Thread by @_fruchtose

Tomorrow the San Francisco Board of Appeals will hear an appeal of the issuance of HOME-SF authorization for #3945Judah. Plans were approved to build 20 apartments in five stories where a gas station once stood.

So what goes into an appeal?

hoodline.com/2019/11/20-apa…

In this case, 365 pages go into the appeal. That's the length of the PDF containing the appellant's case, the respondent's reply, and public comment.

That count is not a typo. You could make a daily calendar out of this appeal document.

The document can be broken down into sections.

Pages 1-54: appeal notice, brief, and the action being appealed. That's the Nov 7 authorization motion, with technical plans.

Pages 55-162: appellant's brief with letter and 9 exhibits. Includes govt correspondence; city permits; the transcript of the Nov 7 hearing work orders; a neighborhood notification affidavit, and a summary of the developer's pre-application meeting.

The appellant is Mike Murphy, an SF Green Party official and Livable California supporter. He claims that the project was improperly noticed, the fuel tanks from the former gas station at the site will not be properly cleaned up, and neighbors' opposition wasn't considered.

The appellant's brief also includes a letter of support from David Scheer, a former Planning Commissioner from Homer, Alaska, who now lives in Outer Sunset.

The letter borders on ridiculous. For instance, it claims that the General Plan, uh, doesn't allow 5-story buildings?

The letter also seems to attack individual Planning Commissioners' intelligence. Has this strategy ever worked in an appeal?

Pages 163-221: respondent's brief. Project sponsor's letter and exhibits, including HOME-SF except from the Planning Code and Nov 7 Planning Commission meeting minutes—including the technical drawings, again.

Really dry stuff.

The respondents are the project sponsor and the architect. They counter that the proposal was properly noticed, as recorded by the Planning Dept, and that the site is being monitored as part of a Department of Public Health site cleanup program.

One of the appeal's claims is that the project was misrepresented, because the architect told the Planning Commission no further cleanup was needed. The rebuttal says the architect was unaware—the City's request for more cleanup was sent to the project sponsor, not the architect.

Pages 222-365: public comment. There's a lot of it. I counted 66 emails and letters, plus two petitions against the project with 227 total signatories, and a copy of the developer's pre-application meeting sign-in sheet. Nearly all of the public comment is against the project.

I won't post a boatload of negative comments. They're mostly the same— not enough parking, too tall, views will be blocked, infrastructure is on the verge of collapse, this community is too special for more buildings, build somewhere else, etc.

Here's “They Might Be NIMBYs” organization D4ward, declaring a five-story building to be DESTRUCTION BY CONSTRUCTION

The good comments were few and far between.

Want to support the project? Here are a few things you can do!

Thanks for reading.