443-Unit Tower Proposed for Van Ness Corridor Under City Density Deal

A project application filed with the San Francisco Planning Department asks the city to approve a 443-unit residential tower at 1301 Van Ness Ave, on a corner lot at the edge of Pacific Heights. The filing, record number 2026-009027PRJ, was opened Oct. 13, 2026, and remains in “Submitted” status, meaning no commission has voted on it. The applicant is seeking approval, not reporting a decision.

Why it matters

The proposal would use Housing Choice-SF, a local density bonus program San Francisco adopted as part of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s 2025 push to streamline housing approvals, according to the city’s own program guidance and reporting from The Real Deal. The program lets a project build beyond what normal zoning allows in exchange for meeting objective design standards, and unlike some state density bonus paths, it does not require any on-site affordable housing to unlock that extra capacity. That trade-off shows up directly in this filing: all 443 units are proposed as market-rate. The Van Ness corridor has drawn a string of high-rise housing proposals in recent years as the city has tried to concentrate new supply along the transit spine, and a tower of this size at 1301 Van Ness would extend that pattern into San Francisco’s Civic Center-adjacent blocks.

The numbers

The planning record describes a mixed-use high-rise approximately 360 feet tall, or about 390 feet including rooftop equipment, with 348,030 square feet of residential space and 4,525 square feet of ground-floor “Warm Shell” retail. The proposed unit mix is 105 studios, 209 one-bedrooms, 84 two-bedrooms, and 45 three-bedrooms, replacing an existing structure with 28,000 square feet of commercial space and 28 parking spaces. The new building would add 108 parking spots and three car-share spaces. The parcel, assessor’s block and lot 0671/002, is listed with an applicant named at J. Abrams Law, P.C., a land-use law firm; the record does not name a developer or ownership entity, and none could be independently verified in public reporting as of this writing.

What’s next

The application is paired with companion filings for environmental review, historic resource evaluation, preliminary project screening, and transportation demand management, all opened the same day, indicating the project is still in early planning review rather than headed toward a commission vote. A Community Plan Evaluation is listed as the environmental document type. Because Housing Choice-SF reviews are largely administrative with limited avenues for appeal, the next milestone to watch is whether planning staff deem the application complete and schedule it for the procedural steps that path requires, rather than a public hearing fight typical of a conditional-use project.