By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate Friday, September 21, 2007

In San Francisco the concept of change carries great currency when it comes to food, technology, family and politics, but utter the word in the context of a peeling Victorian facade or a distressed brick warehouse, and people will begin muttering about “neighborhood character” and “the way it’s always been.”

Sure, we have the Federal Building and the de Young Museum expressing San Francisco’s newfound willingness to tiptoe into the 21st century, but these buildings ain’t where folks sleep. Over the years I’ve heard too many rants from architects to forget that getting permits for an innovative design can be an uphill battle — especially if the property lies in a “well-established” neighborhood (a.k.a. somewhere with historic homes occupied by middle-class home owners with time to organize neighborhood groups). When it comes to residential architecture, our fair city gives new meaning to the phrase “arch conservative.”

So when I saw that the American Institute of Architects’ San Francisco chapter was offering a weekend of home tours “showcasing modernism at its finest,” I was curious about how a new generation of residential buildings was fitting into our well-loved urban landscape.

What did these esteemed “state of the art” single-family homes and architect/developer multi-family buildings say about the place of modern architecture in San Francisco’s infamously protective neighborhoods? Which neighborhoods were more open to innovation amidst all the vintage Victorian, Edwardian, Mediterranean and mid-century? And while we’re at it, how had these architects managed to get permits for homes without bay windows?

The first thing I noticed is that the heart of modernism beats (if it beats anywhere) on the east side of the city. With the exception of one house in the outer Richmond, every showcased building was located in the South of Market or in easterly ‘hoods like Potrero Hill, Noe Valley, the Mission and Bernal Heights. The reasons for this are many: Bernal, for instance, though infamous for its neighborhood design groups, also has the most empty lots, which have attracted a generation of designers and architects. But all of these neighborhoods have areas with a surprising diversity of housing stock all cheek- and-jowl next to one another.

“It often depends how much diversity there is in the existing context,” says Neal Schwartz of Schwartz and Architecture, whose Potrero three-level home plus office was featured in the tour. “In Potrero, for instance, there’s an amazing diversity of styles, so it’s easier to do contemporary architecture in that context.”

Schwartz’s renovation embodies the other evident fact about these “new modernist buildings.” All but one of the single-family homes on the tour were not technically new construction but “additions,” “revitalizations” or “expansions.” In the logic of the city’s planning codes, it’s far easier to gut a home and add two extra floors than get permits to demolish an existing home and build something new. (Demolitions are possible, but the home must be sufficiently dilapidated to qualify.)

“The limitations against demolishing are a good thing in the sense that they prevent developers from mowing down a block and destroying the existing fabric,” says Andrew Sparks, an associate with Levy Art and Architecture, a firm that showcased a total renovation in Diamond Heights. “But when it’s applied to a single owner it’s very difficult. Getting a demolition permit can take two years alone. And though sometimes it’s cheaper and better to demolish the home, instead they have to renovate what they already have.”

“This is a renovation with a large extension,” Owen Kennerly of Kennerly Architecture and Planning told me from the rooftop deck of an extravagant stone and steel modernist dream house on 27th Street in Noe Valley. “We kept the front room, which was the living room.” Yet looking at the open spaces, massive staircases, and floor-to-ceiling windows of the three-floor home, it’s difficult to imagine where a single scrap of the old structure might have been. Kennerly says that this home — despite its larger- than-life modernist presence — got virtually no resistance from the neighbors.

So does this mean it’s actually easier to get approval for contemporary designs? It depends on who you ask.

“San Francisco prides itself on being the most liberal city on the planet,” says Ross Levy, founder of Levy Art and Architecture. “But until recently we’ve had a relatively homogeneous building stock. Other cities — like Barcelona, London, Madrid, which are more secure in their history, have embraced modern architecture. But it is getting easier and more acceptable. It’s also more in demand. People are realizing that these are fantastic places to live. Even here, when people buy Victorian homes, we gut them — because no one wants to live in those rooms.”

“It’s still a struggle,” says Sparks. “But it probably will always be a struggle to some extent. Because in doing contemporary architecture, you’re trying to do something new, you’re exploring new materials and exploring space, you’re trying to respond to people’s contemporary lifestyles.”

Other architects suggest that things are finally changing as the populace realizes modernism doesn’t mean cheapo boxes on the hill. “You have to make a good case for change with the planning department,” says Kennerly. “But they understand that with good use of materials, good design actually contributes to the neighborhood.”

David Baker, founder of David Baker + Partners, contends that even the neighborhood groups have changed: “If there’s a meeting and someone asks why the building doesn’t look like the Victorians next to it, then some other neighbor will stand up and say, ‘Because we’re not living in the 19th century.’”

Yet there are still institutional and community obstacles — obstacles which effect designs, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Currently all buildings over 50 years old can be subject to an historic designation which in turn triggers certain guidelines limiting any alteration of the facade. “Typically the facades of buildings with historical designations can’t be changed more than 25 percent,” explains Sparks, “So we have to work very strategically.”

Sometimes, altering a facade can actually help to unify the look of the neighborhood. Schwartz says that since his home remodel began as an “ugly” 1950s home which was far smaller than existing homes surrounding it, creating a larger facade was actually “healing the disruption.”

The outcome may be a taller profile — more or less equal to the buildings around it. But it’s also far from ostentatious: a simple stucco front with moderately sized windows in low-key earth tones. With a couple of exceptions, almost all the buildings on the tour — be they warehouses in SOMA or single family homes in residential neighborhoods — are so inconspicuous that they act as camouflage for the extravagance within.

