DEVELOPERS ARE CIRCLING MY NEIGHBORHOOD May 16, 2025

Will my neighborhood in San Francisco’s Richmond District undergo NIMBY-YIMBY warfare? Or will common sense prevail?

A while back, the Little Sisters of the Poor closed St. Anne’s Home, which housed retired nuns. They put up for sale the six-acre property, a 10-minute walk from my house. The site fronts on upscale, leafy Lake Street between 3rd and 5th Avenues. It backs up against the hilly, treed Presidio Golf Course. The property features a 120,000-square-foot main building, carriage house and vast lawn plus parking. 

The San Francisco Chronicle pegs the sale price at $58.5 million and reports that developers are circling. The deadline for bids is imminent. Bids may have already been received. The Little Sisters of the Poor won’t contend with poverty.

Will those who say “Not in my backyard” duke it out with housing supporters who say “Yes in my backyard”? And where will the City stand?

Naturally, developers want to maximize profit. That can means putting up as many units of premium-priced housing as possible, whether apartments, condos, townhomes or single-family homes. 

The City wants as much housing as it can get—and with the homeless in the mix. Should the site be restricted to the homeless? Offer some homeless and some affordable housing? How would that impact market-rate renters and/or buyers?

All neighbors will want to limit the project’s scale. But define limit. Most homes are zoned for a height of forty feet. Will a developer find that sufficient? Must buildings rise to four, five or six-stories? Higher? What height—or heights—will provide both sufficient housing and return on investment without blighting the neighborhood?

Given the property’s size, the winning developer hopefully will leave open space for more light and a less crowded environment than a “wall-to-wall” structure or structures would impose.

As to the City, it’s not bidding. The budget’s way in the red. Still, San Francisco must deal with its critical housing shortage. To a great degree, this has been imposed by the City itself: labyrinthine building codes, endless approval processes and steep fees at every turn. Will City Hall smooth the developer’s way in return for a project of ample housing at human scale?

Then again, what is human scale. San Francisco is an urban city, but the Richmond District, bordering the Pacific, is something of a suburb within it. YIMBY supporters understand the need for new housing and that larger buildings might be required. Some tall apartment buildings long have dotted the Richmond.

NIMBY folks will fight tooth and nail to replicate neighborhood housing regarding height limits and modified 21st-century design. They might allow the St. Anne’s site new housing but not nearly enough.

A solution can be found—if the developer, the City and neighborhood residents communicate in good faith. That means holding neighborhood hearings but moving the process along swiftly. It also means recognizing that one way or another, change is coming. Even if the present St. Anne’s building is repurposed, housing will expand on the site.

Cities are living organisms. They evolve. The Richmond does not look like it did a century ago. And less. We can maintain fond memories, but urban life requires adaptability.

The soul of a neighborhood can remain untarnished while it’s appearance changes. We make this happen or invite the buzzards to start circling.

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