San Francisco Voters Increase Height Limits for Waterfront Development

"In a city where waterfront development proposals invariably become political brawls, developer Forest City took a different tack at Pier 70, spending three years meeting with neighbors before coming up with a project that had what most residents were looking for: ample affordable housing, plenty of open space, and heights that would not block views or cast shadows in the adjacent Dogpatch (neighborhood)," writes J.K. Dineen of the San Francisco Chronicle about the passage of Prop. F. The developer initiative was described here earlier.

The project won the endorsement of every elected official in town, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, and neighborhood coalitions including the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association.

Prop F won with 72.4% of the vote, reports San Francisco's Department of Elections.

By contrast, voters rejected the controversial 8 Washington condo project a year ago and approved Prop B, a height restriction ordinance last June that requires developers to obtain voter approval on waterfront developments exceeding the existing 40 foot height limit.  

Also on Tuesday, voters rejected "Prop. G, an antispeculation ballot measure that would impose a gradual real estate transfer tax on any short-term flip," writes Dineen.

Voters approved a third real estate measure, Prop. K, which "will make it official city policy to construct or rehabilitate 30,000 new housing units by 2020, with at least one-third of those permanently affordable to low- and moderate-income households, and half within reach of middle-class San Franciscans," adds Dineen.

Forest City is also the developer of Atlantic Yards, a mixed use, 22-acre development in Brooklyn, New York.