This is a dumb headline, “What would San Francisco look like with 80,000 more homes?” People are already living shoulder to shoulder in that town. It is a total slum, already, between the homeless, the druggies and the dog and human poop, it is more like Cambodia than an American town. Decent people are fleeing the town. Add 80,000 more housing units and the population will be the very rich, the homeless and the poor. NO middle class American, even the wacky Progressives want to live in Cambodia.
“Think nine-story buildings on 19th Avenue in the Sunset, eight-story buildings along Geary Boulevard in the Outer Richmond, and 20-story buildings along Van Ness between Pacific Heights and Russian Hill.
This projected development is part of the Housing Element’s stated goal of shifting housing production to The City’s northern and western neighborhoods. In recent decades, new housing construction has almost exclusively been concentrated in and around downtown and in eastern neighborhoods like the Mission and Bayview.
In fact, the Housing Element would actually lead to decreased development in those areas, the Planning Department projects, as population growth is accommodated in other neighborhoods.”
Yup, the population growth will go to other neighborhoods—in Fresno, Auburn, Plano, Texas, Tampa, Florida. Real people will flee as quickly as they can as they see slums being built in their neighborhood.
What would San Francisco look like with 80,000 more homes?
by Benjamin Schneider, SF Examiner, 6/26/22
In the latest draft of San Francisco’s Housing Element, a state-mandated planning process designed to increase housing production, the Planning Department provided a hint at what that change will look like. Buried in the nearly 1,300 page draft environmental impact report for the Housing Element are a series of renderings that show how the development made possible by the plan would affect vistas across The City.
Think nine-story buildings on 19th Avenue in the Sunset, eight-story buildings along Geary Boulevard in the Outer Richmond, and 20-story buildings along Van Ness between Pacific Heights and Russian Hill.
This projected development is part of the Housing Element’s stated goal of shifting housing production to The City’s northern and western neighborhoods. In recent decades, new housing construction has almost exclusively been concentrated in and around downtown and in eastern neighborhoods like the Mission and Bayview.
In fact, the Housing Element would actually lead to decreased development in those areas, the Planning Department projects, as population growth is accommodated in other neighborhoods. In other words, the Housing Element would actually result in slightly less new housing getting built across the east side in coming decades, as much more housing gets built on the west side.
If the Housing Element is adopted, downtown and SoMa would see 7,600 fewer units built by 2050 compared to a scenario where existing zoning and planning policies are left in place. Bernal Heights, Bayshore, Portola and Visitacion Valley would see 1,400 fewer units compared to existing policies.
By contrast, the Sunset, Richmond and West of Twin Peaks would see an increase of 44,000 units by 2050 as compared to existing policies.
That shift would be visible. Looking toward the ocean from Golden Gate Heights Park, six- to nine-story apartment buildings would dot the Sunset and Richmond districts. Looking east from Twin Peaks a cluster of new apartment buildings would be visible around Castro station.
A proposed zoning map shows in more fine-grain detail what the Planning Department envisions. Small apartment buildings, up to four units, would be permitted across the western half of The City. Major transit corridors like Taraval, Judah, Ocean Avenue and Lombard would see zoning rise to accommodate 65-foot buildings. Along some stretches of West Portal, 19th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, buildings up to 85 feet tall would be permitted. And along portions of Geary and Van Ness closer to downtown, buildings as tall as 240 feet would be legalized.
The Planning Department’s renderings also include already-approved projects that would not be affected by the Housing Element process — though the units in these projects are being counted toward The City’s overall housing goals. Some housing activists and experts have said the Planning Department is being overly optimistic about the approved projects actually getting constructed, which could lead to the Housing Element being rejected by the state.
Among those approved redevelopments is Candlestick Point, which would be visible as as a cluster of high-rises halfway between downtown and the airport. Downtown itself would change dramatically thanks to already-approved projects: The Hub neighborhood surrounding Market and Van Ness is set to include multiple 500-foot skyscrapers, and even taller buildings are planned near Salesforce Tower.
The Planning Department carried out this analysis as part of the “aesthetics” section of the Housing Element’s environmental impact report. The section concludes that the Housing Element’s impact on scenic vistas would be “less than significant,” therefore no mitigation measures would be required under the California Environmental Quality Act.
However, the plan concedes “visual quality is subjective and the degree of change perceived by observers varies. For example, some observers could be more keenly aware of any increase in building height or overall density, and these observers could find these changes substantially disruptive. On the other hand, it is likely that some observers would not consider the changes to the visual setting to be substantial, while still others would see a benefit in certain alterations of the built environment.”
