Last week Beyond Chron reported on Sophie Maxwell’s submission of an outrageous resolution for new interim controls on zoning in Potrero Hill. As interested parties take sides and the facts surrounding the resolution surface, our suspicion that there’s something seriously amiss in District 10 grows.
Beginning in February of 2002, San Francisco’s Planning Commission held a series of workshops in Potrero Hill to discover what residents wanted in their neighborhood, and the community responded. A series of three workshops attended by everyone from homeowners to policy wonks culminated in the drafting of several proposed zoning maps representing their collective vision for the area. Yet last week, Supervisor Maxwell submitted a resolution to the Board that calls for interim zoning controls in Potrero Hill that don’t gel with a single one of the maps created by her constituents.
Maxwell’s resolution impacts 41 city blocks, bounded by 7th, Bryant, Potrero and 25th Streets. Under planning policies adopted last February as a result of the community workshops, this area would focus on mixed-use housing over production, distribution and repair (PDR). However, Maxwell’s proposed interim controls would focus solely on PDR. And now, accusations are flying as to the motivation behind Maxwell’s resolution, setting the stage for a bout not likely to be resolved politely.
In one corner stands Maxwell. Her legislative aide, Grey Asay, in charge of the resolution, claims the maps presented to the planning commission differ from the maps created in the community workshops. The main reason? According to Asay, soon-to-be former Planning Director Gerald Green “cooked the books,” presenting to the Commission different maps than the community created, allowing for more housing due to pressure from developers.
Not so, says developer Sean Keighran from the opposite corner. To Keighran, the resolution represents a power play by Anchor Steam magnate Fritz Maytag. According to Keighran, Maytag had his eyes set on expanding into a piece of property adjacent to his brewery for quite some time, a parcel Keighran owns. However, Maytag remained unwilling to pay the market price for it. So, to reduce the price, he pushed Maxwell into creating an interim resolution that would rezone the area to allow for less housing and retail than the community desired.
In fact, Keighran believes Maytag knew he’d have Maxwell on his side well before the recent proposal of her resolution. Before the property went up for sale, the owner offered Maytag an exclusive offer to buy the parcel, located 1717 17th St., but he turned it down. Then, in early October of 2003, Anchor Steam representative John Dannerbeck took a tour of the parcel with the realtor selling the property.
“During that tour in the first week of October,” said Keighran, “the message was implied to my realtor by Dannerbeck that housing would never be built on the site. He said Maytag would come back and buy the parcel for fifty cents on the dollar.”
Keighran then says he made several offers to meet with Maytag about the property, even offering to work out a lot line adjustment that would provide a better-shaped parcel for the operation of Maytag’s business. According to Keighran, all requests were turned down.
Keighran began following the planning process closely, concerned Dannerbeck’s prophecy would come true. He claims that the planning workshops revealed a community who desperately wanted a commercial strip on 17th St. similar to those found on Chestnut or 24th streets, and that the maps presented to the planning commission accurately represented the community’s desire for more mixed-use zoning.
Sean Gorman, a Potrero Hill resident who attended the workshops, agrees.
“My interpretation of Sophie’s new map is it eliminates the mixed-use component, which I feel is not representative of the direction that the community process was going,” said Gorman. “It isn’t in line with the maps that were produced during the community process.”
However, Asay responds by saying the new resolution only contains interim controls that would last for just a year, and represents a desire to stem the widespread speculation occurring in Potrero Hill. Asay claims the speculation sparked skyrocketing property values, which threatens to force many local businesses out of the community. In addition, Asay also points out the part of the resolution that demands the completion of an Environmental Impact Report, which would speed Potrero Hill’s planning process up considerably.
Asay also believes a much higher proportion of developers attended the workshops than one representative of Potrero Hill, which skewed the creation of the maps. Asay, however, makes this claim despite the workshops being open to anyone in the community who wanted to attend.
Asay’s assessment raises important questions. If the workshops contained a biased group of attendees, and Planning Director Green biased the maps they created even further before presenting them to the commission, why were the workshops held at all? And if they were so biased, why has Maxwell done nothing to rectify the fact that her community was not honestly involved in the planning process of their own neighborhood?
To allegations of Maytag’s influence in the process, Asay quickly responds, “Not true. That’s complete conjecture on the part of folks with their own financial interests.”
The resolution for new interim zoning controls in Potrero Hill will be presented to the Board of Supervisor’s Land Use Commission, made up of Maxwell, Jake McGoldrick and Aaron Peskin, next month. Whether or not the true motivations for Maxwell’s proposal will be revealed by then remains to be seen.
