A six-acre estate-style development in Presidio Terrace from Related California has run head-first into San Francisco’s sweeping new upzoning plan.
Related California is facing having to pivot on its plans for the former St. Anne’s Home site at 300 Lake Street after the upzoning increased the number of housing units required for the site, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The firm spent nine months moving toward purchasing the Presidio Terrace location, envisioning approximately 100 single-family homes, townhomes and condos on the gated campus. After the 124-year-old nursing home closed last year, city officials rezoned the property under Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Family Zoning plan, doubling allowable height to 85 feet and requiring a minimum of 50 units per acre. That density mandate translates to about 300 units, or about triple what Related had planned for.
The zoning change has effectively torpedoed the project. Related California lost its “contractual agreements” with the seller, the Little Sisters of the Poor, after the rezoning altered the development’s financial assumptions, Matt Witte, the firm’s executive vice president of acquisitions and development, said. The property, initially listed last year for $58.5 million, is back on the market as Related works to create a new plan for the site.
City officials are “all in on activating this site for housing” quickly, Dan Sider, chief of staff for the San Francisco Planning Department, told the Chronicle. “We’re working with the developer to collaborate on a project that fits. The good news is that it looks like that project does exist,” Sider said, calling the new minimum density regulations “a local implementation of state law” that “need to be incorporated into projects that are built.”
The Family Zoning overhaul, adopted in December, rezoned roughly 60 percent of land across San Francisco. Mayor Lurie’s new rules were designed to help the city meet its state-mandated target of 82,000 new homes by 2031 by enabling the construction of about 36,000 units in previously low-growth neighborhoods.
Related California’s project likely won’t be the last to possibly collapse due to the new zoning rules. “Given the amount of taxes and fees we put on housing, given the extra requirements of the local Family Zoning program that ended up not being as flexible as it needs to be, I think a lot of projects are going to fall apart,” Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, told the Chronicle.— Chris Malone Méndez
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