San Francisco Board of Supervisors Adopts Interim Design Controls

Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation that requires the San Francisco Planning Commission to ensure developers consider a number of design features before a large residential or mixed-use project is approved.  Similar “design controls” had been informally followed by the Commission on projects such as 1601 Mariposa Street and 790 Pennsylvania Avenue/1395 22nd Street.  Last December, District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen introduced a measure to mandate their use. “I want to ensure that we’re preserving the unique richness of the neighborhood and of the industrial period. That’s my job. And to make sure that it’s not lost with the new wave of architecture,” said Cohen.

The interim design controls, which’ll be in place until citywide Urban Design Guidelines are adopted, are effective within the Showplace Square, Potrero Hill and Central Waterfront areas.

The controls emerged as a result of citizen frustration over the look of buildings being erected in Southside San Francisco. “We have this Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, and it has zoning requirements, but it doesn’t have any design components to it,” said J.R. Eppler, Potrero Boosters president.  “These projects that are going to be built are going to be here for 50, 60 years. It’s a legacy to the supervisor, the Planning Commission and this neighborhood association, so they figured it was time to provide a little bit of guidance on the design aspects,”

According to Tony Kelly, Boosters vice president of advocacy, who co-authored the design standards, the City has offered little direction to developers and architects on how to design tasteful residential buildings that sync with their surroundings.  “If you’re a developer and you want to buy property, you’ve got no guidance and no idea what’s more likely to be approved or not. There’s been a lot of quasi-recycling of basic building ideas, because they know that could get approved,” he said. “There is absolutely nothing in the Planning Code that inspires an architect or gives them any incentive at all to actually do good design work.”

Last fall, the Boosters met with planning commissioners, architects, land use attorneys and residents to discuss how to encourage development projects that’re aesthetically pleasing. Rather than adopting more rules, Kelly said the goal was to “demand and inspire at the same time.” 

The controls center around three principles. To issue a Large Project Authorization (LPA) – one that includes the construction of a structure or vertical addition creating heights of greater than 75 feet; involves a net addition or creation of more than 25,000 gross square feet; or has 200 or more linear feet of contiguous street frontage on a public right of way – the Planning Commission must find that the proposed structures are harmonious with existing surroundings, such as neighboring buildings, streets, and open spaces; consist of facades with “texture, detail and depth;” and that the developer considered varying heights of rooftops and facades, including how they’re seen from various vantage points. 

“The Planning Department is going to be instituting a set of guidelines for large projects all over the City, but the process that they’re going through, because it needs to be well-researched, is going to take six months, maybe a year, to get implemented,” said Eppler. “We have five or six large projects coming up during that time period, and if we don’t have guidelines in place before then, then they’ll [get approved] and we’re not going to have the benefit of those design guidelines.”

Ron Miguel, a Hill resident and former Planning Commissioner who co-authored the design controls with Kelly, believes they’ll provoke a needed discussion on the future of the community’s residential buildings.   “Neighborhoods should be consulted. A good neighborhood organization knows its neighborhood better than the developer…This was to get intelligent thinking on the design of large projects.”