Diplomatic immunity!

Although I have absolutely no understanding of how far the concept of diplomatic immunity reaches, it appears to have some pretty solid clout with the toughest game in town, the Planning Commission.

Developers can’t get things approved, no matter what the cost, whether because of Supervisors, neighbors, or age-old codes & zoning. But if you build a consulate, apparently you can get away with whatever you want. Eventually.

Although the process for a VERY large expansion to the Chinese consulate in Monterey Heights was delayed on Thursday, today’s Examiner tells the tale of how far they are getting and why this is still likely to go through…

Plans to add 5,348 square feet to the residence of the consul general of China were thwarted Thursday as some neighbors pushed to halt the proposal and the U.S. Department of State lobbied for approval.

Stuck in the cross hairs, the Planning Commission voted 3-2 to continue the matter until next week following hours of testimony from neighbors and a raging debate over diplomatic immunity. The panel previously voted to continue the matter at a meeting in May amid complaints from neighbors. [more...]

Planning panel struggles with likely budget cuts [SFHomeBlog]

This entry was posted on Friday, August 4th, 2006 at 9:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.