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.)
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.”
Lurie and Sherrill continue a storied tradition of being YIMBY but not in their backyard. If only we had a word for that.
YIYBY!
Same as all YIMBYs when it comes down to it.
It is hard for Lurie to address the city’s housing problem when he is part of the problem himself. He’s never going to go against his own class. His words carry little weight if his actions contradict them.
Not In Mayor’s Back Yard
Its called N.I.M.B.Y: Not In My Backyard.
I’ve saved you an article read. Its the lifeblood of City politics since the 1970s. Most N.I.M.B.Y. are pro housing just not near them. Even Peskin was “pro-housing”, just in the Mission District, not The Marina. N.I.M.B.Y. always has different excuses depending on the politics of the district: it blocks views, it destroys small business, its gentrification, no parking etc. Different excuses but the same results: move to Oakland. Since 1978.
@Roger T.B. – And?
Seriously, everyone has heard of N.I.M.B.Y. and it’s just name-calling. Y.I.M.B.Y. is just doubling down on the same name-calling. I don’t think name-calling is the lifeblood of any sort of progress whatsoever, and no progress since the 1970s suggests that.
The whole thing is about low income housing – or not.
YIMBY is a joke. Low income housing = LIHIMBY!
Solutions > slogans!
Wrong! It’s YIMBY! It’s Yes TAKE AWAY MY NEIGHBOR’S YARD!
NOT MY OWN! I’m a BILLIONAIRE! #YIMBY
This is actually the YIMBY base. I know right?
Where is “Race and Equity [sic] in All Planning” demanding equity for people of all races in taking on their fair share of the burdens of development?
Lemme guess, like countless other coalitions of city funded nonprofits that sprout up to present the illusion of a broad grassroots base, Race and Equity in All Planning has already fallen by the wayside now that the question on the table is to direct intensified land uses to wealthy, whiter communities.
You don’t need to build a wall along the coastline to have more housing. Build crap like this much deeper in the city, not along the waterfront. Buildings should get progressively shorter as they approach the water.
The 790-unit Marina Safeway project is absolutely beautiful — full steam ahead!
I think he’s just trying to show why local control can never work in California.
The true Lurie was bound to surface eventually. What a contradiction. Marina needs affordable housing!
Hypocrites Dan Lurie and Stephen Sherrill: Not in My Marina Back Yard……both NIMMBYs. Bloomberg’s acolyte Sherrill looks like he doesn’t sleep at night, probably because he knows voters are going to run him out of D2 on a burning rail. Ouch.
I am generally YIMBY. I support Safeway building an 8 story building at the beach. I would not support a 25 story building at the beach,
I feel the same way at the marina. 8 story building on the marina Safeway, great. 25, not so much.
If the want to put a 25 story building on van ness. Great, same on Geary. But want to put a 25 story building on Geary and 38th, no way,
Context matters,
I will just say we are in this mess because progressives opposed any development for so long. We are in a mess now and greater density will bring down housing costs. But it needs to be in areas where we have transit and services and folks don’t just try to drive,
The progressives never opposed development. They never ran anything in this city to have any power. The people you are thinking of were moderate Dems.
@Lana – Of course “the progressives” is a sweeping category, but there has been no shortage of self-appointed guardians of the word who have opposed development. Search for the words “litmus test” on 48 Hills and you’ll find pages of columns dedicated to this.
There also seems to be no ideological consistency, it’s more of a clique thing. A building at the unused carwash on Divisadero with double the required number of affordable units? Not good enough, because it was in Supervisor London Breed’s district (the lots is still empty). A building about the same size in the Mission but with less than half as many affordable units? Big thumbs up because it’s a Progressive® district!
Yet, no complaints about the Safeway project in the Outer Richmond facing the beautiful ocean?! Hypocrites.
@Robyn – It is facing an unbeautiful condo complex that is facing the beautiful ocean.
we need more housing like this ! +86 affordable units – would love to help advocate for this development !!
