1050 Valencia Street 2012 Rendering

The Planning Commission’s determination that the approved development of 1050 Valencia Street at the corner of Hill should be allowed to move forward has survived another appeal with San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voting 6 to 5 to uphold the environmental findings for the project. Supervisors Avalos, Campos, Cohen, Kim and Mar dissented.

That being said, an appeal of the project’s building permits has also been filed but was tabled until after the Board of Supervisors vote. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

21 thoughts on “Valencia Street Development Survives Close Vote”
  1. So this development has survived its second appeal and a third is in the pipe? Do the appellants need to have any real skin in the game or can they keep delaying the project with insignificant filing fees?

  2. “an appeal of the project’s building permits has also been filed”
    this would seem on its face a very easy thing to resolve, correct?

  3. Kim is turning out to be quite disappointing, from a responsible development point of view. Actually, the entire Board is getting increasingly sensitive on this topic, which is doubtlessly tied to the real estate boomerang, and controversy about gentrification/evictions/etc. This doesn’t make me feel very optimistic about 16th and Mission.

  4. Cohen voted no? We need to find a replacement for her. Maybe someone in the fast-growing Asian population in District 10.

  5. Glad it’s moving forward, but why so fugly?
    (And now, to answer my own question: because the money spent on delays and fighting NIMBY idiots could have been spent on a better architect, and convincing the planning dept. to agree to a more adventuresome building facade.)

  6. Cohen stated that her opposition was due to the lack of parking. Note that aesthetic or parking impacts for the project cannot be considered significant under the recent CEQA law (SB 743). The CEQA appeal process is idiotic because many of the supervisors clearly don’t understand how CEQA works.

  7. If I recall, this project was strongly backed by the Bike Coalition, and for good reasons. Here’s hoping they think twice before endorsing one of the retrogressive “progressives” in the next election . . .

  8. congrats to my twitter friends today. I am super jealous. My wife turned down a job there 18 months ago, and I think i might divorce her now 🙂

  9. No, spencer, the “city” is not lucky, nor are the middle class and working poor families who have managed to hang on in this Wall St-financed Housing Bubble #2, and who will now face higher costs of living due to the transient social-media bubble horde.
    Of course, the wealthy _are_ superlucky, and they use their superluck to get even more superluckier. Nothing creates wealth like buying a government, and rigging the laws to benefit one and one’s cronies.
    #twitterbubblecrash

  10. @JoeG: I think your hostile attitude towards the Marsh pretty well typifies the attitude of the pro-development crowd. You talk a good game about how wonderful San Francisco is, but you are unworried about destroying the institutions that make it an in interesting place to live.
    Furthermore, you show little concern for the facts. The Marsh does not generate 200 cars (it is not that large) and most of its audience is from San Francisco — including the neighborhood. And there is every reason to believe that its audience frequents neighborhood businesses.
    The idea that this project is about affordable housing is laughable. The project is going to be a bunch of small but luxurious units designed to be sold to the tech crowd for top dollar. The developer has been clear about that (and, of course, has retained the option to pay to have the affordable housing requirement fulfilled elsewhere).
    Finally, I think the nasty, misogynistic attack on Ms. Zitrin is uncalled for. Liberty-Hill is a wonderful community. If the new project is intended to bring in hateful people like you, then that alone is reason to oppose it.

  11. @poor.ass.millionaire: The idea that the cost of dealing with the community somehow prevents good architecture is a red-herring often deployed by pro-development forces, but there is no truth to it. Developers will invest in architecture (like any other feature of a building) to the extent it is required or to the extent they think it will increase their return on the building. They don’t do it to be nice or because they want to spend a certain fixed amount on a building. Community opposition does not change that equation in any way. If the developer of Valencia St. thought good architecture had a positive return on investment, he we would do it because it would make economic sense to do it.
    BTW, one of the many reasons the community has opposed the project is because of the lousy, incompatible architecture. But, as the developer has refused to negotiate about that (or any other matter) with the community. Instead, the developer has presented plans to the community, heard complaints and gone ahead with his plans without making any changes (except as required by Planning).

  12. Community opposition does not change that equation in any way.
    Incorrect. Community opposition means fewer development sites, and thus less competition. Less competition means that developers have less incentive to invest in architecture. It’s really pretty basic economics.
    In this case, the developer has an even larger incentive to not be creative, because it’s been clear from the beginning that any design would draw criticism and lead to very long delays in building (since the initial complaint had nothing to do with architecture and had to do with preserving the “scenic vista” of a trash strewn lot).

  13. Clearly if “The Marsh” were filling a local parking garage with 200 cars, as one dolt complains, then they would be having a positive economic impact on at least one other business, the paid parking garage. And if it were true that the crowd brought their own popcorn, well they would have had to have bought it somewhere, perhaps margarine and cooking oil, too. And if they haven’t stuffed hot buttered popcorn into their jacket pockets, then they would have had to have purchased a paper bag. You have to think these things through before you start complaining over nothing. Build, please build. We need the jobs in all phases of the construction process, and in the sale and installation of the various components. If the building does not have parking, as the Supervisor complains, then the tenants in all likelihood will not own cars. Simple as a pimple.

  14. I think your hostile attitude towards the Marsh pretty well typifies the attitude of the pro-development crowd. You talk a good game about how wonderful San Francisco is, but you are unworried about destroying the institutions that make it an in interesting place to live.

    I took it the opposite way, as an anti-development sentiment.
    Of course, the Marsh already exists; but if it didn’t, and someone were to propose opening its twin, the sentiment expressed by Joe G would mean opposing it, because it would “steal” all the parking from some other business or resident.

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