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CH Planning Kills “Nonsense” 50-Story Condo Tower in SF

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CH Planning Kills “Nonsense” 50-Story Condo Tower in SF


CH Planning has killed a controversial plan to build a 50-story condominium tower in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset and has sold the site for affordable housing.

After years of lawsuits and failing to get its project approved, the Reno-based developer led by Raelynn Hickey has withdrawn its plan to construct the 589-foot highrise at 2700 Sloat Boulevard, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

CH Planning sold the 1-acre Sloat Garden Center site to a nonprofit unit of locally based Pacific Housing West for an undisclosed price.

Pacific Housing plans to build an eight-story, 100-percent affordable condominium building, with units sold to moderate-income households. Plans for the project were not disclosed.

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“I gave (Pacific Housing West) authorization to proceed with their development plans with the city,” Hickey, CEO of CH Planning, stated in her withdrawal application. “It’s certainly smaller than anything we had proposed, and we hope it goes well.”

The CH project, proposed as a 646-unit tower in March last year across from the San Francisco Zoo, drew national headlines — its spire soaring over the low-lying neighborhood along Ocean Beach. 

Earlier plans called for 213-unit or 400-unit complexes, before it was upped to 680 condominiums in July.

It also became symbolic of the ongoing battles over the state’s push to force cities to rezone to allow taller, denser residential buildings, according to the Chronicle.

The project drew fierce opposition from neighbors, while local housing boosters pooh-poohed the tower as an outlandish fantasy barred by the city’s zoning code that wouldn’t pencil out.

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The project’s legality boiled down to an interpretation of a zoning rule around “bulk code,” or how many square feet of building can be squeezed onto its footprint, according to the Chronicle.

The developer argued that the project would actually be four thin towers sitting on a single podium. Together, CH argued they would violate bulk and code requirements — but individually they would comply. The city Planning Department disagreed.

CH Planning filed two lawsuits against San Francisco, adding a state law to fast-track affordable homes, in an attempt to overturn the project’s rejection.

Hickey also said CH Planning would be withdrawing the two lawsuits disputing the city’s ruling on the zoning of the property. The developer also asked the city to refund the fees paid for the now-canceled development.

“We don’t want to interfere with the buyer’s efforts and the generation of positive feelings about their project,” Hickey said. “We fully support their housing goals for the area.”

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Planning Director Rich Hillis said the department welcomed the new affordable housing proposal. He said it’s not clear how many units the project would include.

“We believe the site can accommodate hundreds of units of new housing in an area of the city that hasn’t seen much development,” Hillis told the newspaper.

Supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents the Sunset, said the new proposal “puts to rest the nonsense about a 50-story tower that has been a boogeyman and headache for neighbors over the past year.”

San Francisco, whose state-mandated housing element requires the city plan for 82,000 homes by 2031, is now upzoning commercial corridors on the city’s westside for 34,000 new housing units.

— Dana Bartholomew

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San Francisco, CA

Yankees top Giants 7-0 as robot umpire debuts

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Yankees top Giants 7-0 as robot umpire debuts



Aaron Judge went hitless on opening day for the first time and struck out four times for the first time since September 2024, but the New York Yankees still produced plenty of offense and beat San Francisco 7-0 Wednesday night in the debut of Giants manager Tony Vitello as the major league season began.

José Caballero drove in the go-ahead run with an RBI single in a five-run second and also lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball’s so-called robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by Logan Webb in the fourth.

Max Fried (1-0) allowed two hits in 6 1/3 innings to became just the fifth Yankees pitcher since 1969 with at least 6 1/3 shutout innings on opening day, joining Catfish Hunter (1977), Ron Guidry (1980), Rick Rhoden (1988) and David Cone (1996). New York won an opener with a shutout on the road for the first time since 1967.

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Webb (0-1) started the fourth inning with a 90.7 mph sinker on the upper, inner corner that was called a strike by Bill Miller, a major league umpire since 1997. Caballero tapped his helmet, and the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras of the Automated Ball-Strike System upheld Miller’s decision in a graphic shown on the Oracle Park scoreboard.

Caballero singled in the second and Ryan McMahon followed with a two-run single before Austin Wells’ single prompted a mound visit for Webb. Trent Grisham hit a two-run triple and was checked by medical staff after a hard slide into third.

Judge was booed before the game and during each at-bat as he began his 11th big league season. The California native had been pursued by the Giants during free agency in 2022 but he ultimately chose the Yankees’ $360 million, nine-year contract offer.

Webb, a 15-game winner last season making his fifth start on opening day, was tagged for six earned runs — seven in all — and nine hits over five innings.

The 47-year-old Vitello made the big jump from coaching the University of Tennessee.

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The teams resum3 the series Friday afternoon, with RHP Cam Schlittler starting for New York opposite lefty Robbie Ray.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb



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1 dead in house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood

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1 dead in house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood


One person was found dead Tuesday night in a house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood.

The one-alarm fire occurred in the 500 block of Dwight Street and caused major damage to the interior of the home, the Fire Department said.

Firefighters extinguished the fire and remained on the scene checking for hidden fire in the walls and roof.

One person was declared deceased at the scene. The exact manner and cause of the person’s death will be determined by a medical examiner. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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Barricaded suspect in standoff with police in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood

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Barricaded suspect in standoff with police in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood



A person was barricaded inside a residence in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon in a standoff with officers, police said.

The San Francisco Police Department said the situation was happening at the Cadillac Hotel, a historic single-room occupancy building on Eddy Street between Jones and Leavenworth streets. Officers responded to a report of an assault at the hotel at about 2 p.m. and determined that the suspect was barricaded in one of the units, police said.

Crisis negotiators and other specialists also responded and were developing a plan for a peaceful resolution to the standoff, police said. An ambulance and paramedics were also standing by at the hotel.  

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Members of the public were asked to avoid the area. The San Francisco Fire Department said Eddy Street between Leavenworth and Jones was closed to traffic.

The Cadillac Hotel was built in 1907 and has been listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark since 1985, becoming the first nonprofit single-room occupancy hotel west of the Mississippi. For decades, it also housed Newman’s Gym, one of the oldest boxing facilities in the U.S., where boxers such as Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis trained.  

Today, the hotel provides supportive housing for approximately 160 low-income residents. 

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In 2015, the hotel became the site for The Tenderloin Museum.





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