Planning Commission recommends fee waiver and rooftop restroom height exemption, reviews Flower Mart plan

The Planning Commission on Oct. 1 heard an early look at a plan to rebuild the Flower Mart site, then recommended two Planning Code changes: one that would waive some development fees for housing on corner lots, and one that would keep required rooftop restrooms from counting against building height limits.

The Flower Mart item drew the most questions and the only supportive public testimony of the night. The commission heard an informational presentation on the Flower Mart DA Amendment, a proposed change to the development agreement for the approximately 6.5-acre Flower Mart site. The amendment would replace the site's earlier commercial-focused program with a mix of residential, commercial and institutional uses, raise the maximum heights allowed there, and permit parking above ground level if it is screened.

Public comment was entirely supportive. Speakers from business, housing and labor groups urged the commission to back the plan. Commissioners spent their questions on details rather than the overall proposal: the rules for fences, whether ground floors would be active and open to the street, how much affordable housing the project would include, whether heights would vary across the site, how the above-ground parking would be screened, and a sidewalk proposed for only one side of a street.

Planning staff told the commission the project would come back for environmental review and later approvals before anything is built. The commission took no action, and the amendment is not yet before the commission for a vote.

The commission did vote on a separate Planning Code amendment, 2026-004766PCA, that would exempt qualifying residential projects from some development impact fees, at first only on corner lots. Staff recommended two changes to the proposal: widen eligibility to more parcels, and add a sunset date. The sunset drew the longest debate. Commissioners argued both ways about whether a deadline would give developers confidence to start or would undercut confidence by threatening projects that take years to entitle and build. The commission ended up accepting the wider eligibility and dropping the sunset, then voted 7-0 to recommend approval to the Board of Supervisors with only the first of the staff's two changes.

Public comment on that item supported the fee waiver. One speaker raised the idea of allowing larger building footprints on corner lots.

Later, the commission voted unanimously to recommend a second Planning Code amendment, 2026-007353PCA, that would exempt the height of restrooms required on common-use rooftops from the city's height limits. Stairways, elevator penthouses and similar features required by building codes are already exempt. A supervisor's office and planning staff presented the change. Without it, the sponsor said, projects including a senior housing development would have to redo their floor plans and could lose homes, exceed their height limits or their development agreements, or shrink. Staff recommended approval without changes and noted a drafting error in the resolution that mislabeled the project as categorically exempt from environmental review under state law; the department said it would fix that in the final version.

Commissioners supported the amendment but used the discussion to press for a broader review of conflicts among the planning, building, electrical and mechanical codes, rather than fixing them one project at a time. They talked about setting aside staff time for that work. The vote to recommend approval was unanimous.

Earlier in the meeting, the planning director reported on the department's pending merger with the city's building inspection agency, saying which roles the two agencies will share is becoming clearer. He described an earthquake exercise he took part in with the mayor and other department heads that walked participants through their policy roles and staff's disaster-service roles in the first 12 hours after a disaster. He pointed to the partner agency's state-licensed engineers who assess buildings after a disaster so that shelters and gathering sites can be used, and said the department is expanding that pool of trained inspectors through ongoing training.

In the review of past events at other bodies, staff reported that the Board of Appeals and the Historic Preservation Commission did not meet the day before. A Board of Supervisors committee amended an ordinance to add a modification the commission had recommended, then continued the item to its next meeting because the changes were substantive. The full board gave second reads to ordinances on signs and mixed-use districts and on converting commercial buildings to housing, passed a landmark designation amendment on first read, and adopted a resolution asking the Planning Department to report on equity-related policies in the city's state housing plan. No commissioner asked a question.

The commission also elected a vice president, filling one of its two officer positions with a commissioner nominated for his knowledge of the commission's history and his collaborative approach. The vote was 7-0. One officer seat is held by a mayoral appointee and the other by an appointee of the Board of Supervisors president. The new vice president said he would assist the president with week-to-week process.