LEGISLATIVE ANALYST REPORT

TO: The Honorable Members of the Board of Supervisors
FROM: Elaine Forbes, Legislative Analyst
DATE: February 27, 2002

ISSUE: Residential Floor Area Ratio (FAR) Controls

Summary of Request

The Board of Supervisors directed the Office of the Legislative Analyst (OLA) to provide a report summarizing how other cities use floor area ratio (FAR) controls to maintain the character of neighborhoods. Specifically, the request asks the OLA whether other cities, in particular Albany, Berkeley, Carmel, Cupertino, Emeryville, Palo Alto, San Jose, San Anselmo, and San Rafael, California, have developed "contextual FARs". For the purposes of this report, "contextual FARs" refers to FAR maximums determined on a property-by-property basis using the FARs of surrounding properties. This report also examines Chicago, Seattle and Vancouver British Columbia in order to include a sample of densely populated urban cities.

Executive Summary

A floor area ratio (FAR) control is a planning tool used to regulate a building"s mass in relation to the size of its lot. The FAR is the ratio of the total building floor area to the total lot area.¹ Consequently, the FAR reflects the bulk of the structure in relation to its lot size. Communities limit FAR in residential areas in order to avert the proliferation of "monster homes" and to ensure a level of development that is compatible with the bulk of existing buildings.

No cities examined for this report use the FAR or heights of surrounding properties to determine the maximum allowable FAR for a specific property on a case-by-case basis. Rather, the cities examined set maximum FARs primarily by using zoning districts, sometimes in conjunction with neighborhood design guidelines and individual design review. In some cities, the FARs and heights of the surrounding properties are considered in the event that the applicant wishes to build beyond an allowable FAR (established by zoning districts and neighborhood design guidelines).

The Board may wish to apply FAR controls based on zoning districts or subsets of zoning districts, like those employed in other cities surveyed. The Board may also wish to explore neighborhood design guidelines and individual design review more generally as vehicles for providing the flexibility to address the uniqueness of each residential parcel in relation to adjoining properties and the neighborhood character. If the Board wishes to pursue the contextual FAR concept, it may wish to explore data reliability, availability, and control effectiveness as discussed later in this report. Whether to implement a contextual FAR or more standardized FAR controls is a policy matter for the Board of Supervisors.

Background

Current Proposal in San Francisco.

A current proposal to develop a special use district, called the Eastern Foothills Special Use District, seeks to protect the character of the neighborhood bounded by Market Street, Duboce Avenue, Frederick Street, Ashbury Street, Twin Peaks Boulevard, O"Shaughnessy Boulevard, Congo Street, Joost Avenue, San Jose Avenue, and Cesar Chavez Street, up to Valencia Street. The special use district would employ several planning techniques, including limiting the bulk of residential developments. Following the concept of FAR controls, the special use district would limit the "Living Area Ratio" (LAR), as opposed to the FAR. LAR is the square footage of "living space" divided by lot size. The current proposal would limit the LAR of new residential developments and additions, using the average LARs of the surrounding fifteen properties (excluding the highest and the lowest) within the same zoning district.

Current Law and Practice

San Francisco does not presently use FAR controls to shape residential development, but does use FAR controls in commercial developments to limit the intensity of use.² According to Robert Passmore, a former San Francisco zoning administrator, prior to 1976 the City used residential FAR controls, set by zoning districts. The Planning Department eliminated these controls as part of the 1978 residential rezoning because other controls were considered more effective and the added benefit of the FAR control was uncertain, according to Mr. Passmore. Currently, residential developments are expressly excluded in 124 (b) of the Planning Code from FAR controls.

According to Senior Planner Paul Lord, the San Francisco Planning Department presently uses height limits, rear yard requirements, and front set backs to maintain neighborhood character. The City also has citywide neighborhood design guidelines, developed in 1978, which are a set of qualitative measures that planners must consider when approving residential development, according to Mr. Lord. However, because these guidelines are citywide and qualitative, they depend upon individual staff and department interpretation. According to Mr. Passmore, applying the guidelines requires a well-trained staff person who understands specific neighborhood contexts. Mr. Passmore and Mr. Lord suggest that developing quantified guidelines for each neighborhood may help planners apply guidelines more effectively.

Additionally, some neighborhoods in the City have developed neighborhood specific residential design guidelines, which are sets of resident developed advisory standards that the Planning Department and Commission asks developers to consider when submitting plans for approval. According to Robert Passmore and Paul Lord, while these neighborhood guidelines do not have the weight of code provisions, they can influence development. In some instances, neighborhood design guidelines have been codified as Special Use Districts (a type of zoning overlay), for example in Dolores Heights. According to San Francisco Zoning Administrator, Larry Badiner, Special Use Districts are amendments to the standard code provisions to address the specific characteristics of an area and are implemented as special sections of the Planning Code. However, according to Mr. Passmore, developing a special use district requires consensus on neighborhood character as well as a great deal of resident participation and funding.