This of course can be a sly design strategy: “I designed the facade so that someone not interested in design might walk by and not notice it,” says Schwartz, “But for someone into contemporary architecture, they might notice the mahogany windows or the bamboo on the third floor deck and think: Hey, something’s going on in there.”

But the low-key exterior functions as a survival strategy for concealing the secret and sometimes extravagant) modern design within. One warehouse on a scrappy street in the Mission which harbors 10,000 feet of ultra modern grooviness designed by Stanley Saitowitz of Natoma Architects Inc., exhibits no exterior signs of alteration, except for its flat, monochromatic black facade. Like a secret agent clad all in black, it seems to be whispering: Forget you ever saw me.

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer; Sunday, August 19, 2007

Thanks to strict zoning laws, West Berkeley is like a bug trapped in amber. The outside world keeps changing, but West Berkeley is encased in a timeless golden bubble.

Potters coexist happily with biotech researchers. Architects and steel workers mingle over the tofu scramble at the Westside Cafe. No one fights over parking, and the bougainvillea is always blooming.

But change is looming, and not even Berkeley’s stringent industrial and multi-use zoning laws - which have kept gentrification mostly at bay - can protect a neighborhood forever.

West Berkeley’s convenient location, undeveloped land and funky character are proving too tempting for developers. And some local politicians, property owners and business operators agree that it’s time to open the area to some growth.

“There hasn’t been this much pressure on artists and industry in the 30 years I’ve been here,” said Rick Auerbach of the West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies, a nonprofit trade organization. “There’s tremendous fear they will be priced out of Berkeley.”

In December, the City Council is expected to consider forming a special assessment district, called a Community Benefits District, that would tax local property owners for such things as street improvements, security and a BART shuttle.

And there is talk of modifying and updating the city’s 1995 West Berkeley Plan, a blueprint intended to keep rents low for artists and industries by excluding most housing and retail uses.

Several recent projects have crept past the West Berkeley Plan through zoning variances, including West Berkeley Bowl, slated to be the biggest grocery store in Berkeley. It recently broke ground on Ninth Street. The former Drayage building, an artists’ compound, was demolished to make way for condominiums and retail on Third Street, and more housing and retail is slated for the site now occupied by Brennan’s and Celia’s restaurants, adjacent to the trendy Fourth Street shopping area.

Brennan’s, a favorite watering hole since the 1950s, plans to move to the old Berkeley train station across the parking lot. A group of regulars are throwing a reunion Sept. 29 to celebrate the tavern’s longevity.

But plenty of other sites in West Berkeley remain stagnant, ensnared by municipal zoning restrictions. The former Peerless Lighting factory, which occupies two square blocks on Fifth Street, sits vacant because the owner can’t find a tenant. Like elsewhere in the U.S., industry is fleeing for Mexico, China and other countries with cheaper labor.

“Given we are a college town, land use is very constrained in West Berkeley,” said Michael Caplan, the city’s economic development director.

The city staff, some property owners and businesses would like to see the West Berkeley Plan updated to allow higher-density housing, more research-and-development offices, and more retail to expand on the success of Fourth Street.

“It’s in a time of flux,” said City Councilman Darryl Moore, who represents the neighborhood. “The West Berkeley Plan is very restrictive. We need to try to accommodate all the groups in the community.”

Moore would like to see the zoning laws loosened, but with steps to protect the 400 or so artists who live and work in the area. Moore suggested creating a zone for artists or forcing developers to set aside a certain amount of space for affordable live-work studios.

Changing the West Berkeley Plan would not be easy. The plan took eight years to write, involved hundreds of people, and was vetted at dozens of community meetings and hearings.

But the city is taking a few steps to make the area more business-friendly without major alterations of the plan. An auto row is proposed for Ashby Avenue near Interstate 80, and the zoning would get a few tweaks.

Artists and industrial companies, such as Urban Ore, have been fighting the changes, but the idea that by far has generated the most outrage is a proposed community benefits district.

If it passes, the district would levy a tax on property owners in West Berkeley, raising about $600,000 a year to pay for street improvements, security, maintenance and a BART shuttle.

Community benefits districts are common in San Francisco, Oakland and other large cities, but West Berkeley’s is unique because it includes housing, industry, offices and some retail, whereas most districts are strictly commercial.

“It’s really eclectic,” said Marco Li Mandri, president of New City America, the San Diego planning firm that’s organizing the district. “But this is what we’ll see more of in the 21st century as more people move into the urban cores. It’s the Europeanization of the American city and its public spaces.”

Creation of the district first requires approval from a majority of property owners based on property values. Then the City Council must approve going ahead with the district and the collection of taxes.

But many residents are opposing the district because the votes - both to create and govern the district - are weighted toward larger property owners. The 81 single-family homes in the district represent about a fifth of the total number of properties in the proposed district. Homeowners would pay much less in assessments than larger property owners, and would have less say in how the money is spent.

“Neighbors feel like we have no voice,” said Sarah Klise of the Potter Creek Neighborhood Association. “I don’t see development and change as bad - I only see it as bad when it’s not respectful of the neighborhood.”

Auerbach called it “taxation without representation.”

The City Council could vote on the community benefits district as soon as December and, if it passes, the first taxes could be collected in December 2008.

Meanwhile, Auerbach and others remain opposed to changing the neighborhood zoning.