That’s at least 800 people who won’t need to get in their car to drive to the grocery store; if Safeway is where they want to shop. That’s at least 800 people and their friends who might want to visit Fort Mason events. That’s 800 more people who might visit neighborhood cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Cut it down to 6 floors, and you’ve got yourself a permit in a matter of months.
Apologies to the SF Standard and Mr. Moss, but the bushes behind the windmills and soccer fields in Golden Gate Park has long been known as the sluttiest greenway in town, at least among men looking for discrete encounters with other men.
No Dan stans rushing to preserve the character of the marina here in the comments? Bueller? Bueller?
But he said it’s okay for sunset? And also Richmond Safeway? Rule for thee but not for me?
Thanks to Scott Weiner, East Coast transplant and Congressman Wanna Be, who
wants to “Manhattanize” San Francisco!
My politics support this in theory, but my eyes hurt looking at it. It is fugly, and aesthetics matter. I feel badly for the people whose houses are going to be stuck in the dark next to it. Won’t it literally throw shade onto Fort Mason Park? I wonder if this is a maneuver to get a slightly smaller, not heinous building made with less neighborhood opposition.
Look plenty of Marina homeowners support YIMBY and building new housing that includes BMI, limited income or poor people. It’s just not reasonable to build it next to their own homes which might lose value from that kind of housing project being approved there.
Maybe the mayor and the neighbors can come to some understanding that this kind of project should be supported – just not in the Marina but in another neighborhood that is more suitable for all of the social problems associated with this kind of housing?
As a YIMBY, proposals like this tower are so garishly bad that they seem almost like false-flag attacks designed to torpedo the YIMBY movement as a whole. See also how effectively the incredibly, obviously dangerous Valencia central bike lane set back the cause of installing successful, safe bike infrastructure across the city.
D2 NIMBYs are gonna fight the reasonable development of necessary midrises along Lombard and Van Ness all the more viciously if they have the boogeyman of this tower to rally people against.
Don’t blame the mayor, for opposing that ugly ass sh@#t! Safeway & friends,did a similar housing/business model, on 4th street across from the Caltrans and the N Judah line. It’s not high density and intrusive. The sh@#t that they have proposed for the Marina, would fit in Manhattan, not here and in that area.
This is the kind of development San Francisco YIMBYs have been begging to happen to the city. There is no reason to impede it except that the Mayor and district Supervisor don’t want to be the ones blamed when the ugly Miami Beach glassy nightmare is completed.
We are either developing the shit out of this damn city or we aren’t. The ongoing debates about preserving neighborhoods that have dodged the development bullet are now tedious and transparent. They lose. California won.
Build this shit because its supposed to save us. There’s only one way to prove YIMBY wrong – and thats by following their lead.
The best way to prove YIMBY wrong is simply to examine the record.
Not In Rich Back Yards. Typical YIMBY attitude.
When YIMBY policies ACTUALLY affect the YIMBY base they don’t like it!
Go figure eh? They don’t want Billionaire’s Row views blocked!
They should more accurately be called YIYBY, or YILCY.
Yes in YOUR backyard. Yes in lower class backyards.
Did you even read the article? YIMBYs are in favor of the project.
Only the ones WHO DON’T LIVE THERE!
Same with all YIMBYs, they only want it when it affects OTHERS, not their own interests or investment values.
When they start putting skyscrapers in the Castro and Bernal, let us know – it’ll never happen, because they don’t want it!
But the Sunset district? “I don’t live there so raze it!”
This wouldn’t be housing “just what San Francisco needs”, this would be ultra-luxury condos. Alone the extra construction cost of building in a seismic hazard zone (FWIW, the ground below is landfill) would see us condos advertised as “starting in the 2 millions” in today’s money, with HOA to match. “Units” available in that sphere: Plentiful, there is no housing crisis if you can plug down the kind of money they’d be asking.
There are 86 units of affordable housing in the plan.
Sounds just like what the Marina voted for.