Jurisdictional Comparison

This report queries the planning departments in Albany, Berkeley, Carmel, Cupertino, Emeryville, Palo Alto, San Anselmo, San Jose and San Rafael, California, Chicago and Seattle, and Vancouver, British Columbia. None of these cities use the FAR of surrounding properties to arrive at the maximum FAR on a case-by-case basis. The primary method of arriving at a maximum residential FAR for the cities surveyed, is by referring to the zoning district where the property is located (please see Table 1: Residential FAR Controls, for more details). Generally, maximum FARs are set in a standardized fashion by zoning district or by a subset of a zoning district. For example, in Chicago all residential properties in Residential Zoning District 3 (R3) have a maximum allowable FAR of .9. In some cities, such as Vancouver, the zoning district combined with the neighborhood guidelines determines maximum FARs. This allows development in neighborhoods that share zoning district designations but have different characters to be controlled differently.

In order to ensure that neighborhood context is considered, some of the cities reviewed for this report apply a public design review process for properties that fall outside of an FAR or height range. For example, in San Jose, proposed single-family homes with FARs above .65 trigger public hearings and individual design review. In Cupertino, all two-story homes with FARs over .35 require design review conducted by the Planning Department in a public forum. In Cupertino, this process includes a mandate that the developer erects a temporary structure that matches the proposed development in terms of bulk three weeks in advance of the hearing, which gives neighbors notice of the proposed development.

Many of the cities reviewed for this report do use the FARs and heights of surrounding properties on a case-by-case basis, but only in the event that the applicant proposes to exceed a FAR threshold set by zoning district and other guidelines. Additionally, the design review processes in many of the cities surveyed may consider the height and FARs of adjacent properties in order to evaluate issues of privacy and light.

Issues and Options

The use of FAR controls is a planning technique that can help ensure development consistent with the context of the surrounding neighborhood. The fact that other cities do not use contextual FARs does not indicate that San Francisco should not do so. Advocates for contextual FARs state that this approach allows controls to best match the specific context of the site being developed. One reason for supporting contextual FARs for San Francisco is that San Francisco"s neighborhoods, unlike many of the communities surveyed for this report, are richly varied and can change dramatically from block to block. However, in order to effectively implement a contextual FAR, the Board may wish to consider the following issues:

1. Data reliability. Information needed for constructing Living Area Ratios (LAR) is available in the Assessor"s Office. However, some of the records may be incomplete. According to the San Francisco Assessor"s Office, living area is measured using exterior walls. Storage areas, such as basements, and functional mechanical areas, such as water heater areas, are excluded from the calculation. However, the accuracy of the building plans and/or information submitted to the Assessor can dictate whether these areas are in fact excluded. Additionally, living area square footage is not available for some condominiums as well as a handful of older properties and illegal additions are not recalculated. Currently, the Assessor"s Office is working on a data enhancement project. The goal of this project is to capture and record building information of all the properties in the city. By the end of this project, the office may have living square footage for all condos and older properties in our record, according to the Assessor"s Office.

2. Data availability. The Assessor"s Office maintains the records mentioned above. But they are not currently online or in an easily accessible format. According to Li Chou in the Assessor"s Office, the current database is not set up in a way that would allow applicants to query the surrounding properties easily. Rather, the applicant would need to locate a block and lot number for each property and look each up individually. Ms. Chou believes that the applicant would likely need the assistance of the Planning Department in order to identify the appropriate 15 properties. If the applicant is to calculate her/his maximum LAR, the LARs of the surrounding 15 properties may need to be more readily available so as to not overburden the applicant. Additionally, whether the Planning Department can easily verify the information the applicant submits will in part determine the cost to the Planning Department of administering the FAR control. For both the applicant and the administering department, data accessibility will lower the costs of the controls.

3. Control Effectiveness. The contextual FAR would establish a dynamic calculation, which changes for a particular property based on changes to its surrounding properties. In order to predict the impact of this type of control, Mr. Passmore suggests that the Board may wish to review a number of test cases to access the impact of the control.

4. Department Workload and Permit Review Timeliness. According to Larry Badiner, the Planning Department"s ability to effectively implement LAR controls based upon surrounding properties for the large area proposed will depend upon adequate staffing and support facilities. To the extent that increased complexity without increased resources results in delays, the City will risk delaying the expeditious processing of permits and potentially exceeding the permit streamlining act time limits, according to Mr. Badiner.

Conclusion

No cities examined for this report use the FAR or heights of the surrounding properties to determine the maximum allowable FAR for specific properties on a case-by-case basis. Rather, the cities primarily use zoning districts to set maximum FARs, sometimes in conjunction with neighborhood design guidelines and individual design review. The Board may wish to consider employing FAR controls based on zoning districts or subsets of zoning districts like those employed in other cities. The Board may also wish to explore neighborhood design guidelines and individual design review more generally as vehicles for providing the flexibility to address the uniqueness of each residential parcel, its existing relationship to adjoining properties and the neighborhood character. If the Board wishes to pursue the contextual FAR concept, it may wish to explore data reliability, availability, and control effectiveness.

¹ Basements are typically excluded from the definition of floor area, as long the basement is not more than a certain number of feet above grade. Whether garages are excluded varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

² Commercial FAR zones are enumerated in Sections 124 through 128 of the Planning Code. Residential uses are excepted from FAR calculations in commercial zones. This encourages housing in mixed-use developments. The exception to this rule is the downtown corridor, where residential uses are not exempted from FAR calculations. The zoning and planning area determines allowable FARs in a standardized fashion.