Planning pawns
Will pay-to-play politics persist in Newsom's Planning Department? All signs point to yes

By Rachel Brahinsky

Mayor Gavin Newsom swept into office on a campaign for change. Today, several months into his term, the mayor still uses the rhetoric of new beginnings and unity to bolster most of his public speeches.

But when it comes to selecting a new director for city planning, city staffers say Newsom's behavior is shaping up to be just business as usual.

There's no question staffers and planning enthusiasts will be glad to say good-bye to San Francisco Planning Department director Gerald Green (who has been on a part-time sabbatical in Boston since last summer), whose track record of pro-developer decision-making has left planners feeling demoralized and disempowered.

Still, several department employees we spoke to believe the mayor is conducting his search for Green's replacement in an awfully strange way – if, in fact, the goal is to find a leader who can clean up the deal-making atmosphere that characterized Green's tenure.

"It's still politics as usual," said one planning staffer, who asked not to be named. "It's another example of a mayor appointing who he wants as director and putting aside the public process."

The problem, planners say, stems from the City Charter, the guiding document for how San Francisco government is shaped. Although Newsom has set up a search team of some of his top advisors to find a director, the charter gives that power to the Planning Commission. The commission, which would have to discuss the process at public meetings, is then supposed to offer three candidates to the mayor, who has the final pick. The goal is for the director to wind up being accountable to the commission, not solely to the mayor.

"The process is really critical," former commissioner Lisa Feldstein told the Bay Guardian. "The reason our Planning Department has so little credibility now is because we had a planning director who believed he was accountable directly to the mayor. You could have a really good person, but it they're brought in the wrong way, they won't be as effective."

It was frustration with mayoral control of city planning that prompted voters to pass Proposition D in 2002. The measure split Planning Commission appointments between the mayor and the Board of Supervisors and gave the board the power to reject the mayor's picks. It was a reform many felt was needed given the kinglike influence then-mayor Willie Brown wielded over the body, exemplified by the 2000 firing of commissioner Dennis Antenore, who was often the lone dissenting vote against projects favored by developers with ties to Brown.

Department staffers met with mayoral policy director Joyce Newstat recently to discuss the director search. Sources say those staffers are concerned that the mayor's team has conducted a secretive outreach process and hasn't placed a single job advertisement for the post. The mayor's search team – headed by Newstat – doesn't include anyone with a planning degree or any department employees and hasn't consulted with the commissioners, several sources said.

Susan Lowenberg, who sat on the Planning Commission during the Brown and Jordan administrations, is part of the team. But she's the only former commissioner who's been tapped for the job. Perhaps that's because, as city records show, she gave the maximum $750 donation to Newsom's mayoral bid last year and gave $1,000 to Newsom's failed workforce housing measure Proposition J, which was widely criticized as an attempt to make an end run around sound neighborhood planning. Also on the team: Newsom campaign advisor Eric Jaye's wife, Jeannene Przyblyski, who also gave $750 to Newsom's mayoral committee.

The list of potential contenders, sources said, includes several local candidates, some with ties to the Brown-Green regime, along with Larry Beasley, a top planning official from Vancouver, Canada.

"[Newstat] suggested that they're trying to do something different, but we haven't really seen that yet," said senior planner Miriam Chion, who participated in the meeting with Newstat. And, Chion added, there's a lot at stake. "The department is not really functioning. We have a solid general plan, but when you destroy that vision action by action – that's why people do not have the sense that there's an overall vision for the department."

Commission president Shelley Bradford-Bell, who was out of the country and couldn't be reached for comment, has invited planning staffers to address the director search at the May 13 commission meeting. Meanwhile, Newsom was spotted at an arts event May 6 announcing that he's on the verge of selecting a new director, so it's unclear whether staff concerns will play any role in the process.

Mayoral spokesperson Darlene Chiu refused to answer questions for this story, which only makes the administration appear that much more secretive.

The director search is happening at a time when it appears city policy is about to be seriously weakened by acting planning director Larry Badiner, who has been filling in while Green is in Boston. The city's Housing Element, which is on the commission agenda for the same May 13 meeting, is likely about to be stripped of core principles, according to a memo obtained under a public record request by the Bay Guardian.

The April 3 memo shows Badiner, who's being considered for the position of director, plans to concede to the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods on nearly every one of its demands for change in that document (see "All about Housing," 5/5/04).

The CSFN endorsed Newsom for mayor after he promised to push for change in the Housing Element, a big-picture document that guides planning policy. According to the memo written to mayoral staffer Sean Elsbernd, Badiner plans to take the bizarre step of removing the concept of transit-oriented development from the document, meaning the city would no longer recognize the potential benefits of building housing near public transit, a livable-city concept that has become patently mainstream.

Newsom touted the concept in one of the 21 policy documents he prepared for his campaign: "We will thereby not only spur construction of new housing, but construction of the right kind of housing: affordable, environmentally sustainable and transit-oriented." And it's one that Vancouver planners have become famous for using well, so deleting it could cause some discord if Newsom selects Beasley for the directorship.

On the whole, Badiner's recommendations reverse city policies that have been in place for more than 10 years and that have been upheld and encouraged by the state as sound policies to promote expanding affordable housing. Such policies include waiving parking requirements (which drive up the cost of development) in some senior and low-income housing projects and allowing in-law units to be legalized. While the CSFN fears the plan will promote overbuilding, Badiner's suggestions seem to go to the opposite extreme and will eliminate planners' recommendations to encourage expansion up to densities that have been allowed since 1978.

We have tried to reach Badiner repeatedly over the past several weeks to discuss his views on the Housing Element but have never received a call back.

E-mail Rachel Brahinsky