Beauty Contest To Be Held For San Francisco Developers

SAN FRANCISCO-San Francisco developers are about to be given the opportunity to strut their stuff in a beauty contest scheduled to take place early next year. Consideration will go to projects – 8 currently on the board – that incorporate art or open space, says San Francisco Planning Director Gerald Green. The contest will also look considerably at projects that include affordable housing as part of its plan, according to Green.

“It’s our desire to distinguish the project that will bring housing about in a much more expedient way,” said Green at last Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting, according to a San Francisco Examiner article. “We want to see housing built, not just contributions.”

The competition, which determines which projects can be approved under the City’s annual office space cap, has not taken place since the late 1980′s, when the slow economy stifled the contest. Proposition M, the City’s current office space cap initiated in 1986, currently allows for only 875,000-sf of large office space and another 75,000-sf in small office projects annually.

Expected to release the new rules by December, the Planning Commission will likely hold the contest in late February or early March, giving developers a chance to make changes to their projects that would adhere to the new rules. Originally, beauty contests considered the design of the project – hence the name.