Planning Commission approves 536 Mission Street tower with capped office allocation

The Planning Commission voted 6-0 on September 10 to approve a Downtown Project Authorization, an Office Development Authorization and shadow findings for a new tower at 536 Mission Street, after rejecting the project sponsor's request for a larger office allocation than city planners were willing to recommend.

A motion to grant the sponsor's full office request failed 2-4. The commission then adopted the planning department's recommendation, allowing up to 555,390 square feet of new office use and approving both versions of the project the sponsor has put forward, with conditions attached.

The approvals clear the way for the existing seven-story buildings on the site to be demolished and replaced with a taller tower, and they include exceptions from the code plus allowances for building height in the S-2 bulk district above the 550-foot mark for non-occupied architectural elements. The sponsor has proposed two alternative programs for the site: an office and laboratory building, and an office and residential building that would add homes. Both would include basement parking, bicycle parking, and ground-floor retail or restaurant space. The residential version also carries residential open space requirements.

Most of the two-hour hearing turned on the size of the office allocation. Planning staff told the commission that granting the sponsor's full request would draw the city's downtown office-space pool down to nothing and leave later projects with no allocation available, naming one downtown project already in line as the immediate casualty. Staff recommended approval at the lower figure with conditions rather than rejection, and the commission's questions suggested several members were weighing that trade-off before the vote.

The sponsor argued that the all-office program is the version that works financially today and that the mixed-use alternative does not pencil under current conditions. Construction-trade representatives and a university representative spoke in support of the office allocation, pointing to local hire commitments attached to the project. Neither the sponsor nor the supporters disputed that the larger allocation would consume the remaining pool; they argued the project was the right place for it.

Three messages had reached the department before the hearing, according to staff. They included opposition to demolishing the existing buildings, a request that portions of them be retained, and a request that the sponsor consult a neighboring property. No members of the public spoke at the hearing itself.

Commissioners pressed staff and the sponsor on design and policy details through the presentation. They asked about the long loading and roll-up-door frontage the project would present along its side street, and about the level of human-scale detail at the ground floor and along the arcade. They also asked whether right-of-way improvements on a street outside the property line could be counted toward the project's residential open space requirement. Planning staff confirmed the code permits that approach, that the improvements would be privately funded and maintained, and that the resulting space would remain open around the clock.

The commission also adopted shadow findings under Section 295, concluding that net new shadows cast by the project would not adversely affect the use of public open space. Parking and loading variances tied to the project go to the Zoning Officer at a separate hearing later this month.

Earlier in the meeting, the commission voted 6-0 to recommend approval of an ordinance changing when a mezzanine counts as a separate story. The change moves the threshold from one-third to one-half of the floor area of the story or room, bringing the Planning Code into line with the Building Code. Staff recommended approval with modifications that also reference Building Code exceptions, so the alignment between the two codes is complete rather than partial. Staff noted the change could affect ground-floor retail in neighborhood commercial districts and production, distribution and repair and live-work spaces. No one spoke on the item during public comment.

The planning director told the commission that a new affordability and eviction-protection package had been announced that morning. The package includes a right to counsel for tenants, higher relocation payments for tenants displaced when a landlord takes a building off the rental market, limits on evictions over short-term nonpayment of rent, support for tenants whose federal housing vouchers are expiring, legal assistance, and a tenant rights campaign. The director offered no department business beyond the package, and the commission took no action on it.

During general public comment, one speaker raised concerns about a residential project approved in 2012. The speaker said demolition calculations were never performed even though a demolition-control provision was in effect at the time, and described large price increases on the resulting units afterward. The speaker recommended closer coordination between planning and building inspection staff at intake, better application forms for small residential projects, and joint hearings for projects that amount to demolition.

The commission opened the meeting by calling its continuance calendar, where no items were proposed for continuance, and announced that a discretionary review item on that calendar had been withdrawn. No items were continued to a later date.