Purchased from the City and County of San Francisco in a surplus property sale for $232,000 in 2006, plans to build a two-story, two-unit building on the little 880-square-foot lot on the southeast corner of Bosworth and Lyell, on the border of Bernal Heights and Glen Park, were soon drafted.

While the parcel was successfully rezoned from P (Public) to RH-2 (Residential, Two-Family) in 2008, and variances from having to provide a required rear yard, front setback and off-street parking were secured, the plans for the project were subsequently cancelled. And even bigger plans for the parcel are now in the works.

A re-rezoning of the (significantly) substandard lot is now being sought, which includes the establishment of an 880-square-foot “Special Use District,” with the intent of building a 4-story, 6-unit building on the little parcel. We’ll definitely keep you posted and plugged-in.

13 thoughts on “Big Plans for a Little Surplus Lot”
  1. Why do new developments require a setback, when the older stuff next door clearly has no setbacks at all? What kind of nonsense zoning reasoning is that?

    1. The same reason you don’t need to retrofit seatbelts into your Model A (or FWIW your Model T… X, Y or Z) because it’s what we want to do going forward.

      Or – and my apologies (for seeming belligerent) if this is the case – are you just asking: what are the benefits of setbacks?

  2. …with the intent of building a 4-story, 6-unit building on the little parcel.

    GULP!!

    Way to trample on a fairy tale: SS you’ve no concept of a Hollywood Ending, it seems.

  3. they should build a ton of efficiency studios as high as possible. no parking spots or “bicycle storage”

    1 – that neighborhood ain’t no peach and more cars will just add to the parking lot it becomes twice a day

    2 – fantastic commuter units, location-wise

      1. The storage is built as bicycle lockers, but for residents who don’t own bicycles, those residents often use the lockers as mini-storage units, which is perfectly legal and a good use of space that would otherwise go unused.

  4. Requesting a special use district for one residential parcel? Developers, I know we’re all excited that Planning is pro-housing, but slow your roll…

  5. Has anyone noticed the utility pole on the right side of the property connects with the utility pole farther back on the left side of the property? And therefore those wires bisect the property.

    I assume the original plan all along was to widen the street along the power line path?

  6. Ahh yes, I know this intersection well. It is…. well, awful! An advantage is you could walk to the Bart platform in 5 minutes from here. The disadvantage is the insane amount of traffic constantly going left onto Bosworth — not to mention basically living beneath 280. For this development anything other then rentals would be a disaster. Just look next door that house has had a long history of trying to fetch buyers even in the best boom times.

    The location plus is next to Bart but the negatives are 10x worse. No thank you.

  7. not to mention basically living beneath 280

    And “not ” it was, in neither the text nor the photo (note how the latter conveniently just missed it)
    At times, this site’s RE heritage shows
    🙂

  8. Yes, this is a pass through micro neighborhood that connects Glen Park with Bernal but feels oddly like neither. It’s very close to great transit options & walking distance to Glen Canyon & Holly Park but that particular corner is a traffic hotspot with the 280, SJ Ave & Bosworth all coming together. It’s really noisy too…Building a small apartment building on that lot would be a great improvement.

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