SF Approves Controversial Sunset Housing Project
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has approved a controversial housing development in the Sunset District. The project will create 150 units, with 20% designated as affordable housing. The approval came despite strong opposition from some neighborhood groups who raised concerns about increased density and traffic.
- The project at 2700 Sloat Boulevard, which will replace the Sloat Garden Center, has a contentious history with proposals evolving significantly in response to community feedback and city planning regulations. Initial plans for an 8-story building grew to a widely opposed 50-story skyscraper before the current, more modest proposal was put forward. - The developer for the 2700 Sloat project has changed its proposal multiple times, with unit counts fluctuating from 213 to over 700 in a 50-story tower, before settling on more recent plans for a 22 or 24-story building with around 446 to 682 units. - To streamline the approval process and increase the project's scale, the development team has utilized state laws like Assembly Bill 2011 and the State Density Bonus Law, which allow for increased height and density in exchange for including affordable housing units. - Opposition to development in the Sunset is not new. A separate 100% affordable housing project at 2550 Irving Street, the first of its kind in the neighborhood, also faced a significant two-year battle before breaking ground. - The Sunset District has historically seen very little new low-income housing, with only 26 such units added over the last few decades, despite thousands of residents applying for the city's affordable housing lottery. - An opposition group named Save Our Neighborhood SF has been actively campaigning against the 2700 Sloat development, citing concerns that the building's height is out of character with the low-rise nature of the neighborhood. - The affordable housing component of the 2700 Sloat project has been a key point of discussion, with various proposals offering different percentages of Below Market Rate (BMR) units aimed at households earning between 80% and 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI). - The location is considered a "High Resource Area" and is situated near the L-Taraval Muni light rail line and several bus routes, a factor that developers argue makes it suitable for denser housing.