“It’s like a beehive of incredible synergy down here.” He said. “There may be some tweaks that could be valuable, but otherwise, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Earthbound Farm grew the tainted spinach that left three dead last year. The firm is on a safety crusade but knows that threats always lurk.

Susan Fornoff, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, August 4, 2007

Take a look around their 1850s Bayview house, with its parlor stove and period furniture, staircase balusters and vintage photographs, and then go ahead and accuse Adrian Card and John Tinker of living in the past.

“Isn’t that rather obvious?” they might respond, or, more likely for two such polite gentlemen, “Thank you.”

Tinker, 48, studied 18th century British literature before he began teaching in Stanford’s writing program, and Card, 43 today, is a decorative painter whose speciality is harpsichords. Living in the past is nothing new to them - they do not even own a TV.

In 2002, after renting together for 12 years, they finally found their architectural soul mate on Oakdale Avenue - a rundown yet charming Gold Rush-era cottage a little the worse for 150 years of wear - and have spent most evenings and weekends since engaged in returning the house to its original splendor while uncovering the stories of past residents.

They used to go to movies. Now when they want a good story, they look up descendents of former owners. They used to eat out. Now they gaze at still-unfinished dining room walls and eat off plates in a china pattern they matched to the bits and pieces they dug up in the yard.

“I used to ride my bike, but I’ve replaced bicycling with gardening,” Tinker said.

But, Tinker insisted, “no regrets.” If ever a house matched its inhabitants, this is it.

Card knew it before the house went on the market. He had felt kindred to it for years just driving by the place, even with its lot untended and bargeboards broken. But when the listing appeared on the market in the fall of 2002 for $420,000, he couldn’t make it on the one night the house would be shown.

Tinker easily decided for them both. He peered through the layers of wallpaper, through the missing staircase balusters and Section 8-prompted room divisions that had accommodated nine residents with five bedrooms, and saw Jane Austen.

“It was a classic ‘two over two,’ ” he said. “Two rooms up, two rooms down. And it just felt good.”

They paid less than the asking price and moved in - without a functioning bathroom because the plumbing and part of the roof had to be replaced. Foundation work also was needed. Card quickly went to work inside after an architectural historian visited and said of the doors, “You know, when you scrape this paint off, you’re going to find golden oak wood graining under there.”

“We said, ‘Well, isn’t that cocky of him,’ ” Card said. “But he was right.”

Card’s work on the walls downstairs in the original foyer, parlor and dining room, where he already has done some decorative paint treatments and restored much of the wood on the doors, windows, casings and moldings, has obviously consumed too many hours to count. When it became tedious, he headed for the library or the computer to learn more about the house’s previous lives.

This led to the compilation of a seven-page timeline that begins with John Hittell’s arrival in San Francisco in 1849. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Natural Sciences, who Card and Tinker believe built the house, which was in a Carpenter Gothic style rarely seen in the city today.

It’s not clear whether Hittell lived in the house, but in 1868 he appears to have sold the property to John Godeus for $1,500. Godeus had lost his first wife aboard the steamboat Washoe en route to Sacramento in 1864, when the boiler exploded and killed about 100 people. (Mark Twain wrote the story for the San Francisco Morning Call.)

Godeus, born in Holland, became a U.S. citizen later that year and remarried in 1865. John and Mary Godeus were portrait photographers whose work lives on in family albums all over the Bay Area; Card and Tinker have scoured flea markets and eBay and collected many of their portraits (sometimes for as little as $1) for display on shelves of the dining room closet.

Card’s research yielded a newspaper announcement of the couple’s 25th anniversary party - at the house on Oakdale, then known as 15th Avenue South - as well as a directory of female photographers that included Mary Godeus and a biographical sketch that outlined John Godeus’ accomplishments. Not long ago, the Godeuses’ great-granddaughter stopped by with an armful of clippings during a visit from San Diego.

The Godeuses added a kitchen in about 1870. John died in 1895, at 63, and the family began renting the house in about 1900. They sold it in 1926 to Louis and Naomi Gouygou. In 1950, Rosario and Catherine De Battista bought the house and kept it for 25 years; history blurs over the next 25 years, when there were four ownership changes before Card and Tinker bought it from Tak Tsui.

The house appears to have no damage from the 1906 earthquake - “it’s perfectly square,” Card said - although there is evidence of a fire earlier. The Gouygous’ daughter, Yvonne, shared some more history with Card - her father, it turns out, jacked the house up off the ground to put a garage and basement beneath it, and he sealed off the well in the yard because he worried about children falling in.

“Oh, are the parlor stoves still there?” she asked Card and Tinker.

There were once four, they think, but now there is one, not original but an 1856 model that Card and Tinker found online in Vermont and installed in their restored parlor. This is also one of the rooms where Card has peeled the layers down to what he believes to be the original wallpaper (DIY note from the expert: Cider vinegar works as well as the commercial stripping solutions and comes much cheaper), and now he’s debating whether to have the wallpaper re-created by an artisan or use the original as inspiration for a decorative paint treatment.

The wall dividing the other original downstairs room into two bedrooms has been removed, and it is once again a large, sunny and elegant dining room, furnished mostly of the period but with a contemporary painting by the couple’s friend Kevin Bean, and also a sarcophagus and a chandelier of 1930s table lamps made by another friend, Richard Dermody, whose grandfather was photographed by the Godeuses.

The dining room has two closets because one held the bathroom in the 1920s. Now the bathroom is at the back of the house, containing, naturally, a claw-foot tub - though sensibly bigger than the vintage one they found in the basement. Tinker and Card haven’t decided yet how to update the big kitchen beyond, but it’s working for them at the moment.

