Central SoMa ("South of Market") in San Francisco will soon have a new neighborhood plan. Planners hope zoning changes will reap rewards in property values and public benefits.
"The city [of San Francisco] hopes that the new neighborhood plan considered for the roughly 17 block-area dubbed Central SoMa will pump property values way up between Second and Fourth Street," reports Adam Brinklow.
That ambitious target is included in a report by analysts at San Francisco-based Seifel Consulting [pdf], prepared for the San Francisco Planning Department. The report "singled out a handful of model sites" and "crunched how the proposed zoning changes and subsequent new development would affect their values," explains Brinklow. The zoning changes would be included in the Central SoMa Plan, currently at the Draft Environmental Impact Report stage of the planning process.
The case made by the report includes the big carrot of 50 percent of all increased property values going to public benefits, which "presents a fairly rosy picture of higher density under the plan." San Francisco, of course, is a city famous for its grassroots resistance to development, so it will be interesting to see if the case made by this report finds any traction.
FULL STORY: City hopes SoMa development will pump millions into land values—and public benefits
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