 |
|
San Francisco's recent loft-building frenzy offers painful but valuable
lessons.
By Ken Coupland
The Metropolis Observed
June 2002
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Blocks of brand-new real estate stand empty in San Francisco after
developers flooded the market with shoddy, overpriced loft-style
buildings.
Photos: David Lawrence/Cheryl Meeker
|
|
 |
New York artists may have spearheaded the loft movement, colonizing the
formerly industrial Soho district in the 1970s and 1980s, but San Francisco
was among the first U.S. cities to experiment with regulating it. It
is also the first city to experience what can only be termed a live/work
backlash. The city's Artist Live Work Ordinance, passed in 1988 to encourage
the development of combined residential/studio space, has proven to be a
largely unmitigated disaster.
Originally intended to foster artists' lofts in areas zoned for industrial
use, the ordinance had lax regulations that were easily subverted by a real-estate
industry eager to convert warehouses and workshops into overpriced commercial
or residential spaces. "Once live/work was allowed by right, developers
could buy up industrial land, build on it, and quadruple their profits,"
artist Debra Walker says. "Because it was assumed it would all be affordable
housing, they didn't have to pay all sorts of taxes." Meanwhile, the
process jacked up local real-estate prices, only exacerbating the problem
of affordable housing for artists.
Aided and abetted by a compliant city planning commission under pressure
to encourage growth, developers were able to secure for their clients relatively
lenient residential loans for what were blatantly commercial-use projects.
"What made this whole thing go crazy was that the mortgage companies
were doing their own enforcing," Walker explains. "The planning
commission was saying, 'We have no way of knowing who a person engaged in
an arts activity is.' So rather than not allow live/work to be built, they
just ignored all the rules and, in effect, any zoning altogether."
Hand in hand with this relaxed regulatory climate went an already complacent
attitude toward building inspections. Backed by a rapacious construction
lobby, developers were effectively allowed to make their own inspections.
As a result, speculators have thrown up what Berkeley architect Tim Rempel
calls "a lot of poorly built lofts at an increase in price that did
not come with an increase in quality." He predicts "a lot of lawsuits
ten years from now," as the shoddy construction of these speculative
dwellings becomes glaringly apparent.
Faced with this dog-in-manger scenario, in April 2001 the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors--previously under the influence of the stridently
pro-development mayor, Willie Brown--appointed a task force to investigate
a solution. The group recommended a repeal of the 1988 ordinance. "All
of us agreed that the ordinance as it was written--and for the intention
it was written--failed because it was unenforceable," says Walker,
the only artist on the task force. "You don't need the ordinance for
what it was crafted for. You never did. Whether you're an artist or just
anyone running a business, you've always been able to take residential occupancy
of an industrial space."
What's been wrong with the picture is that "residential occupancy"
has traditionally been difficult to define. But as it turns out,
a section of the building code that predates the Live Work Ordinance provides
a viable live/work regulation, including requirements that the residential
component of an industrial space be no more than 25 percent of total square
footage. So the task force made a simple proposal: strengthen and restructure
the code that predates the 1988 ordinance, but build in greater code enforcement.
"That way," Walker says, "a building inspector can go in
and--instead of having to figure out if somebody is an artist--simply
look around and see if the building is being used as a commercial space."
Passed in April, the repeal will guarantee that anyone planning to build
or convert new live/work space in the city faces at least minimum supervision
by city planners.
What remains to be seen is whether a reversion to the regulatory status
quo holds out much hope for San Francisco artists, who have become the urban
equivalent of refugees. "In San Francisco, live/work codes didn't protect
artists at all," says Abby Wine, program coordinator for ArtHouse,
an advocacy group for affordable space for artists. "To guarantee their
continued existence, city government has to put other protections in place."
|
|
|
BACK TO TOP
