{"id":363551,"date":"2026-06-17T00:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363551\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:24:11","slug":"formal-permits-filed-for-housing-site-in-bernal-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363551\/","title":{"rendered":"Formal permits filed for housing site in Bernal Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albertsonscompanies.com\/home\/default.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>Albertson Companies<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alignrealestate.com\/users\/sign_in\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Align Real Estate<\/a>, have filed formal permits for a six story, 379-unit housing complex on the site currently occupied by the Safeway at 3550 Mission St., at 30th Street, according to documents filed last week with the San Francisco Planning Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s the fourth proposal to transform the city\u2019s existing Safeways \u2014\u00a0which tend to be one story high, with larger-than-average parking lots \u2014\u00a0 into multi-story housing. The others include 850 La Playa St. in the Outer Richmond (562 units), 1335 Webster St. (1800) and 15 Marina Blvd. in the Marina District (800). Preliminary permits for the Bernal, Outer Richmond, and Fillmore projects were filed last November.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with the others, this proposal takes advantage of the state\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/scag.ca.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2024-05\/density_bonus_law_-_what_are_incentives_concessions_and_waivers.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> density bonus law<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB330\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SB 330<\/a> to streamline permitting, making it a ministerial project that will not require a hearing at the Planning Commission. In order to qualify for streamlined permitting, 20 percent of a new development\u2019s units have to be affordable \u2014 in this case, that means that 76 units will be reserved for those making 50 to 80 percent of the area median income (currently between $56,750 and $90,750 for a single person household, or $72,950 and $116,700 <a href=\"https:\/\/media.api.sf.gov\/documents\/2026_AMI-IncomeLimits-HMFA.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">for a family of three)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"585\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3550-Mission-St.-3-853x640.jpg\" alt=\"A modern mid-rise apartment complex with white and wood-paneled facades, large windows, and people walking along the sidewalk; a hillside neighborhood is in the background.\" class=\"wp-image-856125\"  \/>A rendering of the housing project at 3550 Mission St., at 30th Street. Image courtesy of Align Real Estate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the proposal, a new Safeway will occupy the 55,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space once construction is finished. There will be 137 parking spaces for the grocery store, and another 154 parking spaces for residents, along with room for\u00a0 286 bicycles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, all the projects have faced community pushback for a variety of reasons, ranging from concerns over the worsening of traffic to the loss of grocery stores in these neighborhoods.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mayor Daniel Lurie and District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill have criticized<a href=\"https:\/\/missionlocal.org\/2025\/12\/sf-marina-safeway-housing-daniel-lurie\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> the Marina Safeway project<\/a> because it was submitted before the mayor\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/missionlocal.org\/2025\/12\/sf-upzoning-passes-board\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">zoning plan, which passed in December<\/a> and would have reduced the size of the building allowed on that site, went into effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stephen Torres, the president of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, said he\u2019s heard concerns from club members since the news broke about the proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe initial reaction a lot of folks had was a little bit of concern and skepticism because a lot of the focus of upzoning and the state density bonus has been portrayed as increasing access to affordable housing,\u201d said Torres. \u201cBut, only 76 out of the 375 proposed units are affordable. This is a small percentage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Torres said club members also worry about the length of the Safeway\u2019s closure and the small number of two-bedroom and three-bedroom units for families.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently, the plans include 65 studios, 185 one-bedroom units, 89 two-bedroom units and 40 three-bedroom units.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brandon Powell, the Bay Area organizing director at <a href=\"https:\/\/yimbyaction.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YIMBY Action, was thrilled at the news.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are extremely excited about this project. Bernal has not been part of the housing story in San Francisco for almost a generation now,\u201d Powell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re proud to be investing in the future of Bernal Heights, bringing hundreds of new homes \u2013 including 76 affordable homes \u2013 to the neighborhood, alongside a brand new Safeway. These new homes and grocery store will be a wonderful addition to an already vibrant neighborhood.\u201d read a statement from David Balducci, the principal at Align Real Estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The office of District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The estimated cost of the project, which is designed by\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perryarchitectsinc.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perry Architect<\/a>, is $170 million, according to the project\u2019s application.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no official timeline for the project as of yet and no scheduled date for the Bernal Safeway to close. Currently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/12075520\/one-of-the-slowest-us-cities-to-build-san-francisco-is-accelerating-housing-permits\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">permitting process for a housing project takes about a year<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albertson Companies and Align Real Estate, have filed formal permits for a six story, 379-unit housing complex on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[20812,1011,1556,582,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-363551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-district-9","tag-housing","tag-mission","tag-mission-street","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}