Yes, the hit on Welch is a mistake, but apparently Whole Foods had nothing to do with it. While you're at it, why not ask Welch and Mirkarimi what their objections are to the Whole Foods proposal for the Haight/Stanyan site? Seems like a good project to me.

It is not the project that neighbors have questions about: it is the SCALE of the project and the poorly done DEIR (especially the traffic study). The concern is not about Whole Foods, but the seven story structure and design.

I live on the same block as 690 Stanyan and I strongly oppose a development of this size. And I resent the character assassination portrayed in Brennan's hit piece of a mailer.

Below is an excerpt of a letter that I sent to the Planning Department last February. The developer's environmental impact report ignored many of the traffic realities I mention.

"There are lessons to be learned about the traffic snarls created by high-volume supermarkets on major arteries, i.e., the Whole Foods at California and Franklin Streets and the Trader Joe's at Masonic and Geary.

A good dozen parking spaces were eventually eliminated (from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.) along Masonic Avenue to accommodate the Trader Joe's shoppers queuing for a spot in the store's parking lot. The measure has not alleviated the flow which is also made up of crosstown traffic, USF commuters, the 43 Muni line, etc.

In the case of the Whole Foods, traffic on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays backs up in all three lanes of Franklin Street--that's eight blocks from California to Eddy--as drivers wait to squeeze into the parking garage.

Without denying the need for a supermarket and affordable housing in the upper Haight, I think it is inevitable that the estimated 1,800+ daily car trips to 690 Stanyan would push traffic to a critical mass.

The intersection of Haight and Stanyan already sees very dense traffic from residents, tourists, park users, Amoeba Records shoppers, Kezar Stadium events, pedestrians and three Muni lines (routes 7, 33 and 71).

The load is increased by overflow traffic due to the regular closure of JFK Drive on Sundays and holidays. Furthermore, gridlock is guaranteed during each street festival (the Haight Street Fair), foot race (Bay to Breakers), and park event (the reopening California Academy of Sciences, A La Carte, A La Park)."

Please don't take your information about the project from the mailer. This is not about weird, selfish old guys opposing a store selling apple pie with 62 fabulous apartments upstairs. This is about making a semi-quick buck while turning Haight Street into a shopping mall. See images of the proposed design at http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2008/02/the_690_stanyan_project_overview_and_eir_hearing.html

This building does not have a scrap of esthetic value, pedestrian amenities, or energy efficiency. The architect has a reputation for creating cr*ppy interiors, too.

The entry to the parking garage is at the north corner of the property on Stanyan Street. It is impossible to believe this store will not generate congestion on Stanyan Street akin to that on Masonic in front of Trader Joe's.

Susan: Calling it a "seven story structure" is inaccurate, since three of those storys are below ground for parking.

Carl: The cars lining up on Masonic to get into the Trader Joes parking lot are all in the Southbound lane, which has little effect on other traffic on Masonic and no effect on the #43 bus, which doesn't even go by Trader Joes.

Crabpaws: What do you mean by "pedestrian amenities"? The main problem with the Trader Joes on Masonic is that it has a dinky little parking lot, whereas Whole Foods will have a much bigger underground lot.

The Whole Foods proposal is not seven stories high; three of the stories will be the underground garage. The problem with the Masonic Trader Joes is that its parking lot is too small; they have to have rent-a-cops to keep it sorted out. Not clear why a Stanyan Street entrance to the underground garage would be a problem. The Lucky market at Fulton and Masonic has a similar design, with the underground garage traffic entering on busy Fulton Street. I shop there at least every other day, and I've never seen the traffic backed up coming in or out of that garage. I used to mourn for the old Faletti's market at that location, but it was ugly, had a big surface parking lot, and of course there was no housing on the site, much like the old Cala market at Haight and Stanyan. The Whole Foods project will have 176-space subterranean garage with 114 parking spaces for supermarket use, 62 parking spaces for the condo owners upstairs, and even 47 bicycle parking spaces.

Rob Anderson, do you have any affiliation with the project developers or the pro-project Haight Ashbury Improvement Association?

Other than living in the neighborhood, at Parnassus and Stanyan, I do not have any personal interest in this project. Because HAIA does not represent my interests in this matter, I paid $5 to join HANC last month.

Pedestrian amenities are ground-level features that serve people walking by, such as generous sidewalks, benches, awnings to provide shade and shelter from the rain, trees and plantings.

Pedestrian amenities integrate a development into the life of the surrounding neighborhood. As designed, the proposed development is entirely car-centric (as your posting above unconsciously notes).