Up the stairs, which are carpeted in a period runner from a company in Pennsylvania that specializes in such work, the master bedroom has been restored; Tinker’s study, the first room in which Card refinished the floor and stripped and restored the woodwork, is in a divided room, the other half of which will be a library when Card does his thing.

“Then this floor …” Tinker said, “… will be done,” Card finished.

“It’s a word we never use,” Tinker said. “But this floor will be done.”

The inner workings of the house have been Card’s responsibility; Tinker works on the garden, where it was three months before the fish tank was uncovered. They’ve had help: Kindred spirits in period revival from Artistic License lent expertise; Card’s father, Arnold, came out from New Jersey and did the bathroom; and Tinker’s father, George, from Illinois, got his hands dirty in the garden.

There, they dug up dolls they think belonged to the Godeuses’ daughter, Clara, and the pieces of dishes they were able to find still usable companions to on eBay.

Neighbors who used to call it the witch’s house stop by to praise their work, though all seem to agree that the place is still haunted.

“Sure it is, but in a good way,” Card said. “It just has a really good feel about it. Whether that’s ghosts …”

“Or maybe people have just lived well here,” finished Tinker - though, of course, nothing is really finished.

– To see more photos of the house and its renovation, go to sfgate.com/homeandgarden.

Adrian Card and John Tinker have been researching the history of their house whenever they needed a break from the hammering and digging its restoration has required. Here are a few of their valued resources:

– The San Francisco History Center of the Main Library, where Card found guidance even though most official records were lost in the 1906 earthquake. A good starting point for researching a San Francisco building’s history is online, at sfpl.org/librarylocations/sfhistory/sfbuilding.htm, which lists and has contact information for 19 sources of records and directories.

– The online archive of California, www.oac.cdlib.org , which had a photo of original owner John Hittell among its many treasures.

– Artistic License, a group of period revival specialists, many of whom have antiquated skills - including Card, whose specialty is harpsichord decoration ( www.adriancard.com ). Matthias Gordon Murer helped replicate missing bargeboards on the porch, and wood turner Hector Bezanis restored missing pendants from the roof corners and balusters on the staircase. www.artisticlicense.org

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Louis Hagler, a retired physician, went years without a decent night’s sleep. The culprit? Train horns blasting at up to 120 decibels just 100 yards from his house in Richmond.

“It became a problem of monumental proportions,” he said last week. “When you’re not getting one, a good night’s sleep is worth a million bucks. Then a group of us started complaining vociferously and consistently and we got it done. We silenced the train horns.”

Richmond is one of the first cities in the U.S. to take advantage of a new federal law that allows cities to ban train horns. By installing flashing lights, extra barriers and other safety measures at train crossings, a city can order train engineers not to blast their horns as they rumble through residential neighborhoods.

Richmond likes quiet zones so much that city now has four of them. Campbell has two. San Jose has quiet zones along the light-rail tracks. Berkeley, Emeryville, Novato and other Bay Area cities now want their own train-horn-free zones.

But at what price is a good night’s sleep? The California Public Utilities Commission and other groups say the risk to public safety is too high. With rail traffic at an all-time high and urban gentrification bringing thousands more people to live, work and play near train tracks, the risk of fatalities could soar, said PUC spokeswoman Susan Carothers.

“We definitely have safety concerns when horns are silenced,” she said. “We’re not in favor of quiet zones. The PUC sees horns as a safety measure, and that becomes increasingly important as we become more and more populated in the Bay Area.”

Berkeley had a first-hand experience with rail tragedy June 19 when a popular community activist, Lucie Buchbinder, was killed by an Amtrak train she apparently did not hear while crossing the tracks at Jack London Square in Oakland. Buchbinder, 83, a founder of the Bread Project in Berkeley, was hit when she walked behind a slow-moving freight train that had just passed, not aware of the Amtrak train traveling in the opposite direction with its horn sounding.

Though not related to the train-horn issue, her death underscored crossing dangers as the city prepared to move forward with its quiet zone plans. On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously approved the first step in creating at least four quiet zones at vehicle crossings. The city will start accepting bids from consultants to upgrade the safety apparatus where Hearst Avenue, and Virginia, Cedar and Addison streets cross the train tracks near Interstate 80.

The upgrades will cost between $50,000 and $70,000 per intersection, although the city will try to pay for it with grant money, said Councilwoman Linda Maio, who is sponsoring the plan.

“Clearly, if we found we were really putting people at risk, we’d have to rethink it,” she said. “But right now, a lot of people seem to want this.”

The quiet zone law went into effect only last year, so it’s too early to compare accident rates between quiet zones and those where engineers sound horns. But in areas that adopted local quiet zones before the federal law passed, the collision rate increased 80 percent on average, said Warren Flatau, spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, noting that not all the quiet crossings were equipped with the compensating safety features required under the “quiet zones” law. In one Florida study, there was a 195 percent increase in collisions at quiet zones, he said.

California already leads the United States in pedestrian deaths along train tracks. In 2006, 91 pedestrians were killed by trains, accounting for almost a fifth of the nationwide total. California ranks third in the nation for vehicle collisions with trains, with 166 accidents in 2006.

“California has a lot of trains and a lot of people. Safety obviously has to be a major priority,” said Marmie Edwards, vice president of communications at Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit group that advocates for rail safety. “It’s only going to be a bigger and bigger issue.”

