The San Francisco Planning Commission just drew their line in the sand.
After a developer illegally demolished a landmark home and then retroactively applied for a permit to replace it with a home about three times the size, the commission instead voted 5-0 to require him to build an exact replica of the historic home.
Planning Commissioner Dennis Richards said he hopes the commission’s action in the 49 Hopkins case will send a message to speculators accustomed to ignoring city planning and building laws with few or no repercussions.
“We are tired of seeing this happening in the city and are drawing a line in the sand,” said Richards. “You can have all the rules in the world, but if you don’t enforce them, the rules are worthless.”
Honolulu, are you watching?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-requires-property-owner-who-demolished-13467909.php?t=6225f72057&fbclid=IwAR1rLMXdMInWgNAo5HIV0dqMHv1npvS45hT1PE_Kl-zVqU-203glnwv0aYY
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Applaud, applauding ??.
Maybe the same can be applied toward rainforests, and coastal zones.
That would require a Planning Commission with guts. We actually do not have a Department of Planning and Permitting just Permitting so a Planning Commission with the guts would be a great thing to have. Currently, the members of our Planning Commission have ties to the construction industry: a former DPP person who did nothing while we were under assault by vacation rentals when he was head of that department, a civil engineer, a developer/son of a developer, a union agent, a realtor, and a VP of public affairs for a property development firm. Since all of these members are appointed by the Mayor along with the head of the DPP, the Mayor is ultimately the one responsible for allowing rampant construction and illegal vacation rentals with no consequences. And we haven’t had a mayor with guts since Fasi.
In our dreams.
A friend at DPP tells me one of the problems is that, in addition to being understaffed, they don’t get paid competitively compared to other jurisdictions so the dept. only gets (and keeps) the dregs.
They also need dedicated litigation attorneys to do things like get mandatory injunctions, etc.