Supervisor Yee’s article on the Affordable Housing Density Bonus Program  (AHDBP) that was published in the West Portal Monthly this month is attached.

 

• I am responding to the residents who inquired about the AHDBP individually, but wanted to provide an initial response from Planning on Jennifer Heggie’s questions:

o   What recourse do neighbors have if a large developer chooses to buy the Safeway from its current owner and to tear it down and build a large six or seven-story development which includes affordable housing? 

Response from Planning:  Current height limit is 32 ft. In the local program, a developer could get a two story increase-so it would be a five story building with an onsite of 30% affordable housing. In a 100% affordable project, a developer would receive three stories, so it would be a six story building, with 100% of the units affordable. As drafted, the public has the following inputs to contact the project sponsor and the department. In the pre-development stage there is the PPA and then the Pre-Application Meeting. In the Pre-App meeting the public can voice concerns to the project sponsor directly. When the project is submitted to the Planning Department the project is assigned a planner, once a planner is assigned the public can submit comments to the planner on the merits of the proposed project. This process is lengthy, it can take several months for the planner to review the project and sometimes up to a year just to get on the commission calendar.  In the local program, there is a required commission hearing, appealed to the Board of Appeals. In the state analyzed program, the current planning code regulations apply, meaning there could or could not be a planning commission hearing depending on what is proposed.

Can a developer buys up five adjacent single family dwelling lots on Monterey and tear them down and build a six-story building that stretches the width of five lots and that will overlook Hearst Avenue back yards? 

Response from Planning: The adjacent buildings do not appear to be single family homes (they look more like mixed-use multi-unit buildings). If any of them have rent control they won’t be able to use the AHBP. The existing height limit is 32-X so it would be 5 or 6-stories max for these NC-1 parcels. Then there’s the limitation of merging lots in NC districts to less than 125 ft of street frontage.