In some ways, the 25-story housing development proposed in the Marina is just what San Francisco needs.
As envisioned, it would create almost 800 housing units where there is now a grocery store and parking lot. Of those, 86 would be affordable — a rarity in a neighborhood that has only built 14 affordable homes since 2005.
No businesses or tenants would be displaced, as Safeway plans to re-occupy the ground floor. Residents of the massive new development would be within walking distance of half a dozen parks and as many Muni lines.
The only problem: Many residents in the tony Marina neighborhood and surrounding area don’t want it there — including Mayor Daniel Lurie, himself a resident of District 2, who is opposing the project.
The developer “trying to sneak in a project” before the city’s recent upzoning takes effect “is a complete violation of the spirit of that work,” Lurie said.
“Our administration will stand up firmly to developers that game the system, and we will pull every lever we can to make this a project that works for this neighborhood and our city,” a spokesperson for the mayor wrote in a statement.
The city can build “while protecting what makes our neighborhoods so special.”
Yet, the mayor has declined to weigh in on other Safeway housing developments. In coordination with developer Align, Safeway is proposing to transform four supermarkets (so far) into massive new complexes.
The so-called “behemoth” on the waterfront isn’t even the tallest tower Safeway has proposed. That would be the Webster Street proposal in the Fillmore, which is slated to go up to 30 stories.
Nor is it the only one on the waterfront. An eight-story development proposed in the Outer Richmond is one block from Ocean Beach.
When asked why he has inveighed against the Marina Safeway proposed development while saying nothing about the Safeway proposals in the Fillmore, the Outer Richmond and Bernal Heights, the mayor’s office pointed to the fact that the Marina project would not be possible after the upzoning passes, unlike the others.
Marina project violates ‘spirit’ of upzoning
Lurie says developer Align is contravening the intent of the recent upzoning. Over the past few months, Lurie has been championing his plan, which would allow for more density and height in the city’s western and northern neighborhoods, to meet state mandates.
Lurie and his ally, District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherill, whom he recently endorsed for supervisor, say Align’s proposal makes a mockery of the plan and erodes residents’ trust in City Hall.
Sherill said he went “parcel by parcel” with neighborhood groups, and subsequently cut the Marina Safeway parcel out of the upzoning plan.
But the Marina project is not being built under local laws like the upzoning plan. Instead, it uses California’s “density bonus” law, which is how a site zoned for four stories by the city can end up with a 25-story building. (The other three Safeway proposals also use the state’s density bonus.)
Drawing of the U-shaped building proposed for the site of the Marina Safeway. Photo courtesy of Arquitectonica.
Those state laws were passed by elected politicians and have been around for years, said Sam Moss, the executive director of affordable developer Mission Housing. “No one’s gaming the system here.”
Though Sherrill’s amendment would not have stopped the project, a different change to how density is calculated in the upzoning plan would have shrunk the project to between 400 and 500 units, instead of 800.
“This so-called ‘project’ at Marina Safeway is outrageous,” said Sherill in an Instagram video immediately after the proposal.
“It’s not a real development proposal. It’s a publicity stunt that is exactly the kind of reckless behavior that erodes trust in our system, and I won’t let it go unchallenged.”
The project is eligible for automatic approval, though, so if the developer wants to move forward with it as is, there is little that Lurie and Sherrill can do.
Sherill, who has ties to the Marina branch of YIMBY Action and voted for Lurie’s upzoning plan, is up for election in June. District 2, which he represents, tends to be conservative about land-use issues, and Sherrill is already facing an anti-development challenger, Lori Brooke.
Lurie has warned against housing ‘towers’ before
YIMBY groups see a clear case of politicians wanting housing generally, but not in their part of town.
“Talking about the need for housing in general is easier than looking at a specific project and dealing with the specific people in a 10 block radius who are mad about that specific project,” said Laura Foote, the Executive Director of YIMBY Action.
“I think that it’s important to remember that the Marina is a ‘low-slung neighborhood’ because mostly high-income, privileged individuals decades ago decided that we would only let tall buildings happen in the low income, Black and brown neighborhoods of San Francisco,” Moss, Foote’s husband, added.
At least two-thirds of households in the Marina earn more than the city’s area median income of around $127,000, and 56 percent earn more than $200,000.
“The Marina will not stop being awesome. I doubt that this is going to stop Marina Green from being the ‘sluttiest mile in San Francisco.’ If anything, it’s just going to add to the awesome,” Moss said.
Salim Damerdji, a Marina resident and member of SF YIMBY, said the real problem with the Marina is that “the current character is that the Marina is too expensive for most people to live in.”
“When I learned that there was a project in my backyard, I was really excited,” he said.
Lurie’s support for housing was never unconditional, and YIMBYs do not universally consider him a member of their movement.
He has warned against “towers” across the city as a way of selling his local upzoning plan, and criticized a proposal for a 50-story building on Sloat Boulevard.
“I also do not want Ocean Beach turned into Miami Beach,” he said.
The issue is sure to animate the District 2 race in the coming months. Brooke, Sherrill’s chief opponent so far, said the criticism of the Safeway project is hypocritical, given Sherrill and Lurie’s support of upzoning.
“It’s kind of surprising to hear them oppose this, considering none of those words were uttered out of their mouths when we were complaining about 14-story buildings along Lombard Street,” Brooke said. “And suddenly this project comes around, and now they’re up in arms.”
Brooke said she canvassed shoppers at the Safeway this weekend, and the reaction was “pretty universal” against the development, which they called a “a behemoth in an area that’s lower-scale and on the waterfront.”
“I haven’t heard of many people that have to pay a political consequence saying that this is a great project,” Brooke added, “because I think they all realize that this is poking the bear.”