Even without sounding their horns, trains are quieter than they used to be, Edwards said. Tracks in California are now all welded, as opposed to bolted, so trains no longer make their familiar “clickety clack” sound. As a result, it’s harder to judge how far away and how fast a train is moving.

“When the train is quieter, people think it’s further away than it really is, and think, ‘I can slip across here, no problem.’ ” she said. “Well, the average train is 12 million pounds. It’s not the kind of thing you want to get in front of, even when it’s only moving at 15 mph. It can be very messy.”

The train engineers’ union hasn’t come out against quiet zones, but they’re not thrilled with them, either.

“It’s a constant fear for engineers that they’ll be involved in a collision,” said John Bentley, spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “Being a train engineer is one of the most stressful jobs out there. Our concern is that the quiet zone crossings provide a high enough level of safety.”

Some engineers are so concerned about safety they continue to sound their horns even in quiet zones. In Richmond, quiet zone violations have been the only complaint from the public, said the city’s administrative chief, Janet Schneider.

“Our residents are thrilled with quiet zones. They’re ecstatic,” she said. “We’ve had no collisions or other safety problems at all.”

Key zoning report will outline impact on city’s eastern areas

Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer; Monday, July 2, 2007

Scores of developers with residential projects pending on San Francisco’s east side will learn more this week about whether they will someday be allowed to build thousands of new apartments and condominiums.

More than a year after the Board of Supervisors and planning officials put an abrupt halt to the development plans, the city cleared for release on Saturday a draft report examining how zoning changes across 2,200 acres in four South of Market neighborhoods could affect the traffic, noise, pollution, jobs and housing supply in the area.

Together, the neighborhoods — the Mission, Showplace Square/Potrero Hill, East SoMa and Central Waterfront — represent much of the heart of San Francisco’s industrial past but also opportunities for new construction of market-rate and affordably priced condominiums and apartments.

And the 600-page draft Eastern Neighborhoods Environmental Impact Report — which developers, activists and politicians will start thumbing through this week — is expected to greatly influence the debate about how much land should be preserved for light industry and how much should be opened up for new housing development.

“Older cities like San Francisco have to decide how they will transform themselves, and this is a prime example of that,” said Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, a member of the board’s Land Use Committee. “There’s not much opportunity to build on the west side of town, and things have been changing on the east side for some time … but we have not had any comprehensive planning there.”

Neighborhood advocates, who blanched when live-work lofts replaced industrial land in the late 1990s, want zoning changes that will protect blue-collar jobs and increase the supply of affordable housing for working-class San Franciscans.

They want land dedicated exclusively for what the San Francisco Planning Department calls production, distribution and repair uses, and they argue that developers should pay more than the standard city fees for affordable housing, parks, libraries, transportation and other city services.

Developers see the neighborhoods’ potential for profitable residential construction that helps alleviate the city’s overall housing shortage. They are frustrated because they have paid taxes, mortgages and insurance on land with an uncertain economic future while waiting for proposed zoning changes from the city.

The builders expect that the draft report will tell them how the city believes their property should be zoned — whether it can be used to construct housing, or whether it must be preserved for industrial space, or a little of both.

In April 2006, when a Mission District condo development came before the board, the supervisors made a ruling that not only brought that particular project at 2660 Harrison St. to a standstill, but also put numerous other projects into bureaucratic limbo.

The supervisors called for an extensive evaluation of not only the project’s impact on traffic and the immediate physical environment, but also on blue-collar employment and affordable housing in the greater area.

City planners interpreted the order to apply to any development proposal for land in the eastern neighborhoods that might displace an existing or potential industrial use — there were about 53 projects in the pipeline at the time. Planners decided to initiate the broad environmental impact report introduced in draft form this weekend.

Builders say mounting costs associated with the delay, including the climbing price of materials and labor, mean that buyers and renters of the new housing will pay more, if the projects are ever built. Some developers said they decided to abandon projects because they became financially infeasible over time.

“All of us are dying to see this planning process complete — it’s an embarrassment and an outrage that it’s taken this long,” said Michael Yarne, development director at Martin Building Co. in San Francisco, which has seen two projects stalled by the city.

The city’s environmental report analyzes three zoning options, which vary by the amount of industrial-zoned land that could be converted for housing and mixed commercial uses.

In each option, the amount of land dedicated to light industry is expected to decrease. The middle of the three choices would see an increase of 7,385 residences and a decline of more than 2 million square feet zoned for production, distribution and repair.

However, unlike current rules, in which housing and commercial developers can obtain special permission to build on industrial land, the zoning would create areas where production, distribution and repair property would be protected and housing would be banned.

In addition to griping about the slow planning process, developers complain about additional fees that might be charged to pay for transportation, parks and other infrastructure needed to support the new development.

The Planning Department has proposed that developers pay $13 for each square foot of new residential development and $4 for each square foot of new commercial development or a conversion from industrial to commercial space. A separate departmental study, due out later this summer, will provide more detail about the fees.

In 2005, the Board of Supervisors imposed a $25 per-square-foot fee on developers of 2,200 new market-rate condominiums on Rincon Hill.

“All developers want is some certainty,” said Brett Gladstone, a lawyer who represents a developer with two projects pending in the eastern neighborhoods. “When the game changes midstream, they can lose their shirt.”

Neighborhood advocates who want to protect the land for blue-collar jobs — in industries such as auto and furniture repair, printing, storage, warehousing and shipping — say the city needs to proceed cautiously to avoid a mass socioeconomic shift in the area and maintain an important segment of the city’s economy.

