Planning commissioner with 30 years in SF construction: shadow appeals are "weaponized" to kill housing

Commissioner McGarry, speaking from three decades of San Francisco construction experience, told the Planning Commission that shadow objections have been deliberately used as a veto tool against housing projects, not as genuine environmental protection. "Shadows have been weaponized to basically kill, delay, abort, get rid of, and just slow down the cog in the wheel that things just don't happen," he said. McGarry pointed to a specific address, 1750, near Washington Square as a real-world consequence: a burnt-out building that sat in disrepair while a neighboring project was blocked by a shadow appeal. The commission was debating the SHADE Act, a proposed local ordinance that would end shadow-based CEQA appeals in San Francisco.