West Portal, one of San Francisco’s smallest and most neighborly neighborhoods, is about to get much bigger. And Arden Wood, one of the city’s finest remaining examples of an urban forest, is about to get smaller.

The Christian Science Nursing Home has reached a nearly $18 million deal with a developer to build on its 12-acre Arden Wood site, which includes 4.6 acres of urban forest.

The plan by Republic Urban Properties would add about 155 upscale housing units in low- or mid-rise buildings and townhouses in an area bordered roughly by 17th and 19th avenues, Wawona Street and the property line of the Grove condominiums on 19th. A separate housing project by Nelson Development, now in a later stage than Arden Wood, would add eight homes near 15th Avenue and Wawona. West Portal has a population of fewer than 1,000 in about 370 housing units.

Robert Mendelsohn, president of the San Francisco branch of Washington’s Republic Properties Corp., said the development is “incredibly sensitive,” not only because of traditional concerns about traffic, density, services and the like, but because Arden Wood is one of the few significant urban forests left in the city.

“Obviously, Arden Wood forest is an amenity,” he said. “It would be senseless to do anything to diminish that.

“This urban forest is extremely rare in San Francisco, a substantial, heavily wooded privately owned area. We need to show extreme sensitivity to that. We want to reinforce about the only urban forest left west of Twin Peaks.”

Although the development is in its early stages, he said neighborhood reaction so far has been fairly favorable. “We’ve had some good encouragement from a lot of neighbors,” Mendelsohn said. “They appear to understand that the Christian Science church needs to develop its property.”

There has been no organized opposition to the plan yet.

Mendelsohn was a San Francisco supervisor in the late 1960s and early 1970s and served in President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Since, he has worked with Republic, which has done several big developments in the nation’s capital, including Georgetown Park, Washington Harbor, Market Square and the Ronald Reagan Building. The latter is the second-largest federal office building ever built, smaller only than the Pentagon.

Republic also has a couple of projects under way in San Jose.

At the Arden Wood project, Mendelsohn said, there probably will be townhouses and low-rise or mid-rise buildings along 19th Street, with low- or medium-rise buildings behind them. The project will include one-, two- and three-bedroom units, with the high-end units having views over Stern Grove, across 19th, to the Pacific Ocean.

Plans do not call for any below-market-rate units on that site.

The units will be sold by Barbagelata Realty, a longtime West Portal business once run by Mendelsohn’s political rival and neighbor in nearby St. Francis Wood, the late Supervisor John Barbagelata.

Traffic and parking are problems in San Francisco even without new developments, and Mendelsohn said Republic recognizes that. Republic plans to build a street that will connect the development to 19th Avenue at Wawona, where there is a three-way stop with Wawona running west from 19th.

There will be at least one parking space per unit, Mendelsohn said.

The number of buildings has not been determined, and some will be partially visible from 19th Avenue, he said, but “most will be invisible to Arden Wood’s neighbors.”

He said the change within the urban forest is the most delicate, and potentially most controversial, problem Republic faces.

As part of the project’s environmental impact report, Mendelsohn said, “We are currently counting trees and we intend to disturb the forest as little as possible.

“This is (Republic’s) first project in San Francisco. We want to make sure we get it right.”

Source:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/01/REG2CQNSVQ1.DTL