They point to Planning Department estimates that 53,000 people work in production, distribution and repair facilities in San Francisco and that 70 percent of those workers live in the city.

The dot-com boom cost the neighborhoods a big chunk of industrial space, they note, with digital firms converting warehouses into office buildings and nearly 2000 live-work lofts taking over former industrial sites. Loft developers also escaped paying fees typically applied to new residential construction, because the city did not define the lofts as residential.

“We want to retain the character of those neighborhoods as mixed-use with a variety of work and activities and affordable housing for working-class people,” said community activist Calvin Welch. “When you talk about restricting production and distribution sites and expanding high-density condominiums, you’re talking about replacing one population with another.”

Welch said developers should expect to pay added fees because the cumulative impact of all the new housing will place a strain on infrastructure and police, fire and other city services.

City planners started paying attention to the eastern neighborhoods back in 2002, when it became clear that developers were gravitating to the area.

But it wasn’t until housing advocates challenged a Planning Commission decision on the 2660 Harrison St. project that the comprehensive zoning study got under way in earnest.

The supervisors voted 8-2 to require more study, and days later, the Planning Department announced the decision would be applied to all “similarly situated projects.”

Although completion of the draft report — officially released Saturday — has been much anticipated, a final draft will require public hearings and approval by both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

City Planning Director Dean Macris said he hopes the report will be presented to the board by January, but others — developers in particular — believe it will take much longer.

E-mail Robert Selna at rselna@sfchronicle.com.

Zahid Sardar Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The first factory-made wood-panel home has just gone up in San Francisco on a hilly lot in Glen Park.

Although it looks no different than any other made from standard wood-frame construction, this new way of building may be so cost-effective that it will change the way people design custom homes in the future.

A panelized system reduces the time it takes to frame a standard 3,000-square-foot home by half and saves more than $50,000 on that one phase of building alone.

This three-story wood-and-glass home with split-level floors and dramatic picture windows belongs to architects Jim Zack and Lise de Vito, who will live there with their two children. Many suburban homes have been built using this panel system, but none have the custom look the couple have achieved.

“My original intent was to simplify the construction of such a house in San Francisco,” Zack said. “We were very interested in mechanizing a traditional way of building,” he said, because the couple have begun to develop similar properties for sale. They considered steel construction and other panel construction companies, such as Ceres’ Metecno-API (which is supplying LEED-rated steel-covered foam panels for a loftlike San Francisco house designed by Olle Lundberg), but found what they needed on the Internet.

“Most panelized construction companies like to do 10 or 20 houses at a time, but Forma Homes in Fernley, Nev., was the only one where we could do a single custom project like ours,” said Zack.

That company’s first manufactured panel home in the Bay Area is in Danville, where Forma Chief Executive Michael Murray lives. (See “When your ship comes in, prefab house could be on it,” April 21 and “House in a box / Modular home-building goes upscale in Danville,” July 25, 2004).

An architect’s design is first translated into 3-D CAD models at Forma and then constructed on an automated assembly line by machines. Precut lumber, sized for standard walls from 8 to 12 feet high and as wide as 24 feet, is aligned, nailed, trimmed and sheathed so quickly and efficiently that Forma can construct walls for a 3,000-square-foot home in less than a day for about $12 to $16 a square foot.

The advantage for homeowners in San Francisco’s high-cost labor arena is that these panels can be quickly assembled by a handful of carpenters in six weeks — less than half the time it normally takes.

“There is also a green factor,” said Zack. “There is less waste on-site because you are not cutting lots of lumber.” The lumber is custom cut and is ready to assemble when it arrives. As much as 60 percent of Zack and de Vito’s panels use engineered lumber made of laminated wood scraps. Later he realized that every panel could have been ordered that way.

The exterior sheathing is also made of recycled wood remnants instead of plywood, which requires large-diameter trees; the use of non-off-gassing adhesives is another green quality of the panelized building system, which was first used in Sweden.

“There is always waste when you cut lumber,” said Zack. “That waste can be turned right back into engineered lumber if the waste occurs right at the mill.” At Zack’s building site, there was no waiting trash bin because there was hardly any waste.

For two weeks the interior panels, fully sheathed on one side with drywall and, for the exterior, additional waterproof Tyvek and siding (a complicated assembly Forma perfected for this, its first city job) arrived in batches on flatbed trucks just wide enough to maneuver around narrow Laidley Street. San Francisco and other tightly packed urban areas require double drywall sheathing (a layer inside and one outside) along property lines so that a house fire can be contained. The floor and windowless wall panels unceremoniously dumped onto the street were kept flat by the drywall sheathing on one side. Walls with preinstalled windows were treated with greater care, packed vertically for the long trip from factory to construction site because they are fragile and prone to warping.

“For us the time savings was the biggest plus,” said Zack. By using Forma’s panels, their typical 14-week framing project was reduced to one week of preparation time to get the base ready, three weeks installing panels and three weeks to hand-frame walls the factory could not produce.

“They could not do everything,” said Zack. “They can’t do angled walls, and they can’t do short walls (under tall windows, for instance) effectively.”

Since de Vito had designed the building for conventional wood framing, 15 percent of the structure had to be framed by hand. In the next house they design, keeping Forma’s limitations in mind, Zack and de Vito will use only pre-framed panels.

