WHEN THE SAN Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a one-year moratorium on residential development in north Potrero Hill Dec. 14, the San Francisco Chronicle portrayed it as a blow to developers. But as Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 16, the biggest and most powerful group of housing builders in the city was hardly disappointed: members of the Residential Builders Association celebrated in the hallway outside the board's chambers after the vote, and RBA lawyer Alice Barkley hugged and kissed Sup. Bevan Dufty.

What was going on? It's simple: the RBA, with the help of an unlikely alliance orchestrated by Dufty and including Sups. Matt Gonzalez and Chris Daly, managed to ram through a last-minute amendment that exempted four RBA projects – one of them a whopping 450-unit apartment building – from the interim controls. Among the projects exempted: a 16-unit building on a lot next to the Anchor Steam Brewery that neighborhood activists had argued would be a threat to industrial jobs in the neighborhood. (Another of the projects is adjacent to the Bay Guardian office.)

That made a troubling situation even worse. The moratorium, sponsored by Sup. Sophie Maxwell, had already exempted two major projects, totaling 1,000 housing units, that should have been covered by the controls.

This was terrible planning and undermines the entire point of the moratorium, which is to stop all new development – just for a year – until the San Francisco Planning Department and the neighborhood can decide what type of housing, and how much, should go where. There was no rational argument for letting the four projects go forward. The only reason they're going to be allowed to proceed is that the builders had filed permit applications prior to the vote – and because the RBA wants them built and has the muscle to make that happen.

Six supervisors supported the RBA in exempting the projects: Daly, Dufty, Gonzalez, Sean Elsbernd, Fiona Ma, and Gerardo Sandoval. Opposing the exemptions were Maxwell, Tom Ammiano, Michela Alioto-Pier, Jake McGoldrick, and Aaron Peskin.

There was little public discussion of the amendments and no chance for the neighborhood to weigh in on the merits of the four projects. The exemptions came out of nowhere, at the last minute. That's no way to make planning policy.

A real moratorium would, and should, include everything in the north Potrero-Showplace Square district. There should be no exemptions, no funny lines, and no special treatment for anyone. After all, it's only a year. The planning process needs to include the entire neighborhood; why shouldn't the moratorium do the same?

The supervisors need to slow down this whole process. The moratorium and amendments will come up for second reading and final passage Jan. 4. Maxwell should ask for a continuance and delay final implementation until there's a chance for the Potrero community to examine this smelly deal in detail, ferret out the backroom politics, and have an open debate about the merits of allowing the RBA's special-interest machinations to undermine an important piece of neighborhood planning legislation.