May 2019
Dear Neighbors,
Greetings to those of you who are new to our neighborhood! And my thanks to those of you who have been a part of this wonderful neighborhood for as long as you have. Our annual meeting, to which all residents of Presidio Heights are invited will be at the
Presidio Golf and Concordia Clubhouse
on Tuesday evening, June 11, beginning promptly at 7:00 p.m. Our supervisor, Catherine
Stefani will again be our featured speaker. Please mark your calendars and alert your neighbors. I and the other directors of PHAN look forward to seeing all of you.
This letter will summarize the major issues facing us as we prepare for summer activities and hopefully get a deserved break from the routines that mark the academic calendar year.
The Impact of SB 50
Probably nothing in the history of this century-plus neighborhood has threatened its continued existence as a family neighborhood as much as State Senator Scott Weiner’s latest effort at demolishing
single-family housing in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Senate Bill 50, and its predecessor Senate Bill 827 (which Governor Brown vetoed), were both drafted by Senator Weiner to strip local control over zoning from cities and counties throughout California.
Its primary effect, as applied to a city like San Francisco is to remove single family housing altogether. On the face of the bill, it’s hard to perceive that. The language is dense, and the bill is overloaded with special terms and cross-references to other existing housing legislation. Stripped of its cloak of technical verbiage, SB 50 basically says that a developer acquiring a single family home within a radius of one-quarter mile from any one of the several Muni bus stops along California or Sacramento Streets, will be allowed to demolish that Presidio Heights home and build at least four units of housing on the site, and possibly more, at least to a height of 45 feet and possibly even 75 feet without any interference whatsoever from the City’s Planning or Building Departments. Given that every bus stop on California or Sacramento Street is one-quarter mile or less
from the Presidio Wall, the entire Presidio Heights neighborhood is at risk. Mr. Weiner has absolutely no respect or concern for maintaining historic or architecturally significant homes. Presidio Heights is
perhaps the largest neighborhood historic district eligible for inclusion on the California Registry of Historic Districts, but Mr. Weiner is proposing that unless a neighborhood was able to read a crystal ball and get itself formally listed on the State Registry before the year 2010, its age, history and architectural significance will be completely ignored.
PHAN has been and will continue to oppose Mr. Weiner’s efforts
to eliminate single family homes in San Francisco. Fortunately, there are many others who are doing so as well. As of this date, SB 50 has been intentionally blocked from reaching either the Senate or
Assembly floor due to opposition of many of Weiner’s Democratic colleagues in the Legislature. I will continue to write letters and meet with Mr. Weiner and his staff to urge him to redesign his housing
legislation to avoid destroying precious resources like Presidio Heights. And I encourage you to do the same individually. The more voices that are heard in Sacramento, the better. Obviously, we already have two huge housing developments to absorb in the immediate future, 3700 California Street, which is within our boundaries, and 3333 California Street, which is directly
opposite our southern boundary. I will take just a moment to update those of you who have not been as closely following these developments as those of us on the PHAN board of directors have.
The
3700 California Street
development (the old CPMC California Campus), had its initial public hearing before the Planning Department on May 16. I think it is fair to say that it was well received by the commissioners. PHAN, the Laurel Heights Improvement Association and the Sacramento Merchants
Association made statements in favor of the project. I spoke on behalf of PHAN. I recounted the history of our fight to block the development of the huge new CPMC hospital on Van Ness Avenue in our neighborhood, which was CPMC’s first choice of a location; our fight to embed in the development agreement between the City and CPMC for the Van Ness Avenue site a provision that PHAN had to be
consulted and taken seriously by any future buyer of the California Street campus; and finally our relief and satisfaction that TMG, the new owner of the site, welcomed PHAN’s participation in the design of the housing that will replace the old hospital buildings.
The Sacramento Street Merchants agreed entirely with our views and so did Laurel Heights. There is still a long way to go before the City accepts the current design, which does not have any retail space in it and is currently set at about 250 homes, all of which are two-to-five bedrooms with at least one off-street parking space. (In comparison, SB 50 dictates no more than one-half an off-street parking space to a housing unit; another absurdly short- sighted, anti-family provision.)
The developer continues to be open to meeting with neighbors in
Presidio Heights to hear individual concerns. So, if, at any time, you have any questions or suggestions to share with TMG,
please contact
them directly. Matt Field is the individual in charge of the project.
Also, I will invite TMG to send a representative to our annual meeting on June 11, so that you can have an opportunity to have any questions you might have right now about the 3700 California Street project answered.
3333 California Street
As for the
3333 California Street
project, most of you have probably heard that the Laurel Heights Neighborhood Association has been vigorously opposing the project for the past few years. Recently they, the Laurel Heights Improvement Association, have been able to get the State to register both the existing main building and the surrounding grounds declared historically significant as an
example of mid-20th century architecture. However, the City Planning Department is intent on having the property developed to a point even beyond that which the developer originally proposed.
Instead of a development with approximately 550 housing units, the City’s Planning Department has indicated a strong preference for 770+ units. The developer has complied with the City’s request for a plan that includes 770 or more units by removing a portion of the project that was originally intended as office space and substituting over 200 units for senior housing. The Planning Department has continuously insisted on commercial retail spaces along the California Street frontage of the project to make a continuous line of retail spaces from Spruce Street to Presidio Avenue.
Some of you who live along the northern side of California Street directly across from 3333 California have been interacting with the developer to integrate various changes you have suggested that soften the retail-look of parts of the project’s frontage on California Street. As far as parking is concerned, and it is a big concern for us, the developer seems committed to asking for as much parking as possible. A one-to-one ratio of housing units to parking would be nice and the developer supports that idea.
The issue, as usual, is the City’s view that residents should be forced to use Muni by denying them any off-street parking. Other than
pushing for adequate off-street parking, PHAN has not yet taken an official position on the 3333 California Street project. However, we hope to develop one soon, and I will give everyone who attends
the annual meeting an update on where we stand.
As with the 3700 California Street project, I will invite the development group for 3333 California Street to send a representative to our annual meeting on June 11, so that those with questions about the project can have an opportunity to speak directly with a project representative.
Cell Towers in the Neighborhood
For some of you who have, with or without help from PHAN, been fighting the incursion of wireless antennae in our neighborhood, I can report that at least one pro-neighborhood decision has
been issued. In the lawsuit entitled,
T-Mobile v. City of San Francisco
, our state Supreme Court ruled unanimously (7-0) against the wireless companies and for the City and its neighborhoods that T-Mobile and the other wireless carriers must heed aesthetic regulations promulgated by cities, towns and counties throughout California. T-Mobile and the wireless carriers have been arguing for years that they should be free of any regulation with respect to what they install on the telephone poles, lamp posts, stop lights and streetlights throughout the whole of California. The Supreme Court ruled otherwise.
New Name for JK Park
I will address just one more item in this letter. At our meeting on June 11, we will take votes on not only the members of the board and the officers of PHAN for the coming year, but also on a possible
new name for JK Playground. As most of you recall, the Board of Supervisors
voted to remove
the name Julius Kahn from the playground.
We will have a list of suggested names upon which you can vote on June 11. We will tally the results and report them to the Parks & Recreation Department. Other groups will be doing the same. The Parks & Recreation Department will then make the final decision.
Again, we, the directors of PHAN, look forward to seeing you all of you on June 11. Our meeting will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m.
Regards,
Charlie Ferguson
President
Presidio Heights Association of Neighbors
