Supe urges building affordable housing atop firehouse
Firefighters from Station 13, one of the busiest firehouses in San Francisco, regularly respond to calls from high-rises across the north Financial District.
Now, Supervisor Aaron Peskin is hoping the property, at 530 Sansome St., has the potential to help mitigate another emergency: the city’s affordable-housing crisis.
In a dense neighborhood where available development sites are scarce, Peskin is proposing that the city take advantage of the property’s 200foot height limit to build an affordable-housing tower above a new fire station.
Firefighter Willa Ortega backs a fire engine into Station 13 on Sansome Street in San Francisco. Supervisor Aaron Peskin plans to submit legislation allowing housing units to be built above the fire station in the densely populated Financial District.
On Tuesday, Peskin will introduce legislation that separates out the property’s air rights, so that the Fire Department could continue to own the land and the station, while the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development would own the air rights.
The idea of building housing at Station 13, which dates to 1975, is not new for Peskin. He floated the idea in 2002 during his first stint as supervisor, but the plan never took off. The difference this time is that the city is facing a housing shortage that has more than doubled rents since the tech boom took off after the recession.
The 9,000-square-foot lot
could accommodate between 100 and 150 housing units.
“There have been all these ballot measures about what to do with surplus city land, and this thing is just sitting here right under our eyes,” Peskin said. “In District Three, there are not a lot of opportunities for affordable housing — I’m trying to put my money where my mouth is.”
The affordable-housing development is one of three projects proposed for the block, which is bordered by Sansome, Battery, Washington and Merchant streets. Directly to the east of the fire station, at 425-439 Washington St., Peninsular Realty is proposing a 309-room hotel that will rise 200 feet. East of that project, 447 Partners has filed an application to build a 20-story tower with 182 hotel rooms and eight housing units.
Architect Michael Stanton, who is designing the bigger Washington Street hotel, said the block is uniquely suited for development. With the exception of a 20-story office building at Washington and Battery streets that was constructed in 1983, the block is made up of two- and three-story structures, all far shorter than the 200-foot zoning allows.
Stanton said the two hotels will bring foot traffic and new restaurants to the block.
Peskin’s proposal “would build out that block at a height that makes sense,” he said. None of the existing buildings are considered historic. Also, the three towers wouldn’t cast shadows on any open space, including Maritime Plaza and Sue Bierman Park, which was an issue with a proposed tower next to the Transamerica Pyramid, at 555 Washington St., that Peskin helped defeat in 2010.
“It’s a low-rise block with high-rise zoning and taller buildings on all sides of it,” Stanton said. “It’s a good block for development because there are no historic issues or shadow issues. It would certainly energize the street.”
If the housing plan goes forward, San Francisco would join a small but growing list of cities that are putting new housing above firehouses. Such projects have been completed in two Canadian cities, Vancouver, British Columbia; and Calgary, Alberta; as well as in Washington, D.C.
EastBanc is just completing Square 50, a development with 55 affordable units and six market-rate units above a firehouse in Washington. The station and the housing units in that development are separated by a squash center, with the racquet club creating a sound buffer between the fire trucks and residents.
The first residents are moving in this month, according to EastBanc President Anthony Lanier.
“By lifting the housing above the squash club, it feels like its own building,” said Lanier. “And the fire station feels like a fire station. It’s bright red. We married necessity and design to create minimalist, utilitarian space with a sheen of design.”
He said it’s not inexpensive to construct a building with such disparate uses, but is worth it.
“It’s for sure the case that affordable housing above a fire station is going to have a higher price tag than affordable housing on a vacant lot next door, but there is additional value in marrying affordable housing with a civic use, be it a fire station or a library,” he said. “I don’t think anyone moving in would ever see it as a negative.”
San Francisco Fire Commission President Ken Cleaveland said he would support the concept.
“If we can do that, I think the idea is a great one. I would love to see the air rights put to good use and get a new fire station as a bonus,” Cleaveland said.
“When you live in a dense, dense city like San Francisco, you have to use the space that you have.”