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SF's Historic Preservation Rules Are in Limbo, All Part of CA's Push for Housing
The city can no longer use personal judgment when deciding how to alter historic properties. Will redevelopment of a ‘sacrosanct’ funeral home pass muster?
If new plans hold up, it could be San Francisco’s first new housing site to take advantage of a state penalty forcing the city to fast-track residential development, bypassing hurdles such as environmental review. Planners eventually decided in the owner Robert Tillman’s favor, but the Mission District’s supervisor, Hillary Ronen, tried several times to broker a deal to sell the building to a local affordable housing developer. SF Planning’s deputy director of citywide policy Joshua Switzky tells The Frisc the new rules may take months to finish, and until then, what might be protecting truly historic properties is the economy: Very little construction is moving ahead at the moment.
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