“We had bids for the construction materials from $75,000 to $85,000 roughly. Labor for us is about $8,000 a week, and we got all the panels delivered for $95,000, which is equal to the cost of materials plus one week of labor,” said Zack. Add to that the cost of renting a crane to lift the heavy panels and you still save $50,000.

“In San Francisco there is also an unquantifiable benefit,” said Zack. Instead of five construction workers with hammers and saws working for 14 weeks, neighbors can appreciate it when there are only six weeks of noise.

Could San Francisco mandate this neighborly way of building? Perhaps, said Zack, but there are often access issues — a truck may not be able to deliver panels to every location.

Architect Tom Kundig, speaking recently at the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco, highlighted another drawback of prefabricated panel construction: It discourages the development of local building skills.

Zack poured a concrete foundation and laid the ground floor to provide an efficient plinth from where they were able to add the lower walls and top two stories of the structure within six weeks. But before they got started on the framing phase, “we spent 100 hours coordinating our drawings with their company, communicating information and verifying their drawings. This was extra effort we may be able to avoid next time,” said Zack.

Still, that time spent saved them money, said Murray.

“We have a framer guy who explains what the proper foundations ought to have for panelized construction. We help clients with hold-down layout, and we work with an architect for a month or two before they pour a foundation,” said Murray, because that’s where things go wrong.

Surprisingly, Zack, who thought that Forma’s panels would be unusual in some intrinsic way, found them to be the same as conventional wood walls built on-site.

“They are just put together with more machine labor,” he said. And that, Murray points out, is why they are truly straight and better made.

“We had problems with scheduling and rain,” said Zack. Mountain snows delayed a big shipment for several days. When a delivery truck is late, it means that five carpenters and an expensive crane for lifting panels are waiting, which increases costs.

Oddly, that’s not something they’d worry about normally. “In conventional construction, there is always more to do,” Zack said, not without irony.

A European-style plaza is emerging from gritty area of Old U.S. Mint

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, June 10, 2007

For years, the two alleys that border the Old U.S. Mint in downtown San Francisco were cautionary tales in urban planning as they gradually declined into seediness after the Mint museum closed its doors in 1994.

The little stub of Mint Street, and the block of Jessie Street that runs from Mint into Fifth Street near Mission Street, had nothing but potential. The reality, however, was grim. There were drugs, there were derelicts, there was public urination. The two little alleys were a big mess.

But now, the two streets are being reborn into something called Mint Plaza. Cars have been banned from a block of Jessie, and it will be transformed into a small plaza, like something in Europe, with restaurants, green trees, outdoor dining and a new atmosphere.

Mint Street, which runs off Fifth into Jessie, will get a new look, too — with new pavement, new parking arrangements, and a cafe or two.

“This is the greatest thing that ever happened around here,” said Joey Chait, managing partner of the Provident Loan Association.

Provident is kind of a San Francisco classic, housed in a building faced in white terra-cotta at the corner of Mint and Mission. It had a cameo role in “The Maltese Falcon,” Dashiell Hammett’s famed detective novel.

The little alley complex around the 1874 Old Mint was once one of the brighter corners of Hammett’s San Francisco. Hammett himself worked around the corner on Market Street and knew the little alleys well.

Up the street at the corner of Mint and Jessie was a five-story brick candy factory, and next to that, on Jessie, was the San Francisco Fire Department’s Station One, the busiest in the city. The firefighters there thought of themselves as elite. “Alley Cats,” they called themselves.

The fire station was relocated some years ago. A kind of urban bleakness gradually set in, and the two streets went downhill.

About 1997, the Martin Building Co. started managing various properties in the area — mostly along Jessie. An old department store warehouse is being converted into offices and residences, and so is the 10-story building over the old firehouse.

People started looking at urban alleys with new eyes. A block or so away, the old Emporium store was turned into a shopping and movie complex. An Intercontinental Hotel is under construction at Fifth and Howard.

The change is dramatic. One Jessie Street building that was covered with graffiti only a year or so ago has a new coat of paint, and some handsome urban apartments were built inside.

The most dramatic change is on the street, where construction on the plaza began May 16.

The idea of a new look for the alleys has been around for years. Why did it take so long?

“Money,” said Patrick McNerney, president of Martin Building, “and the political winds.”

The whole project is possible under provisions of the state Mello-Roos Act, which allows for the creation of a Community Facilities District. It is a complex undertaking — the city retains the ownership of the street, but the plaza will be operated by a nonprofit group called Friends of Mint Plaza. The nonprofit will charge fees for temporary use of the facilities.

The total cost of construction is $3.5 million, paid for by the developer.

The trade-off, of course, is that the developer’s adjacent property will see values increase because of the plaza.

All of this has gone through the mill of the San Francisco permit process, where the bureaucratic wheels grind exceedingly fine. The Mint Plaza has been approved by the Board of Supervisors and nearly every city regulatory city agency. There were 14 public hearings on the plan. “God,” McNerney said, almost to himself, “it’s tough to get anything done in this town.”

When it is done — and Labor Day is the target date — the 18,000-square-foot Mint Plaza will be turned over to the city with the proviso that the nonprofit organization pays for maintenance.

“We want to do something here that will be a part of the city for a hundred years, a special public place that will be part of San Francisco public life,” McNerney said.

The centerpiece of the whole block around the alleys is the Old Mint, which the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society hopes to turn into a museum. That project is much grander and more expansive — one that will cost at least $89 million.

Though the Mint Plaza will be open by September, the Old Mint museum’s target date is four years in the future.

