An Alternative Future for the North East Mission Industrial Zone

An Alternative Future for the NEMIZ
Mission Coalition for Economic Justice & Jobs
as 30% of the existing uses would be non-conforming
if the current planning department proposal
is adopted. There is at least 1.1 million
square feet of larger businesses in the NEMIZ, of
which the average size is about 43,000 square feet.
About 14 of these businesses are larger PDR users
and combined occupy about 465,000 square feet
of space. Under Planning Staff's proposed land use
definitions, many of these larger users would not
be an allowable use, including Dolby and Williams
Sonoma. The definitions of PDR need to be
broad enough in the NEMIZ to accommodate
existing users and to allow such important users to
expand.
MCEJJ hired Brion & Associates and Community
Design + Architecture to look more closely at real
estate trends in the San Francisco Bay Area and
similar city-regions over the past twenty years. The
team found that manufacturing and distribution
jobs have been leaving San Francisco (and other
cities) as result of regional shifts in transportation
modes and infrastructure, real estate values, building
technology, product types, and worker migration.
Only rarely have land use policies clearly
swayed the location decisions of large and medium
size industrial (PDR) firms. Interviews with San
Francisco real estate brokers and PDR-related
firms indicates that these businesses have left San
A mix of uses commonly co-exist in adjacent relationships
in the NEMIZ
I.4 Executive Summary
Francisco not only because of rents, but because of
high city business taxes; lack of skilled workforce
and high wages; poor access and transportation;
and, bureaucratic red tape. In fact, industrial rents
are below where they were five years ago and there
is a 40% citywide vacancy rate for large, multistory
industrial buildings. This information suggests
that it is unrealistic to expect that zoning will
reverse these regional trends. Instead restrictive
zoning could discourage investment in these
neighborhoods.
According to the City’s own data, approximately
34% of the City’s PDR jobs are located outside the
five Eastern Neighborhoods. It is not clear why
these jobs would not need “protection.” The
MCEJJ land use survey also found that nearly half
of the PDR in the NEMIZ is associated with utilities
and public facilities such as PG&E and
MUNI that are unlikely to be displaced by market
forces and thus do not require “special protection.”
There is currently 5.0 million square feet of vacant
industrial space in San Francisco, most of which is
located in the Bayview/Bayshore area. These are
areas where the building supply and vehicle access
best fits the needs of ‘Core’ PDR businesses. An
IPZ protecting ‘Core’ PDR businesses would be
most effective here.
The MCEJJ examined other cities’ attempts to retain
industrial jobs