Shadows cast by tall and not-so-tall buildings alike have long been used to block housing in San Francisco, and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood wants it to end.
The District 5 legislator is announcing a law on Thursday that would eliminate the ability for people to say shadows cast by a building are an “environmental concern” that can be used to delay, and possibly block, new housing.
“In San Francisco, we’ve literally paid the price of being too afraid of our own shadow,” Mahmood said, pointing to data showing that shadow-based concerns were used to delay or block 2,195 housing units in 11 projects since 2017.
Whenever a new housing project is proposed in the city, its developer typically must create an environmental impact report on a variety of factors, like toxic waste and seismic hazards.
San Francisco requires that report to include a shadow analysis noting whether the new building will cast shade on any open space in the city. Mahmood’s legislation would get rid of that requirement; it is not in state guidelines, and most California cities do not consider shadows an environmental factor.
The environmental impact report is intended to help politicians make an informed decision about whether to approve or deny a development proposal. But any resident can file an appeal if they think environmental impacts were not fully considered, which can delay, block or alter projects.
Shadows ultimately led to a delay for the infamous 469 Stevenson St. project from 2021, a 495-unit building on the site of a Nordstrom parking lot in SoMa.
Some SoMa residents were concerned that the project, which contained about 100 affordable housing units, would gentrify the area.
But gentrification alone is not a legal reason for supervisors to block a project. So residents filed an appeal, alleging the project’s environmental impacts were improperly evaluated. The Board of Supervisors ended up siding with them in an 8-3 vote, citing shadows cast on nearby Mint Plaza in their decision.
The developer was forced back to the drawing board and had to redo his environmental report, delaying the project by several years.
Even when projects are 100 percent affordable, shadows cast uncertainty: Residents near 16th and Mission’s “La Maravilla” housing project, a 380-unit project next door to Marshall Elementary School that broke ground last month, raised concerns that the development would darken the school’s playground.
That forced the nonprofit developers to hold meetings and negotiate with residents about the issue.
Mahmood said even if appeals are ultimately rejected, the length and cost of the appeals process makes it difficult to produce housing projects, and leads developers to avoid building in San Francisco.
“The housing problems we’re facing are death by a thousand cuts,” said Witt Turner of the Housing Action Coalition, a proponent of the bill. “We need to start sewing them up, one by one.”
The state is requiring San Francisco to plan for 36,000 more housing units by 2030, and the city’s best guess is that, even under the most favorable scenarios, developers will build less than half of that, and in four times as much time.
Mahmood, a YIMBY, has made streamlining housing a focus of his 15 months in office. His new legislation eliminates certain intermediate appeals and hearings and shortens appeal timelines, mostly from 30 days to 15 days.
The bill will be evaluated by the planning commission and the Board of Supervisors in early summer.
The bill is no quick fix, however. Environmental appeals often cite more than just shadows when seeking to change projects. In the case of the Nordstrom parking lot building, for example, a failure to properly consider the seismic impact of a building was also a component of the decision.
YIMBYs have long pursued reform to CEQA, a California law outlining the environmental appeals process.
“We shouldn’t let outdated laws get in the way of building housing, which is actually important to making progress on our climate goals,” Mahmood said.