San Francisco’s Central SoMa Plan will define the City’s vision and strategies, and the overall potential, for developing the area bounded by Market, Sixth, Second and Townsend Streets, 260 acres of prime urban space bisected by the Central Subway project and an emergent Fourth Street transit spine.
En route to publishing the plan’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) early next year and aiming for the Planning Commission’s blessing of the plan by the end of 2015, the Planning Department’s Central SoMa team has published a series of new policy papers that define their thinking with respect to affordable housing; community facilities; Production, Distribution and Repair; and privately-owned public open spaces.
The summaries for each and links to the four policy papers:
- Affordable Housing: The Department will attempt to ensure that 33% of new housing enabled by zoning changes in the Plan is affordable to low- and moderate-income households through including below-market rate units in new construction, new construction of 100% affordable housing developments, and preservation of existing naturally affordable units.
- Community Facilities: The Plan will ensure space for community facilities is provided in the area as it evolves with new development. Concepts being explored include a potential impact fee on new development to be used for building community facilities, incentivizing protection of existing facilities, and requiring and/or incentivizing the development of new space for community facilities.
- Production, Distribution and Repair: The Plan will ensure space for PDR through such means as maintaining some PDR-protective zoning, limiting conversion of PDR, incentivizing protection of existing PDR, and incentivizing and requiring the development of new space for PDR.
- Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces: The Plan will require that newly constructed office buildings and hotels in the Central SoMa Plan Area provide publicly accessible open space.