At this particular location across from a major entrance to Golden Gate Park visited by many tourists, a few pedestrian amenities would speak better of San Francisco than a blank commercial concrete storefront.

As for the traffic -- Stanyan is a major north-south thoroughfare for the area. Traffic entering the Whole Foods parking garage entrance at the north corner of the property on Stanyan will affect access to the already congested right turn on Oak only a couple of hundred feet away.

Rob Anderson, the guy's whose lawsuit against the city led to the current court injunction against bike projects, seems painfully ignorant about the traffic impacts associated with this project. Big surprise. He claims that bicycling is an inherently dangerous activity that government shouldn't promote, yet he apparently loves projects that promote increased automobile traffic and he doesn't even understand the phrase "pedestrian amenity." Yeah, Rob, you'd make a great supervisor in District 5: we'll have more greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, gridlock, road rage, pedestrian and bicyclist deaths, and ugly urban landscapes. But hey, at least Haight residents will be able to buy expensive organic produce shipped here from halfway around the world. Luckily we have an incumbent supervisor who understands the word "sustainability," and is likely to be reelected in a landslide.

If anything, this project is not large enough. Haight is a desirable place to live, which means there should be more density and more market rate housing built there, not less, as regressive "progressives" and NIMBYs like Welch right tooth and nail. That's the only way to prevent housing prices from rising without end, and from driving middle-class families out of this city. This is on the corner of the most beautiful park. Normal cities build higher around the park, because everyone with more than two brain cells realizes that there will be plenty of middle-class families wishing to live next to the park and enjoy the view. Of course, for HANC seeing a blighted parking lot of a long-ago closed store with a giant and completely wasted parking lot space is desirable. It's amazing how obtuse fossils resisting change are.

San Francisco is not climatically well suited to heights because heights create shadow, cold and wind and that diminishes livability. Diminished livability and higher parking ratios means people drive in and out of their homes further exacerbating that cycle. 45' should be the limit citywide with possible height bonuses for deep affordability with limits probably lower in the neighborhoods. The voters enacted Prop M in 1986 that prioritizes preserving neighborhood character.

So many of these new developments--think the Los Angeles district of SOMA at 4th and King--do violence to the very San Francisco that attracted them in that they slowly asphyxiate the goose that lays the golden egg. As they suburbanize land use, they suburbanize the population, further suffocating the San Francisco's cultural character and replacing it with a pre-packaged upscale "urban experience" economy.

Until the MUNI is brought to a level where it can service the existing residential load, including the swarms we'll be seeing as fuel prices remain at historic highs, we cannot afford to build more housing, especially expensive housing and an upscale market that clogs MUNI at a key intersection. In that sense, housing does not pay for itself, so why should we entitle that which puts us further in the hole?

They're right about Calvin Welch's pre-cambrian predilections, but he's correct on this one.

As far as Rob Anderson goes, get over it, Steve. You're arguing that since someone filed a successful lawsuit that anything they say thereafter is wrong. That is bogus on its face because every American has the right to redress grievances against the government in court. Had the City followed the law, and in the years leading up to the general rule exclusion several courses were offered and dismissed as unnecessary by advocates and city staff, then Anderson would have had no case. The fact was that the City Attorney and MEA left enough of a toehold exposed that Anderson and Miles position carried the day. While you and I disagree with much of Rob's rantings and ravings, they are almost always wrong on their lack of merit, not because Anderson beat your friends in court.

-marc

San Francisco has one of the most temperate climates in the entire continental US. Average temperature year round is almost 64 degrees. Stating that the climate of SF reguires a building height of 45' or less due to shadow, cold, and wind is entirely disingenuous and likely only applies to people who have spent most of their lives in tropical climates.
Diminished livability for who I wonder?
Marc? and his band of fauxleteriat fauxhemians?
What exactly do they gain from having everything all over the city stay the same ?
I wonder Marc, is that condo you own in a building less than 45' tall? If not, are you able to manage the stiff wind and frigid cold while exiting and entering?

"While you and I disagree with much of Rob's rantings and ravings, they are almost always wrong on their lack of merit, not because Anderson beat your friends in court."

Thanks for the support, more or less. I'd like to hear more about my being "almost always wrong." How can I trod the progressive path if none of you correct me? Whole Foods is a great store; the Haight needs a supermarket; the city needs sensible infill housing built. This project meets all of those needs. Funny that people like Calvin Welch who oppose a project that includes a piddling 62 housing units are quiet about UC's truly massive housing project on lower Haight Street (450 units)and the Market/Octavia Plan (6,000 housing units, including 40-story highrises at Market and Van Ness).

