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SOMA Stabilization Fee - hindering Rincon Hill development?
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At Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting, Commissioner Michael Antonini made a comment during Commission Comments (Agenda Item 8, if you wish to view/hear it yourself on SF Government TV online) that I encourage Rincon Hill neighbors to contact the Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors, and the Mayor to support and to encourage follow-up.
First, let me say that this has nothing to do with the dust up last week created by an article that failed to mention One Rincon Hill’s development company had already paid over $16.6 million to the City for fees. Also, I want to note that I do not live at One Rincon Hill - and am not arguing that the SOMA Stabilization Fees should or should not be paid. My focus is making sure the Rincon Hill neighborhood, specifically the southern portion included in the Planning Department’s Rincon Hill Plan Area, has a fair shot at becoming a livable neighborhood that brings to fruition the environmentally responsible ideas of high-density residential development near San Francisco’s downtown jobs and the Bay Area’s multi-modal transit hub.
Commissioner Antonini commented that there should be a study to verify that there is a negative impact on the rest of SOMA specifically caused by the development of land contained within approximately 14 blocks that make up the Rincon Hill Plan Area. Is there a direct relationship between development in that small portion of SOMA and the rest of SOMA? To my knowledge, the Rincon Hill Plan area is the ONLY portion of SOMA that contributes development fees to the SOMA Stabilization Fund. I have a phone call in to the Eastern Neighborhoods Program Manager at the Planning Department, Ken Rich, to verify the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan doesn’t require a secondary fee in those portions of the City to add money to the SOMA Stabilization Fund.
If a study proves that development of land within the 14 blocks of the Rincon Hill Plan Area are the ONLY blocks that would impact SOMA in a negative manner so as to justify this additional $14 per square foot fee to pay the SOMA Stabilization Fund in addition to the $11 or so per square foot paid for infrastructure within the Rincon Hill Plan Area, then I’ll shut up about how unfair and disriminatory I believe the SOMA Stabilization Fee is to the Rincon Hill neighborhood and how it impedes the Rincon Hill neighborhood’s ability to move forward with more residential development beyond the single tower of One Rincon Hill that has been built thus far and has to pay the SOMA Stabilization Fee.
If a study verifies what my midwestern sensibilities (what others might call common sense) tell me - that developments in other parts of SOMA and even west and north of SOMA have just as much of an impact on residents in the broad area defined as South of Market - the next question has to be whether or not the impact requires a fee to be paid into the SOMA Stabilization Fund equitably by all developments in SOMA and adjacent areas to SOMA - and how much should the fee assess since $14 per square foot is being expected of just a few (about 14) city blocks and there are hundreds of blocks within the broader SOMA and adjacent areas?
As Commissioner Antonini said on Thursday, “We all win by having more buildings move forward.”
If the SOMA Stabilization Fee is holding back development in the Rincon Hill Plan Area’s 14 blocks, this is a huge impediment to the quality of life and livability of Rincon Hill residents. I think it is sad as hell that people entering San Francisco from the Harrison Street ramp off of the Bay Bridge drive through that first block of Fremont Street that looks like a bombed out block in the City of Detroit instead of a block near our beautiful waterfront, downtown jobs center, and the Bay Area’s multi-modal transit hub.
For people living in Rincon Hill, what does the SOMA Stabilization Fee hindrance to additional development mean for our quality of life? While we watch SOMA Grand, BLU, Millennium, and Triniity Plaza go up in SOMA without having the hindrance of the $14 per square foot SOMA Stabilization Fee to hold back those developments, Rincon Hill neighbors will have to wait for years for new developments before the simple Guy Place Pocket Park might provide us with some recreational green space in the RIncon Hill Plan Area that currently contains zero (nada, none). We will probably have to wait for years before the Sailors Union of the Pacific Building is retrofitted and can be shared with the Union as the Rincon Hill Community Center. How many Rincon Hill neighbors and workers have to die or get seriously injured before the pedestrian streetscape in Rincon Hill is improved to make the area safe for people to walk to their jobs, to the Transbay Temporary Bus Station, to the waterfront, and to the handful of restaurants open on weekends?
I strongly encourage you to demand the City revisit the SOMA Stabilization Fee and prove that it isn’t a disciminatory, burdensome fee that impedes further development in the 14 blocks of Rincon Hill that it applies to … or to start charging other developments in SOMA and adjacent areas the fee, with the opportunity to reduce the fee if it is paid by more than just 14 blocks of land occupants … or kill the fee all together if there are more benefits from new services and infrastructure due to adding high-density residential housing than there are negative impacts.