“It’s a great project,” Jim Chappell, president of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, said of the Mint Plaza. “They are closing the streets and giving them back to the people.”

Berkeley sets tough course for its residents to follow to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in city

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer; Thursday, May 24, 2007

In Berkeley’s green future, there will be no incandescent lightbulbs, Wedgewood stoves or gas-powered water heaters. The only sounds will be the whir of bicycles and the purr of hybrid cars — and possibly curses from residents being forced to upgrade all their kitchen appliances.

Six months after Berkeley voters overwhelmingly pass

ed Measure G, a mandate to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, the city is laying out a long-term road map for residents, business and industry. It includes everything from solar panels at the Pacific Steel foundry to composted table scraps.

While San Francisco, Oakland and other local governments in the Bay Area have approved policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Berkeley is the first to begin spelling out how people would be expected to reduce their carbon footprints.

Some measures will be popular and easy, like a car-share vehicle on every block and free bus passes. But others will be bitter pills, such as strict and costly requirements that homes have new high-efficiency appliances, solar-powered water heaters, insulation in the walls and other energy savers.

“It will challenge people, and it will be difficult,” said Cisco DeVries, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Bates and one of those coordinating the city’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts. “But if Berkeley’s niche isn’t leadership on this issue, then what is it? This is what we should be doing.”

It won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy, especially in a city where even the most mundane zoning minutia can become mired in months of debate. Few of the proposals have been approved yet, and some might not be ready for decades.

Berkeley started with an estimate of all the emissions attributable to residents and businesses in the city. These include sources within the city limits, such as cars and trucks and natural gas consumption, and Berkeley’s estimated share of those outside the city, such as electricity generation and solid waste sites.

The city generated, directly or indirectly, 696,498 tons of greenhouse gases in 2000, the benchmark the city will use to measure its 80 percent reduction. That figure has already dropped almost 9 percent, but that’s due largely to greener energy practices by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

To reach an 80 percent reduction, sacrifices would have to be made in all quarters of the city.

Under the emissions crash diet, builders will use only recycled and green materials. Residents will be told exactly how many carbon units they’re generating based on the cars they own, the distances they drive, the waste they generate and the energy they consume. Landlords will be required to provide free bus passes to tenants.

To help out, the city plans to create an assessment district to help residents buy solar panels for their homes — an idea Berkeley officials think other cities will copy. The costs would be tacked on to property tax bills over the course of 30 years so homeowners won’t be stung by the steep up-front price, which can reach thousands of dollars.

Berkeley’s green blueprint calls on people to take small steps on a daily basis as well. Incentives and legislation will make common many activities only a few practice now — walking to work, using cloth shopping bags, buying locally grown produce, shutting off appliances and reducing their use of nonrecyclable packaging.

Bates thinks it all will be an easy sell.

“I think people are looking for ways to lighten their footprint,” he said. “People are willing to make these lifestyle changes, and the cumulative effort will add up. It’s not rocket science. We can do this.”

While virtually everyone in Berkeley agrees that reducing greenhouse gases is a worthy goal, not everyone agrees on the process. Former Mayor Shirley Dean questioned whether the city’s enthusiasm has eclipsed its common sense.

“There’s a funny quote about a man who jumped on his horse and rode off madly in all directions. That reminds me of the Berkeley city government,” Dean said. “I think they need to prioritize and come up with some more immediate, practical measures.”

Dean supports many of the ideas Bates has put forth, such as solar water heaters, but wonders how many of the ideas would be funded, especially when Berkeley residents already pay some of the highest taxes in the state. She also notes that the city’s method of tabulating emissions seems “fuzzy.”

The city is omitting Interstate 80, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from its calculations because those are controlled by state agencies that have their own, and in some cases tougher, greenhouse gas reduction plans, DeVries said.

The city also is counting emissions reductions that occur far outside city limits, such as reductions from PG&E plants and garbage dumps.

But the accounting details are irrelevant, said Dan Kammen, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resource Group.

“Berkeley is one of the first cities to do this, and I think they’re entitled to some creative bookkeeping,” he said.

He also doesn’t think the city will suffer economically from these measures. Developers still will build in Berkeley, housing prices will remain among the highest in the Bay Area, and business will continue to operate. It is Berkeley, after all.

“There’s still a huge cachet to be in Berkeley. I think we’ll see that these plans will actually improve Berkeley’s economy,” he said. “And let’s face it, a lot of cities will be doing the same thing in the future. If we don’t, we’re cooked.”

LET THE SUNSHINE IN

To meet the voter mandate of reducing greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050, Berkeley officials propose:

Bus passes for apartment dwellers and eventually for everyone. Landlords would be allowed a small rent increase (equal to $7 per month in today’s costs) to pay for tenants’ passes; funding of passes for all residents has not been identified.

Increased incentives to install solar panels, especially for water heaters.

Mandatory green building requirements, such as using recycled materials, even for small residential projects.

Strict energy efficiency requirements for all new buildings, resold homes and renovations requiring permits. Older appliances would be have to be replaced, insulation upgraded and added to walls, windows upgraded and garages equipped with outlets for electric cars.

In 2005, residents, businesses and industry in Berkeley emitted 634,798 tons of greenhouse gases, an almost 9 percent drop from 2000. Where the gases came from:

– By sector

Transportation: 47%

Commercial/industrial: 27%

Residential: 26%

– By energy type

Natural gas: 36%

Vehicle gasoline: 29%

Electricity: 18%

Vehicle diesel: 17%

Source: City of Berkeley

E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.

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