Bad day for this developer trying to sneak one by the SF City Planning Commission. 
San Francisco planning commission is the reason for sky high home price and homeless.
No comment on the historic significance of the property, not interested in knowing as well.
For real valuable historic structure, can government purchase it or subsidize the maintenance? It is to benefit the public to maintain a “historic” building using private money.
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Exactly. There is a whole foods 365 (not regular luxe whole foods, but a reduced selection and better value version like fresh and easy) that was supposed to go in to replace the empty Lombardi Sports building on Jackson and Polk.
The debate went on for 4 years. The location was previously a sporting goods store with harage parking, so a WF365 could have just come right in.
The retarded planning comission kept on making the WF365 and the landlord jump through multiple onerous hoops, holding them hostage while adding yet more and more requirements to “add affordable housing.”
WF365 bent over backwards and agreed to add units of affordable housing. The planning commission a few weeks ago said “not enough - Wf365 you need to knock down the whole building and add still yet more housing.”
WF365 has now abandoned the project. All because of Aaron Peskin and the planning commission.
Now the economy is slowing and that site will be empty for another decade. Blight, decay, and homeless squatters. Idiots. And the mayor, London Breed, is supposed to be housing friendly. What a farce.
I have to agree with the planning commission on this one:
“We are tired of seeing this happening in the city and are drawing a line in the sand,” said Richards. “You can have all the rules in the world, but if you don’t enforce them, the rules are worthless.”
Razing an entire building isn’t even the same as adding an illegal window or porch or deck or something.
It’s completely different from the extortion the planning commission is doing with Whole Foods and other developers trying to get affordable housing. But I suppose ironically, not allowing WF to move in and having an empty building will in fact keep everything else around it more affordable.
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Corollary is why have so many rules? Just to please those special interest that there are rules to cater for their interest? And to selectively enforce them 
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I can agree that there should be fewer rules, but honestly, demolishing without a permit doesn’t strike me as one of them.
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Planning commission should be disbanded. The goal of the planning commission is to kill housing and create homelessness. Once you have too many rules and too much arbitrary reviews, people are just tired of following the rules. If you have fewer rules, people will respect the rules more. Too many prohibitive rules simply makes housing so damn expensive and made some folks homeless.
You can try numerous rules on your kids. Within a week, they will start to ignore your rediculous rules, after 3 months, they will ignore some of your essential rules as well.
This comment is disgusting and stupid. You don’t want people to build newer and larger homes so you put up numerous rules to make it extremely difficult to build homes that satisfy homeowner’s need. The “historic” excuse is just a way to deprive people the right to build a home on their land to house themselves in a way that works for them.
Why is it a sin to expand one’s house by 10%? Does SF have too much and too strict rules on demolition and rebuild? Someone told that it’s almost impossible to demolish a house in SF, that’s why people just design a way to let the house implode itself.
The citizen’s envy and small mind is so evident in these kind of rules. Why can’t everyone mind his own business and allow the poor guy the freedom to build his dream house on his own damn land?
“You want a 1,300-square-foot house to be worth what a 1,300-square-foot house is worth, rather than a mega-mansion.” (Supervisor Peskin)
“ The decision comes a few days after Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced legislation designed to crack down on illegal demolitions. That bill, the Housing Preservation and Expansion Reform Act, increases fines for illegal demolitions and requires a conditional use authorization for any home expansion that increases the square footage by more than 10 percent.”
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The idea that everyone should forced to live in 1936 housing is ridiculous. The planning commission is the biggest cause of high prices and homelessness. They should be forced to do an EIR of every decision… just like developers have too.
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The rule of thumb is to only build ugly or unimpressive houses in SF. If you build a nice house, they will say it’s historic and the future generation will become homeless because of that.
In San Jose, you can’t remodel or demolish a Victorian house without return it to the prior condition. You idiot do it, you pay the price. If you do it and allege “no knowledge of the law”, then, you shouldn’t be flipping or investing in properties for a living. Unless your life is dedicated to curtailing the law or the rules.
The end.
If developers followed every rule and regulation we would all be homeless. Cities are run by do nothing bureaucrats that are incapable of taking care of anyone.
SF media and politicians trash developers as “greedy” and wants to disable developers and drive developers out of business. They want to make the city remain the same, no new houses, no remodels, just a city full of rundown “historic” houses. Then they cry about housing crisis.
They are either idiots, or just evil. Possibly both. Evil idiots and stupid evils are truly scary.
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Both
So it is ok to break the law so long you don’t get caught or called out?
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Remember my four categories based on intelligent/ stupid and hardworking/lazy?
This is the last category of stupid and hardworking. Truly scary. In war, kill them first without reason/ cause. In peacetime, jail them permanently.
Empires are built by harnessing the stupidity of the “stupid and hardworking”. That’s the “ant populace” 蟻民 in Chinese hierarchy.
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The populaceć°‘ is stupid and lazy 
The foot soldiers 卒 are stupid and hardworking 
Evil people are usually hard working with an excess of energy.
Good people are half and half. Half is good but lazy. The other half is good and works hard.
I haven’t seen the evil and lazy.
The end result is that good stuff is scarce, but bad stuff is plenty
Allow me to re-label as wise/ foolish and energetic/ lethargic.
Wise - Managers
Intelligent - ICs
Foolish and lethargic - Admin
Foolish and energetic - Don’t hire them, fire immediately
There’s a third domension, good intention and bad intention. Good vs evil.
When you work hard for 10 years to build a 300 unit apartment, only one bad arson can destroy it within a few hours. Oakland has quite a few this year.