Key vote on huge housing project
Will NIMBYs sway South S.F. council decision?
Over the last year, San Bruno and Cupertino, both highflying tech boomtowns, have become notorious for trying to kill major housing developments.
Now proponents of residential development on the Peninsula are hoping South San Francisco — the home of fastgrowing biotech giants — doesn’t become the newest member of the NIMBY club.
On Wednesday, the South San Francisco City Council will vote on a proposal to build 800 housing units on cityowned land located along Mission Road — a 5.9acre site about a 10minute walk south of the city’s BART station. Opponents are lining up against the project, worried about traffic and neighborhood character.
The development would include two buildings with 642 marketrate apartments and a third structure with 158 affordable homes. The biggest project South San Francisco has seen in recent decades, it
would also have a public playground, a day care center and a market hall with space for local artisans.
Like in San Bruno and Cupertino — home to Apple and YouTube — job creation in South San Francisco has far outpaced housing production in recent years. Since 2010, South San Francisco has added 8,000 jobs and 750 housing units.
“South City has one of the more abysmal jobstohousing imbalances in San Mateo County,” said San Mateo resident and housing advocate Jordan Grimes. “This is very much a drop in the bucket compared to what they actually need to be doing. You’ve got massive, massive job growth.”
South San Francisco, which has a population of 67,000, is home to Genentech, which has 15,000 employees at its Oyster Point campus. The city’s biotech giants plan to add 9 million square feet of new office and lab space over the next 20 years. Tech companies are showing interest in expanding in the city, too. Stripe recently announced it was moving 1,000 employees there from San Francisco.
While biotech companies say they generally support building more housing in their hometown, they recently blocked plans to build 1,200 homes at Oyster Point, arguing that site was too close to their campuses.
That means the Mission Road project is now the largest in the city’s pipeline.
“We feel we are on the cusp of approving a project that will achieve many of the city’s planning goals for the area,” said Greenwood.
But the vote could be close and the debate contentious. The group South San Francisco Residents for Smart Growth says that it opposes building higher than three stories on the site, arguing that the proposal would exacerbate “traffic congestion” and contribute to “a loss of quality of life and stress on infrastructure.”
It echoes the arguments made in San Bruno and Cupertino.
In August, the San Bruno City Council rejected a 425unit development at Mills Park , a project that followed a voterapproved plan for the area. In Cupertino, a group of residents has sued to block the redevelopment of the Vallco shopping center — 2,400 homes and 2 million square feet of office space — and city officials have not opposed the lawsuit.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development has threatened to sue both cities for turning down housing, although lawsuits have not been filed.
At an October hearing on the South San Francisco project, Ed Swain, who lives near the project, said “traffic is horrendous here, especially at 5 o’clock.” Another resident, Corey David, said, “The very character of the city is being destroyed block by block and the destruction is spreading.”
But other South City residents said they welcomed the new housing. Roderick Bovee said he would be able to walk his child to the day care center from his house and he looked forward to small businesses locating in the market hall.
“It will be exciting to build up a community on the west side of South San Francisco that is not so cardependent,” he said.
School board member Pat Murray, a lifelong resident, said the town desperately needs the housing. She said her three working adult children live at home because they can’t afford a place of their own. She has looked into moving to Oregon, where a house costs onethird the price.
“I feel like I live in an area that will eventually split up my family,” she said.
The developers behind the project — L37 Partners, Kasa Partners and Bridge Housing — are trying to address concerns. Eric Tao of L37 Partners said the project would include traffic improvements and estimates that 35% of residents would commute by public transit. He said the site sits 30 feet below where Kaiser is located on El Camino Real, which will make the buildings appear shorter.
“This is an old, established bedroom community and nobody likes change, and (many are) afraid of traffic and congestion,” said Tao. “But I think those fears are unfounded.”
If the City Council rejects the project, the developer can use the state density bonus program to propose a bigger development, said Evelyn Stivers, executive director of the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County.
That’s what has happened in San Bruno. After the City Council rejected the 425home development, the developer is considering building a 600unit project that would lack the grocery store and scaledback design neighbors had preferred.
“It is important to keep in mind that the development that is in front of you might be the best you are going to get,” said Stivers.
Stivers said the South San Francisco outcome is important, particularly because it includes so many affordable units. She said after the fights in Cupertino and San Bruno, prohousing advocates are closely watching the Mission Road project.
“Now all eyes are on South San Francisco to see what they will do,” she said.