By Cassi Feldman

IT STARTED AS a simple argument. In mid September, Alice Barkley, an attorney to some of the city's most powerful developers, brought one of her clients to the San Francisco Planning Department to discuss preliminary plans for a new South of Market apartment building.

The meeting didn't go well.

One city planner, Jill Slater, apparently looking at ways to reduce the number of cars on crowded city streets, suggested that the project include less parking because of its proximity to public transportation. Barkley was furious.

According to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Barkley berated Slater and threatened to have her barred from future meetings with developers.

"I lost my cool," Barkley told us later, saying she was worried that a reduced number of parking spaces would lead neighbors to oppose the project. Besides, she added, the planning code requires a one-for-one ratio between apartments and parking spots. She didn't appreciate Slater trying to change the rules.

But the well-connected lawyer did more than get mad. She complained to Gerald Green, the head of the Planning Department, and he quickly responded with a new rule: from that day forward, only senior-level planners could attend project review meetings.

Interestingly, he applied the restriction only to "long-range" planners like Slater, as opposed to regular "neighborhood planners," singling out those most likely to raise big picture, citywide concerns – concerns that might not jibe with developers' plans. Insiders say the policy change might seem small, but it indicates a profound – and crucial – conflict at a department in transition.

With a new Planning Commission about to take over – thanks to city voters – long-range planners have a unique opportunity to give neighborhood residents as much of a role in planning decisions as big-shot developers and their lawyers. Led by venerable planner Amit Ghosh, they're faced with the monumental task of rewriting zoning rules for the city's eastern neighborhoods: South of Market, the Mission District, the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, and Showplace Square. What should these areas look like? Should factories be preserved? Should housing be created, and if so, what kind?

These are exactly the kind of questions that communities want to help answer. But the person at the top has shown few signs that he's open to any real change. For Green, it's still business as usual.

Green vs. Ghosh

There has long been a rift within the Planning Department – one that reflects the difference between professional planners (who are trained to consider the city's best interests) and political appointees (who tend to look at the short-term interests of powerful players).

Green worked as a planner for 12 years before he was appointed director by Mayor Willie Brown in 1997. Since then he has been widely criticized for allowing massive office buildings and live-work lofts to invade city neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, long-range planners like Ghosh have quietly advocated a more expansive view. They have pushed for higher-density projects, more affordable units, and less parking along transit corridors.

Unfortunately, Ghosh and his allies haven't had much power. In fact, over the past five years there's been a shift away from long-term planning: under Green, the department's budget has become more dependent on developers' fees – and planning jobs that didn't serve to help the developers have fallen by the wayside.

"They [would] just basically expedite stuff because they could get fees for it," former building inspection commissioner Debra Walker said. "But that's not planning, it's permitting."

The Planning Commission was no better. In fact, its former president Hector Chinchilla was recently charged with criminal violations of the city's conflict-of-interest laws for allegedly taking private fees to help developers steer projects through the planning process.

It wasn't until the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC) staged huge protests that the city was forced to reevaluate how land-use decisions were made (see "Defending the Barrio," 10/18/00). In the 2000 citywide election, several candidates for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors ran – and won – on an anti-Planning Commission platform. One of the new board's first orders of business was pushing Proposition D, which restricted the mayor's ability to appoint or remove commissioners.

Suddenly, Green appeared to have a new boss. At a commission meeting shortly after the election, he spoke, for what seemed like the first time, about the will of the voters and about the new "community planning process" that was starting to take shape.

Community planning

Now, at rezoning workshops like the one held Sept. 17 in the Mission, it's Ghosh and his staff at the helm, animatedly explaining the planning code to hundreds of attendees. The long-range planners work overtime to create colorful charts and graphs and facilitate smaller discussions designed to make everyone feel included.

But since Green has allowed long-term planning to wither, there aren't enough people left to do the job. Sup. Jake McGoldrick has proposed funding for three additional planners for the long-range team, which now has a staff of 25. Those new planners were supposed to be hired Oct. 1, but McGoldrick says the mayor has yet to release the funding – and the department isn't pushing him.

"It appears to me there isn't a strong desire to do the permanent [zoning] controls," he said. "There's a desire to see if there's a change in the Board [of Supervisors] and then go back to the old politics, back to the mayor's way of thinking."

Even if the positions are added, some say, there is still a lot of bureaucratic inertia – and outright opposition – to overcome.

In the Mission, landlords and business owners scared of losing power have retained attorney Tim Tosta, who has a long record of helping developers win project approvals, to advocate on their behalf.

"The Planning Department is in over its head," Tosta told us. "The process has been shanghaied by a self-interested group, and they're fighting tooth an nail to keep [it] to themselves."

Green did not return calls by press time. Ghosh declined to comment.

Eric Quezada, an organizer with MAC, says Tosta's "self-interested group" includes most of the neighborhood. "That's what they're mad about," he said. "There's direct participatory democracy happening in the Mission, and they can't control it."

Yet he acknowledges that with the new Planning Commission convening for the first time this month, this is a critical time for city planning. It's one thing for the department to listen to the community and another thing for them to actually implement the changes.

While Ghosh's team seems receptive, Quezada said, Green is dragging his feet.

Still, Quezada is optimistic. "We've been able to force ourselves into the discussion and into the decision-making process," he said. "We're trying to continue the process so there are more people who understand planning and zoning. Once you empower people, once they learn about it, that's permanent."

E-mail Cassi Feldman at cassifeldman@hotmail.com.