1050 Valencia Condo Owners Will Be Required Not to Bitch About Theater Noise

As we mentioned previously, supporters of The Marsh Theater were fighting the condo development at 1050 Valencia, fearing its construction would see the venue closed over noise concerns.  But at the Board of Appeals hearing yesterday, the Board ruled that residents must sign a disclosure statement acknowledging that they're living next to a venue:

[The Marsh Theater] typically creates sounds typical of an entertainment use, including loud dialogue and amplified sound and live and recorded music. Owners and occupants understand that patrons of the theater will drop off and pick up performers and patrons before and after the show and patrons will queue along Valencia Street at the beginning of some shows and leave en masse at the end of shows, producing parking, traffic and noise impacts expected at such activities.

An interesting move on The Marsh's part, but who knows if it'll stop their new neighbors from behaving like the condo dwellers around Slims and Brick + Mortar.

Anyway, the Board also ruled that a soundproofing buffer must be built between the buildings and the top floor of the condo removed (which will likely see two BRM housing units removed with it).  It's unknown when construction will begin.

[SFGate]

Comments (40)

Hell hath no fury like an SF NIMBY slightly perturbed.

What housing shortage?

The developer just played everyone.

And people wonder why SF has a housing shortage.

Seems reasonable. Too bad the building is going to be so ugly, but at least it’s a reasonable height, unlike the giant eyesore going in across from Doc’s Clock.

is your only opposition to increasing building height due to you considering it an “eyesore”? because that seems to be a formidable blow to the city’s already tiny housing supply in the mere name of aesthetics.

No, you misunderstand. The one going in across from Doc’s Clock is an eyesore that happens to be too tall, not an eyesore BECAUSE it is too tall.

In other words: If it were only five stories tall, it would still be an eyesore, it just wouldn’t be a overly-tall eyesore.

I’m against building lots of big tall ugly buildings as a way keep the tech bubble happening. Ugly in buildings is forever.

I wonder what folks like you and Herr Doctor think is attractive. I suspect you’d like a city full of reproduction Victorians and Edwardians. That’s really more of a suburban approach to architecture, though - recreating styles from 100 years ago. A lot has happened in architecture over the last century, and cities tend to reflect that.

One of the best places for reproduction architecture is Celebration, Florida. Real old timey. No glass and steel and right angles there, no sir! Disney built it. Maybe you guys would like it there.

Soviet Style 1970’s buildings are my #1.
I guess the Doctor likes Bauhaus

I’d call that really tall one, as approaches the Bay Bridge an example of a tall rather skinny ugly building. You know which one, right?

It would be fun for people to list the new buildings that they think are good looking, and those that are ugly in the Mission.

Victorians and Edwardians are great, obviously, but they’re far from the only nice form of architecture.

To be clear: The architecture going up for these apartment buildings isn’t ugly because it’s new; the fact that it is new is completely separate from the fact that it is ugly.

BTW, if you’re ever confused, feel free to post some pictures of buildings you like, and I’ll be happy to tell you whether or not you’re wrong for liking them.

It’s just one more service I provide, free of charge.

Well, on the bright side, if you’ve been any of these newly constructed buildings, the quality is abysmal. So, they’ll need to be replaced in 20 or 30 years anyway. So… maybe they can do a nicer job then.

What are you talking about? Due to our building codes because we live in an earthquake zone, everything is built to last. You have no idea how reinforced everything is. Nothing is going to need to be replaced in 20 yrs. Unless you’re confusing aesthetics with structural integrity. In which case…you’re not that bright because who cares if you have replace fixtures. The only that matters is structural integrity. Everything else is taste.

Ahh, I suppose you’re right. I wasn’t talking about the core skeleton of the building, so much as the interior and fittings. Which is to say, really thin drywall, poorly fitting vinyl windows, and fixtures that are essentially the cheapest on the market.

As you say, however, if the skeleton is sound, there’s no reason that someone in the future couldn’t strip the building down to bare bones and try again, as they’re currently doing with 100 Van Ness.

This is true. Look at any of the dotcom lofts built during the Willie Brown boom. Horrible, cheaply made pieces of crap. Cabinets that would fall apart, windows that wouldn’t close properly. Little to zero noise buffering.

Also, look at who many of the buyers are. Smart in a small sliver of life, who think they are smarter than they really are. They are buying their first property, and think that a million is an okay price. But in carpenter skills and quality of products, have little knowledge. They are rushed into making an offer and signing in less than a week. Ripe for purchasing a shinny facade on a cheapened product, and the developers know it.

A condo isn’t “property” any more than a car is. Or a candy bar. It’s property in the sense that you “own” it, but generally speaking, to buy “property” means real estate.

Last time I checked, Condos ARE real estate. They’re advertised in the real estate section. They’re sold by real estate agents. They’re taxed as real estate. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck.

Are you a building inspector now?

The big story here is that the NIMBYs demanded that the new building be built a story shorter, bringing it below the minimum threshold that requires below-market units to be built. So the NIMBYs effectively killed 2 affordable housing units for the Mission with this appeal.

And we blame technology employees for the Mission’s housing shortage…

smart NIMBYs. with less housing in the area, the value of their property increases.

I snickered

I don’t care about the building but those giant thorn-tree sculptures are going to be amazing.

Given the choice between a 12-unit 5-story building with 2 units of affordable housing and a 9-unit 4-story building without, we chose the latter.

The project was always compliant with the Eastern Neighborhoods development plan that the city spent nearly a decade to come up with, due to NIMBY pushback. Some good that did us here.

Is the picture not representative of what is being built? Because the picture is of a 5-story building.

The picture shows what the developer wanted to build (with the 2 BMR units).
The actual building will be 1 story shorter and won’t include the 2 BR units.

There is no evidence that the developer was ACTUALLY going to build the BMR units, since they could have just paid a fee and had all units be market rate. Now I think this should be five stories because we zoned for it, and we need more density. But the BMR canard is just that.

Fair. I should clarify that the 2 BMR units may have been built elsewhere and from contributions to this same fund. The point stands, however, that these units now won’t be built anywhere - not here, not elsewhere - because of the NIMBYs’ appeal.

That may well be, but either way the city is losing out on resources dedicated to affordable housing so a few NIMBYs can keep their property values up a notch.

The law of unintended consequences prevails again.

I fear these NIMBY fights will eventually lead us to the point where we have a European-like zone of concentrated nightlife in one part of the city. That’s going to suck.

I can’t believe I agree with you.

All this does is let the developer off the hook, but the condouches can and will still complain about the “noise.”

Fortunately for the upcoming condo dwellers Bajones went under long ago so the relatively quiet and safe Marsh could take over the space.

Imagine how these new residents would scream if they were next door to a place where people like Tito Puente would play and a lot of Mexicans hung out.

Hello Vallejo!

…you and your gentrifier buddies are moving on to greener pastures? Nice!

Stick a Colonel Sanders weather vane on top. Let’s maintain its true heritage.