By the way, Supervisor Mirkarimi, who supports both the M/O Plan and UC's ripoff of the old extension property, supports the Whole Foods project.

Temperatures are measured on the east side where its warmer. Temperatures are invariably cooler in the Haight which is at a higher elevation and not protected from the sea breeze and its attendant fog like the east side is.

Consider 10th and Market. On the warmer east side, but due to heights and shade, it is windy and cold and not a livable place. Are you familiar with the notion of wind chill? Do you know how San Francisco's relatively low temperatures and relative humidities make it so that unless one is in the sun, it feels colder?

On the west side of the city, these trends are even further exacerbated by windy fog and the case for sensible heights even more compelling.

We know that the most vibrant parts of San Francisco are those built out up to 45' and the least livable, think Tenderloin, Chinatown and South Beach, are where the high rises are.

San Francisco was a cultural center for more than a century, long before the cranky old Oakies moved here and brought their priggish sensibilities to bear. Once the Oakies took over in the 1960s, California began to deteriorate rapidly to the extent that most would suffer a coronary if faced with San Francisco in the late 19th, early 20th centuries. Now that we have the wealthy suburbanites moving into the city "brave urban pioneers!" we are seeing another attack on progressuve urban cultural centers, this time, carried out through land use.

What do we have to gain by entitling housing that violates section 101.1 of the planning code--maintain neighborhood character?

As far as Calvin Welch goes, do I get paid to ensure political consistency from others?

Ross and I agree on a whole lot, but when it comes to land use, we part company. I tend to agree with San Francisco's preeminent land use Green, Christina Olague.

Any progressive politician who avoids confrontation and does not take a bold stand for land use justice will be building themselves out of a future political base.

-marc

So much of San Francisco discussion of all things political falls into the "twee" category.
Opposing moderate scale and density discussion based on the subjective notion of comfort - along with a mention of "wind chill" is TWEE.
Find me a wind chill map that measures wind chill when the temp is higher than 40 degrees. Even on the coldest winter days in the coldest parts of San Francisco, the temp is almost always higher than 40 degrees.
I dont follow the weird oakies rant at all. It's clear through your many other postings on internet chat boards that you feel that San Francisco's future residents should at best be handpicked to match your own politics or at worst turned away so as not to disturb the sensibilities of other tried and true San Francisco progressives. Can you explain the difference between your distaste for "wealthy suburbanites" and a "moderates" distate for homeless people?
As far as this goes "What do we have to gain by entitling housing that violates section 101.1 of the planning code--maintain neighborhood character?"

Would a white person buying a market rate condo in a latino neighborhood be considered maintaining neighborhood character?

Do people hang out and mingle where it is shady, cold and windy or do they hang out where it is warm, sunny and calm? Does sitting on the stoop at 58F in the shade and wind sound like fun? Do you see that often in San Francisco? If you want to create a garage based relationship between new residents and the streets, then just say so.

Most San Franciscans enjoy our neighborhood character. We;d prefer to avoid the 10th and Market wind tunnels for more humane climes, especially at the gateway to our flagship park. There are plenty of anonymous suburbs where people can find that kind of isolation.

That it is lost on you speaks to, well, you and your priorities. The stakes are high here, the profits significant. People will do and say anything to realize those profits. It is up to San Franciscans to play our land use cards to the hilt because developers stand to make astronomical profits off of our entitlement largess. We would be remiss to not play our hand to the hilt for our constituents.

As for our home, we were evicted by a project funded by the city. We bought a condo that had been converted from a probate sale from the estate of a senior who had owned the building. No harm, no foul, we'd lived 2 blocks away for 11 years, the equation balanced. It is a San Francisco Edwardian, 100 years old this year and rises to a formidable 28'. We refinanced on favorable, long terms before the meltdown and are here as long as we want to be irrespective of the vicissitudes and turbulence in the markets.

Compare that to the rash of buy-out evictions on our block which has evacuated every building fewer than 8 units. One was purchased by a Stanford prof as a bedroom at the end of his commute. Our future residents should look like our current residents. That they don't ethnically, culturally or economically means that our planning policies are serving interests other than we constituents of government.

What's democratic about that?

-marc

Marc, your making very little sence.
a) The climate here is great
b) You can not legislate who lives in a City
c) Profits encourage investment, without investment there would be no housing (Goverment agencies have a poor record on proving housing, San Francisco included)

Your arguments are as productive a spitting in the "10th and Market wind tunnels"

We have had massive housing profits over the past ten years which have not produced housing for San Franciscans in need.

In a democracy, it is one person, one vote, not one dollar, one vote.

