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One housing venture has become an epic San Francisco battle. The true enemy is metropolis crimson tape

The corner lot on 17th and Ord Streets in San Francisco’s Tony Corona Heights neighborhood doesn’t look like much. A nondescript, gray, three-story building stands next to a yard with a chain-link fence covered with poorly cared for ivy.

But this property has become a major focal point in San Francisco’s battle for housing – how much of it this city needs, where it should be, and who decides what will be built. When the owner suggested adding four more houses to the site – including two that would be affordable – the usual battles for neighborhood character, sunlight and diversity began.

The saga turned residents against each other with nasty emails, screaming matches and neighbors who no longer speak to each other. Call it the “real San Francisco homeowners,” and you could be producing a reality television show.

But the real bad guy isn’t the neighbors trying to block more apartments on the site. It’s the city’s outdated zoning regulations that turn small projects into explosive battles in a city with major housing problems.

Rich Hillis, the city’s planning director, also agreed with the assessment that the city’s own rules are to blame, which despite increased demand, a large homeless crisis, and a fleeing middle class severely restrict new housing construction in large parts of the city and dwindling diversity.

“There was a lot to like about that proposal,” said Hillis of the original plan for 4300 17th Street. “But our 1960s code doesn’t allow us to approve it.”

The drama began two years ago when Scott Pluta, a lawyer who worked in the Obama administration and now works for Google, bought the property. He lives on the third floor of the house with his wife Rosalind Pluta, who also works at Google. A tenant lives in a unit subject to rent on the second floor, while the garage, laundry room and workroom are on the ground floor.

Pluta examined his neighborhood and learned that it was 84% ​​white, had an average home value of nearly $ 2 million, and had no affordable housing units. He quickly forged ambitious plans for the property.

He suggested adding an affordable unit on the first floor of his building and adding three units in the garden, two at market prices and one at affordable prices. Both affordable units would be permanently handed over to the Mayor’s Office for Housing, and qualified tenants would be selected through the city’s lottery.

He wanted his property to serve as a kind of laboratory where an experiment could be conducted to find answers to the housing crisis in San Francisco. He knew adding four units was just a tiny piece of the city’s huge housing puzzle – the state has ordered San Francisco to build 80,000 new units by 2031 – but he hoped others could replicate that.

He envisioned six people or families living in small units nearby – maybe a public school teacher, he said, and families of color. It could become a paradise home to people who could have afforded the beautiful neighborhood just a short walk from Muni Castro train station. It could be a model for similar projects in a city that says that it relies primarily on transit, needs affordable housing and wants more diversity.

Scott and Rosalind Pluta’s property, which is currently two units, is located on the corner of 17th Street and Ord Street in the Corona Heights neighborhood.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

“I wanted to do something that was in line with my progressive values,” said Pluta. “The ability to say, ‘I’ve built affordable housing in San Francisco.’ I know it’s cheesy, but it’s meaningful. “

For some of its neighbors, the garden is already a paradise, an open space that gives the surrounding houses more sunlight, air and a view. Pluta’s proposal is hellish in her opinion. Build too big and destroy the character of the block. And some of them say that Pluta pretends to be a social justice fighter when really he’s only there for the money. He said he would not make any money on the project.

At an irritable hearing in November, the planning commission continued the project, saying Pluta’s plan was not possible under the city’s current rules. So he scaled it down. It also lost an affordable unit.

At the request of Corbett Heights Neighbors, the hearing on the new proposal has been postponed for about six weeks and is expected to take place in mid-October. The group said it needed more time to consider the new proposal but was also strongly against it.

Bill Holtzman, president of the neighborhood association, has just returned from the Paris apartment he and his wife own in Paris and said he was still in the process of catching up on the new proposal. But he said it was already clear that according to city rules, the new version was still devouring too much of the garden.

“Our association will always choose trees, grass, and shrubs because that’s what makes San Francisco San Francisco,” he said. “We consider backyards to be inviolable. Until the city or the state changes these rules, we will live by these rules and we will reject any violation of the codes. “

These codes are likely to change – one way or another. Hillis said Pluta would have a far better chance if he waited for Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s proposal to allow quadruples on corner lots to be passed.

This law should be heard by the Planning Commission next month. A separate proposal from Mandelman to allow fourplexes on every single-family lot is not there yet.

Some other housing promotion policies are well received by the state legislature, and other ways to approve Fourplexes are being pursued by regulators other than housing legislation and election action.

A public hearing notice will be posted at Scott and Rosalind Pluta's property at 17th and Ord Streets.  Two of the units would be affordable housing.

A public hearing notice will be posted at Scott and Rosalind Pluta’s property at 17th and Ord Streets. Two of the units would be affordable housing.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Mandelman remains largely neutral on Pluta’s proposal, although it gets to the core of what he has been advocating all year round. He said the project could end up on the board of directors, and there isn’t much he can say about it without looking biased ahead of that vote.

“This is the type of housing that I would like to see more of in the district,” he said, adding that his office would like to act as an intermediary between the belligerent neighbors.

Maybe he wants to put on armor first. Pluta and several of his neighbors seemed to clash on both personal and political levels. Pluta thinks they are hypocritical NIMBYs. “It is this cartel that has restricted supply in order to maintain and increase the value of their properties,” he said.

His neighbor Casey Rando said Pluta initially outlined a much smaller proposal than the one he actually made. When Rando saw the plans, he lost his composure.

“I yelled at him and told him he lied to us,” he said. “He hasn’t been communicating with me since then.”

Rando, a gay man who moved to the neighborhood because of his proximity to Castro, said he hates being indicted by Pluta on “all of San Francisco’s racial problems” while Pluta has the money to hire a lobbyist and send one Create website.

“We’re literally three blocks from the rainbow flag and you won’t be lecturing gay men and women on diversity,” Rando said.

Pluta said he will keep trying the planning committee, but he doesn’t know if his shrinking project will ever fail. He never intended to make any money, but now he doesn’t know if he can break even. He could get approval, divide up the property, and hope the buyer would develop the garden.

Laura Foote, executive director of housing association YIMBY Action, said uncertainty is the problem. The outdated rules of the city lead to individual decisions, breaches of neighborhood and far too little living space.

“You could sit on the planning committee all day and those are all stories like this,” she said. “It’s all rich people yelling at each other and it’s the system as it was designed.”

It may be a popcorn worthy look, but it will never help us weather our housing crisis.

Editor’s Note: In an earlier version of this story, the number of units in the existing building was incorrectly stated.

The San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

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