SF Planning Director Sarah Dennis Phillips rejected the supervisor's bid to disqualify the Marina Safeway housing towers in a July 20 letter, all but settling their ministerial entitlement under state law AB 2011.

Six weeks ago, the Marina Safeway tower had a plausible off-ramp. It doesn't anymore.

San Francisco Planning Director Sarah Dennis Phillips has rejected District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill's attempt to disqualify the housing project at 15 Marina Blvd. In a July 20 letter to Sherrill, Phillips wrote that the property is not on the state's Cortese List of hazardous waste sites, is not in an earthquake fault zone, and is not in a federally designated flood hazard area — the findings reported independently by both KQED and The San Francisco Standard. Sherrill had argued the site failed a requirement under state law that at least 75% of a project's perimeter adjoin "urban uses," and that it hadn't cleared toxic screening. Phillips found that a city-owned parking lot across the street and the surrounding mix at Fort Mason counted as urban uses, per the Standard's account of the letter.

That is the whole ballgame, or close to it. When we covered Sherrill's challenge in June, the open question was whether that "urban uses" clause was the statute's soft spot — the argument that could unwind the entitlement. The Planning Director's determination closes it. Barring a successful appeal, the supervisor and his constituents have exhausted their administrative options.

Here's the mechanism, because it's the actual story. The developer — Align Real Estate, filing on behalf of Safeway owner Albertsons — isn't asking the city for permission the way projects used to. AB 2011, passed in 2022, forces ministerial approval once a commercial-corridor site clears its urban-uses and environmental tests: no Planning Commission vote, no Board of Supervisors vote, no CEQA review. A separate density-bonus law lets Align build past local zoning in exchange for affordable units. The more than 300 people who packed a Fort Mason town hall to oppose the tower were, functionally, objecting to a decision Sacramento had already made.

What's still unsettled is worth marking. "Entitled" is not "built": Align still has to pull permits, and a required assessment already flagged a "recognized environmental condition" that Phillips deferred to a later Phase II review — the kind of grind that can add years. The size figures are the developer's revised July 14 plans as reported — two towers, since lowered in height while raised to 848 units, including 86 affordable — not a recorded final approval. And opponents floating a state constitutional amendment to claw back housing mandates won't matter here for years, if ever.

The line to watch is the permit set and any appeal of Phillips' determination. Everything else — the town halls, the renderings, the co-founder's gracious texts about "working with the neighborhood" — is happening after the gate was already open.