We can legislate what kind of housing gets built. Most San Franciscans could care less if housing for millionaires does not get built.

There is a measure on the ballot for November which would establish an Affordable Housing fund which would dedicate tens of millions of dollars per year towards building housing for San Franciscans.

Until the City can negotiate a good deal for existing residents in entitling housing production, there is no public interest in entitling more housing for millionaires until we can set the stage for developers to meet community needs.

What we are seeing here is a propaganda campaign on the part of developers and their allies to frame the debate in a way that ends up with them laughing all the way to the bank and us saddled with their circus droppings.

Spend some time in front of the Beacon at 4th and Townsend around 4PM and tell me about livability amidst a dead street wall and 40mph wind gusts at ground level below the, what 12 story building. One has to pedal forcefully to bicycle from 3d to 4th street due to the wind tunnel effects.

You all want to run government like a busines, only the business we're negotiating with, in this case the developers, not a business with interests in maximizing the position of the shareholders of this municipal corporation.

-marc

Great a "Affordable Housing Fund".

Who is going to distribute these funds?
Who is going to determine who warrents help and who does not?
Who is going to manage these funds?
What oversite on hiring the Managers of these funds? How much are these new City employees going make Managing these funds?
Who are they answerable to?
Are these funds set aside from the General Fund?
How many current services will be sacraficed to ensure this set-aside is funded?
With house prices not increasing where will the new revenue come from to ensure these set-asides do not harm current City services?
What measures will there be to ensure success and accountablitly?

I have seen no answers to the above, what I have read of the Affordable Housing is pretty amature with no explanations even to why the particular dollar figure was chosen, or who is going to be entitled to help. The only upside is that for once someone has mentioned Rent Subsidy which usually never gets a lookin with local "progressives".

Where do I say "I oppose affordable housing" ? I request an accountable transparent government, guess I'll be waiting along time.

So you oppose affordable housing as well as livable, people-centered neighborhoods and prefer to see the dollar as the ultimate arbiter of who gets to live here.

But let's keep those developer profits flowing, hiking up our civic skirt for the first pimp to call us pretty.

-marc

The charter amendment would largely fund projects run out of the mayor's office of housing.

I can understand your wariness, which I share, of allowing Gavin Newsom to have control over tens of millions of dollars in public funds. Fortunately, there are oversight provisions that require Board consideration and approval of all expenditures.

-marc

Folks, Haight St. has been a high priced mall for tourists for years now. All the old stores from the 70s and 80s are long gone, and in their place are lots of expensive hipster shoe stores.

I have to laugh when I see some people feigning concern for us westsiders. The fact of the matter is that the city no longer has any interest in promoting development of any housing that is not for super rich people or super poor people.

If you work for a living and don't work for Google, NONE of the tenant groups, the army of nonprofits with well-heeled executives, the many many folks in City Hall who take a big paycheck to talk about housing, and the array of self-appointed political chatterers will do a damn thing for you. They just tell you to move to Oakland, or to go to Hell. They then bemoan the fact there's an income gap in SF. Well duh.

And progressives, NIMBYs and do nothings alike love that big hole on Stanyan instead of something useful. Is this the best project ever? Hard to say. No one else, however stepped up.

BTW, for a fun piece of history, can you name what major structure was on that spot BEFORE the grocery store and the other buildings that are there now?

Tick tock.

I have no idea, Greg, but do want to know. Tell please!

Annnnnnnnd, I can't believe that so many are feigning ignorance about the wind tunnels Marc describes. Or could it be that you really don't know what he's talking about because you drive everywhere?

I have to concur with whoever said that bicycling is inherently dangerous (unless on off-street bike paths and such) but I do walk EVERYWHERE (don't even take the bus or BART really) and the wind tunnel at 10th and Market is no myth. Nor is that god-forsaken blade runner neighborhood of King, Berry, and Townsend near 4th and 5th. I walk through it sometimes heading home to the Mission from work in SOMA and pretend the bomb has dropped and I'm the only one left. Almost makes you feel sorry for people with too much dough. blech!

Yeah, someone is making a killing off blocking busting for sure. Isn't that what they call it, block busting? But I don't think it's just the foofy developments that are corrupt. All of these non-profits in the business of tearing down low-income housing projects and building new ones really make me wonder too.

Sort of makes me think of the connections I picked up on reading the Sentinel. That O'Donahue (sp?) guy. Progressives and developers teaming up. Just weird.

Watch Lola by Fassbinder. Very good depressing German flick on block busting on how impossible it is to go against the system. Kind of like Veronika Voss's take on Hollywood, Heroin and the United States.