The approval was handed down late last week despite complaintsfrom Mission District residents and slow-growth activists thatlofts do not belong on the site, which sits in an area reserved bythe city for industrial businesses. The 153,333-sf developmentcalls for four-story buildings that will have a maximum of nineground-level retail spaces.

Housing activists contend that the project is just another formof expensive housing and a back door way to creating additionaloffice space in a city limited by 1986's Proposition M, whichrestricts the amount of office space developed annually. Locals saythat despite its intended use, residential living, the lofts willactually be used by businesses.

The Planning Commission responded by saying that the area isripe for development and needed in a city hampered by limited spaceand skyrocketing rents. "I've watched this site for years, and I'mstill amazed it hasn't been put to productive use," sayscommissioner Hector Chinchilla. he recounted how he spent his youthgrowing up in the Mission. "We would have killed for projects likethis when I was a kid."