To save San Francisco, a Democrat wants to scrap environmental reviews
Not long ago, it would have sounded ridiculous: a San Francisco Democrat calling for a rollback of California's cherished environmental protections in the heart of the city.
It would have been like painting the Golden Gate Bridge gray or cheering on the Los Angeles Dodgers. It just wouldn't have flown.
But as California becomes increasingly desperate for housing and San Francisco struggles to revitalize its urban core, Senator Scott Wiener says one thing must go: environmental reform.
Mr. Wiener will propose one of the most sweeping rollbacks of the once-vaunted California Environmental Quality Act on Friday by asking the state Legislature to let most projects in downtown San Francisco bypass the law over the next decade.
Empty buildings can be more easily demolished to build theaters, museums or college campuses, Mr. Wiener said. Office towers could be more easily converted into a wide variety of homes. The withering shopping center on Market Street could soon become something else – like the football stadium that Mayor London Breed envisions.
“We know we have to make downtown viable,” said Ms. Breed, a sponsor of the bill. “We cannot let anything get in the way of the process.”
For decades, Democrats in the form of Mr. Wiener and Ms. Breed were among the staunchest defenders of CEQA, a landmark law signed in 1970, months after the first Earth Day celebration. But in recent years, a growing number of Democrats have begrudged the environmental law as a barrier to the projects they want, from infill housing to solar farms. Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the critics last year urges the legislature to renew parts of the law so that California could “build, build, build.”
When CEQA (pronounced “see-qua”) went into effect, it gave residents a new way to challenge government projects during the construction boom that followed World War II, when highways cut through pastures and neighborhoods and rivers were dammed.
The California Supreme Court expanded the law in 1972, saying it could apply to virtually any project in the state. That opened the door for environmentalists to challenge suburban developments and polluting factories, but also gave anyone with complaints the ability to delay or end projects. CEQA can force multiple reviews, litigation costs and years of delays, enough to make construction unfeasible.
The law isn't the only thing standing in the way of San Francisco and downtown prosperity — 35 percent of office space remains vacant four years after the pandemic began. But there are dire examples of how the environment law has been used to block projects including food banks and Covid-19 testing sites.
“There are bike lanes that have been stopped by CEQA. It's crazy,” said Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, a business-friendly public policy group.
In one high-profile case, a nonprofit that owns and operates affordable housing used the 2022 state law to argue that a plan to build hundreds of apartments in an empty Nordstrom parking lot would gentrify a downtown San Francisco neighborhood — a social economic argument that has gained popularity in recent years. The Board of Trustees sided with the nonprofit and asked for more environmental research.
“Should environmental research in this beautiful concrete jungle of downtown San Francisco work that way?” Mr. Wiener asked as he walked through the financial district, which was littered with retail vacancies and “For Rent” signs.
Mr. Wiener has already pushed changes through the state Legislature to loosen regulations on development, especially housing. He authored legislation in 2017 that accelerated the construction of affordable housing in cities that did not meet state-issued housing targets, and pushed for some transit projects and certain infill housing projects to be exempt from CEQA. And state lawmakers have for years accelerated review of major downtown stadium projects, including San Francisco's Chase Center and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
But it would be a first to exempt such a large part – 150 blocks – of a city from environmental review.
Under Mr. Wiener's proposal, San Francisco officials would not spend a year or more analyzing the environmental impacts of each redevelopment project, one by one, and the average citizen would not have the right to sue to to stop them.
For Mr. Wiener, this is the definition of environmentalism in today's California, a state struggling with a lack of housing and rising homelessness in an era of climate change.
California's environmental activism used to focus on preserving animal habitats, open space and beaches — and fighting developers at all costs. But Mr. Wiener argues that adding dense housing near jobs and public transportation should be at the heart of the environmental movement. He and other Democrats have said infill housing will reduce hours-long car commutes and prevent further sprawl.
A large-scale exemption for downtown San Francisco will undoubtedly face opposition at home and in the State Capitol. Mr. Wiener's proposal to accelerate development near transit stops, overriding local zoning laws, died in the Legislature several years ago after an uphill battle. At the time, local governments and low-income Californians argued that Mr. Wiener's proposal would push existing renters to cheaper suburbs while benefiting developers and affluent renters.
A similar argument is likely this year. Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, which aims to eradicate homelessness and poverty, said the proposal seemed like a giveaway to developers and could further push the poorest workers out of the city.
Some environmentalists may side with Mr. Wiener. Jake Mackenzie, a board member of the Greenbelt Alliance, said he would much prefer infill development over projects like California Forever, a plan by tech titans to build a new city on farmland about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco .
But others will very likely be leery of allowing such a sweeping waiver of the state's historic environmental law.
David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, said his group was an early backer of Mr. Wiener's proposals to boost housing development near transit. But he added that Mr. Wiener's new plan sounded “pretty extreme.”
He agreed with critics who say environmentalists and other opponents of development have abused state laws. But he said environmental research is important, noting that construction projects can create a lot of noise, pollute the air or cause traffic jams — and it would be important to know those harmful effects in advance.
“People in government make smarter decisions when the public has more information, and that is the core of CEQA,” he said. “Excluding large projects from analysis is not the solution.”
Still, Mr. Wiener could find support from powerful working-class allies, who have increasingly come together unlike environmentalists in California. The bill introduced Friday would waive environmental reviews for only projects that pay a prevailing wage, typically a rate negotiated by unions. An environmental review would still be required for hotels and waterfront properties, as well as the demolition of any building that has housed tenants in the past decade.
Mr. Wiener says San Francisco desperately needs change. California law gives local governments some leeway in how they implement CEQA, and San Francisco has long given more credibility to development critics than other cities. A top state housing official denounced the city's roadblocks to housing construction last year as “egregious.”
Mr Wiener said it was necessary to exempt almost all downtown projects for ten years, because many of the possible solutions to revitalize the area – such as a new university campus, student dormitories, theaters, museums or artificial intelligence or biotech hubs – could otherwise come to a standstill.
After a strong rebuke from the state, San Francisco ultimately approved the Nordstrom parking lot project. But the developer, Lou Vasquez, said after so many delays, it's no longer possible financially.
“It remains a parking lot,” he says. Nordstrom no longer exists either.