While the proposed 117-unit apartment building to rise up to 40-feet in height at 2675 Folsom Street, behind Parque Ninos Unidos at 23rd and Treat in the Mission, was approved by San Francisco’s Planning Commission in September, the approval has been appealed.

In addition, the project’s exemption from having to complete a detailed Environmental Impact Report, which was granted by the Planning Department in July, has been appealed as well.

And with the recent appeal of the environmental review for the nearby development at 1515 South Van Ness Avenue having been upheld by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors last month, it will be difficult for the Board to argue any differently for the Folsom Street project, the hearing for which is currently slated for December 13, having been continued from the end of November.

16 thoughts on “Another Major Mission District Development at Risk”
  1. I think the implication of this piece is unduly alarmist. The reported accounts of the BOS hearing on the 1515 appeal indicated that it was a “unique” action not necessarily reflective of their agreement with the CEQA attack upon the continued validity of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.

    1. Ugh, I could totally imagine him approaching the developer and asking for that based on actual stories I’ve heard about him. Man has no integrity at all and can’t be gone soon enough. Hopefully the developer holds the line. The appeal is baseless and they can sue if Campos upholds it just because they didn’t pay him off.

  2. All these infill projects in SF and Oakland should be considered exempt under CEQA. It is a perversion of the law that greenfield sites in suburbs 50 miles from the City continue to be plowed under for sprawl – and a 40′ high building in the City has to undertake extensive review.

  3. They ARE exempt under CEQA because the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan already analyzed their impacts. But deep-pocketed landlords and homeowners feigning concern over gentrification keep putting up the fees to appeal the decisions just to stall and try to bankrupt the developers.

      1. Well, there is the problem isn’t it? If you have people genuinely interested in the subject, in a highly educated city such as SF, who follow it on a specialist site such as this – And in your estimate – still get it woefully wrong – then the Rube Goldberg “system” that passes for land use planning here needs badly to be reformed….

  4. Campos and his band of anti development “progressives” seem to be, ironically, the biggest impediment to the construction of new housing to ease the gentrification problems in the Mission. Some people seem to be suggesting that had the developer made substantial contributions to Campos or some of his non-profit allies that things may have turned out better.

  5. I wonder if the Op-ed piece of Vincent Woo in today’s Chron will have any bearing on the BOS hearing on the appeal this afternoon. Mr. describes himself as a volunteer with SFYIMBY and advances sentiments very similar to those voiced by SonjaTrauss (SFBARF) which elicited such a negative reaction to the interests of the developer of the 1515 S Van Ness project. Curious timing.

    1. An interesting related item at MissionLocal of a letter penned last week by Planning Director Rahaim to the BOS advancing the position that the causes of displacement need to be addressed by the City while, at the same time, policies should encourage building of more housing at all levels. Kind of a middle ground.

      Any word on action on the appeal at today’s scheduled hearing. All things considered, I suspect they table it pending “further study.”

  6. Campos moved to continue this to January 10th, when he’s gonna be replaced by Hillary Ronen – who, rather than railing against development, campaigned on creating thousands of below-market-rate affordable homes and doing so partly by welcoming good market-rate development with on-site BMR. I’ll be there to hold her to her word. The outlook for this appeal being rejected (and the project moving forward) is now much better.

  7. Great way to fight tenant displacement is to not build any units. Really good way to fight an affordability crisis.

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