San Francisco Gets Ahead of Curve, Eases zoning, Approval Process For Building Conversion

I like what San Francisco just did to make it easier to convert existing commercial buildings to housing. It also opened up the type of businesses allowed in Unio Square and the larger downtown area. In the San Francisco Business Times  June 13, 2023, “The city currently has an office vacancy rate of close to 30% and more than 26 million square feet of unused office space, weighted heavily toward older buildings. The legislation adopted on Tuesday provides flexibility for the re-use of older office buildings by relaxing Planning Code requirements pertaining to rear yards, which its proponents have said do not “make sense for conversions of existing buildings in our dense, downtown core… It allows additional office, service, design and retail uses on upper floors and permits indoor and outdoor entertainment, flexible retail workspaces, and larger retailers on ground floors in the area.” Hopefully more cities around the United States are rethinking their restrictive policies that once worked when office buildings were full  and retail stores were in short supply, but in today’s environment these are the types of creative policies needed for downtowns to regain prosperity.