that garage is higher than the resale or added rent value, it usually does not happen.
    But besides the cost/benefit analysis, which on the surface looks black and white, there are also tendencies and orientations that influence the decision which are pretty murky. It’s a chicken and egg dilema, just like the endless argument if more parking directly correlates to more cars, or if people will still have cars despite difficult parking circumstances. regarding parking development, is investing in a garage a good long term bet, given that as housing cost increase a spot becomes more desireable. But offsetting that is more people taking public transport. You notice this in the mish: more people bike, it’s fashionable (and you get to make a hip social statement by scoring the ultimate ‘old school’ road bike from the 70’s.) plus alot of urban people in their 20’s are more environmentally aware, influenced by their peers, use car share, etc. Overall there areany factors influencing cars and parkingnin the city, and I don’t think you can make many conclusions in any direction conclusively.

  46. The problem now is that even though parking is unbundled from unit when developers are selling units, the amount of parking allowed is still bundled with the number of units allowed when the developer is deciding on how many to build – this distortion is nearly as bad. The way it should be done is that a parcel of land is allowed a certain number of maximum parking spots and then the developer can make a decision on how many units to build. This has made it almost impossible to build a development with units that have two or three spots (which there is a need for) and we end up with buildings where every unit has one or zero spots.

  47. “…it is fair to say that drivers subsidize Muni, however, the city would simply cease to function if Muni went away. The chaos would be enormous.”
    There would also be chaos if everyone who drives tried to get around on transit. MUNI and BART can barely manage current capacities. Expanding transit is very expensive– BART would need to drill another bore under the Bay to expand substantially.
    Getting a substantial number of commuters onto bikes would help, but it is impossible to ride between the East Bay and SF, and taking bikes across the bay is challenging on BART.

  48. Now, after all of my pro-car rants — I would be fine with charging more than $76/year for on-street parking.
    In the Mission $600/year ($50/month) would be a fair compromise. Rates would still be FAR lower than off-street private parking.

  49. Yay, I think we found a compromise on raising the residential parking permit price. Who’s going to write the Mayor and the Board of Clowns?
    Oh, and Dan, the Transbay Tube wasn’t drilled or bored, it was dug as a trench, then buried. Sorry, had to get OCD there.

  50. 20 years ago my family lived in north beach. after work, my dad often had trouble finding parking near our apt. a lot of times he would just eat the cost of a ticket knowing that finding a space would be very unlikely.
    public transit was not reliable, or safe in the area that he worked. he had to drive. parking was an issue then and still is now. things never change. kind of sad.

  51. ^ did she really say that? (Jane sure knows her shit when it comes to urban planning, and was nicely ahead of her time too 🙂

  52. yes she said that, as did a million other urban planning luminaries. the more a city cares about cars and parking, the crappier it is. the thing that really bugs me about this debate, is how no one said anything about the obvious environmental/global warming issues we are faced with as a planet and the public health issues around obesity in the country. this isn’t loonie lefty crap (I would describe myself in most things as right of center) it’s a real concern and if we want to ameliorate, hopefully stop, idealistically reverse, the global warming trends of recent decades, dramatically reducing the use of personal automobiles is not a luxury or product of a particular political ideology, it’s a necessity.

  53. anon, that wasn’t mentioned because we’re likely only a few more years away from 100 mpg vehicles and possibly a decade or two away from electric vehicles. Completely redesigning our cities away from cars would likely cause more global warming as we tear down and rebuild. I care much more about the congestion issues than the global warming hysterics.

  54. I work in what you might call the “green” auto industry and no “other anon”, we are not. Moreover, even if we were, such a reduction would still not be near enough given our current trajectory, both locally and especially internationally.

  55. Oh, and no “other anon” it would not cause more global warming because we don’t need to “tear down our current cities” as you put it, a preposterous proposition; we only need to stop sprawling development and build in place.

  56. The neighbors thought they could kill a project by citing bogus concerns over burial grounds. You just delayed it MORONS. Now, its more expensive and what did the developer do? He hired his nephew and the nephews girfriend, from the Academy of Art to design this. Thus saving on the Architects fee. Im sorry, I had a look at the EIR and the plans–and the design seems pretty poor.
    So, NIMBY neighbors, youre gonna get a crappy building thanks to your stupidity.
    Well done SF! .

  57. ^^^ To add to this, pick up DWELL and have a look at what PROGRESSIVE Cities in Europe (and to a lesser extent US) are handling urban infill projects. Its a level of confidence and design that makes this look so un inspired.

  58. Please let me correct a few misconceptions. The proposed project at 200 Dolores was not delayed because anyone was against new housing. In fact, the property stood vacant for a full 12 years before the owners even applied for a demolition permit to remove the existing historic parsonage building. To clarify:
    1. The outstandingly beautiful Swedish Lutheran Ebenezer Church was burnt down on August 2, 1993 due to mismanagement by the former owners.
    2. In August 2005 the new owners asked the Planning Department to approve a permit to demolish the surviving parsonage building, built in 1902, and designed by August Nordin, a prominent Scandinavian-American architect.
    3. In September of 2005 115 neighbors signed a petition to simply ask the Planning Department to consider requesting a Focused Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to find out whether the property had any historical significance.
    4. In August of 2007 the San Francisco Landmarks Board voted unanimously that the parsonage building was historically significant and should not be demolished.
    5. Soon after the Planning Department backed the advice of the landmarks board and required the developers to restore the building.
    6. On June 30, 2008 the project sponsors (developers) agreed to restore the parsonage building and add upgrades to their proposed 10-unit building on the corner. These upgrades include wooden framed windows, classic moldings along the roofline, and graffiti proofing on the ground floor.
    7. The building is currently going through the negative declaration process. The project should get it’s final approval soon.
    8. The building is located in the Mission Dolores Archeological District. Any development in this area is required to receive extra scrutiny.
    I hope this clarifies a few issues.
    [Editor’s Note: Excellent summary (although you seem to have forgotten the part about the neighbors 2005 petition seeking an investigation into potential Native American Burial grounds on the site). Cheers.]

  59. Dear Editor: Number 8 in my summary addresses the issue about potential Native American burial grounds. An investigation would have been required without any petition. Yet as I stated before, this is not what held up the project.

    Please note that 200 Dolores is located in the Mission Dolores Neighborhood, the oldest in San Francisco and therefore the city’s birthplace. The Mission Dolores Neighborhood Historic Context Statement has unanimously adopted by the San Francisco Landmarks Board. You can review the document by either visiting the Planning Department’s web site or the Mission Dolores Neighborhood Association’s web site at missiondna.org.
    To my knowledge no one in that group is against new housing development. In fact, they’re working closely with the project sponsors at 2001 Market (former S&C Ford Showroom), 25-35 Dolores, and 651 Dolores (proposed demolition of the Second Church of Christ, Scientist).

    [Editor’s Note: Cheers.]

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