Nine-Unit Hillside Project Advances After Neighbors Plead for Safety

The San Francisco Planning Commission's Sept. 17 hearing turned into a lesson in the gap between housing production and construction accountability, as seven downhill neighbors arrived to describe falling trees, cliff erosion and fire access failures — none of which the commission has the power to regulate. Every item on the agenda passed 5-0, but not before commissioners wrestled with how to reassure a community that fears for its safety on one of the city's steepest slopes.

• Nine-unit Clayton Street housing project approved after emotional public testimony about steep-slope construction safety

• Commission adopts up-to-$150,000 penalty criteria for developers who lie about tenants on planning applications

• Google wins office expansion into vacant ground floor of landmark Hills Brothers Coffee Building — the first use of the city's new historic adaptive reuse code

• New commissioner Liz Chavez confirmed by Board of Supervisors; 45-day data center moratorium introduced

The most contested item of the evening — consuming roughly 80 minutes of discussion — was the conditional use authorization to demolish an existing two-unit rent-controlled building at 1043-1045 Clayton Street and build nine units across five contiguous lots in the Cole Valley/Ashbury Heights area.