Cash Politics in the Community: An Editorial
The following article appeared in the June edition of the New Bernal Journal. Because the publication is not online, we’re reprinting the article here. A shorter version of this editorial appeared yesterday in the Bay Guardian.
by Joseph Smooke, Executive Director, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center
On April 19th the Planning Department approved a market-rate condo development with a 24 hours Walgreens store at the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Mission where the Kelly Moore paint store used to be. The approved project by Seven Hills Properties is 50-feet and 4-stories high with 60 ownership units and 67 residential parking spaces. The developer is providing 9 “affordable” units to comply with the current inclusionary housing law that requires 15% of the units to be “below market rate”. To support the Walgreens, the developer is also including 24 customer parking spaces, 12 spaces for employees and 1 car share space.
Instead of high priced condos and 24-hour Walgreens, what the Mission truly needs are 100% affordable housing and community space. The development as proposed is not in compliance with the City of San Francisco’s General Plan or the recent Eastern Neighborhoods Planning rezoning requirements. As skyrocketing property values send families fleeing San Francisco, the Planning Department recognized the extraordinary need for more affordable housing in these working class neighborhoods when they recently adopted a policy that development in these neighborhoods should include affordable housing far in excess of the City-wide inclusionary housing requirements. These policies are an attempt to counterbalance the massive loss of affordable housing and blue collar jobs from the Eastern Neighborhoods during the recent wave of “live-work” conversions–conversions that change Production, Distribution and Repair (”PDR” also known as “light industrial”) buildings to residential use without rezoning. Despite these policies, the Planning Department has now approved a project that doesn’t even follow their own guidelines. It is an affront to our community that the Planning Department does not take the project approval process, the community’s needs, or even their own policies seriously.
Because of this mismanagement, the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC) has appealed to the Board of Supervisors Seven Hills Properties’ development approvals. By approving this development on April 19, the Planning Department has acted irresponsibly. We all need to attend the appeal hearing at the Board of Supervisors and contact the Supervisors before the hearing to let them know why this is important– because not only is the Planning Department acting recklessly, this development is manipulating both process and information, thereby affecting a host of issues in our community.
The condo developer, Seven Hills Properties, and their attorney lied repeatedly during the Planning Commission hearing. They claimed that families would be able to afford these simple, unadorned condos through first time home buyer’s programs financing help from the Mayor’s Office of Housing (”MOH”) Down Payment Assistance Loan Program (”DALP”). Truth is there will be nine below market units affordable to working middle class families in compliance with the Inclusionary Zoning law. All other units will be at market rates which according to the developer will be near $550,000 for a studio while 3-bedrooms will be close to $700,000. $620,000 is the City’s price cap for purchasing with DALP assistance. A single person making up to $63,850 (100% of median and $30/hour) qualifies for DALP. This person would have to come up with a $27,500 down payment of their own and just under $3,000/ month for mortgage payments (55% of that person’s income). As your income becomes less, your mortgage burden is greater. A single person earning $44,700 (80% of median and $21.50/ hour) and qualifying for the maximum amount of DALP, would pay just under 70% of their income for their mortgage. And, they still have to come up with the $27,500 cash. So, the DALP helps, but only applies here to single people, not families, and only those close to 100% of median income.
That the project proposed by Seven Hills is “affordable family housing” isn’t the only lie. What about the Eastern Neighborhoods’ other goal of retaining and providing good paying jobs? Building affordable housing not only creates homes for working families, but also provides good prevailing wage and/ or union construction jobs. However, the developer and their supporters in the community are using job creation as an excuse to support the condo development. One group of supporters is the Northwest Bernal Alliance (”NWBA”), a neighborhood association that has a history of helping development in order to get day laborers out of the community. For this reason and perhaps for others, the NWBA facilitated Home Depot’s project approvals in 2005 in hopes that having a Home Depot on Bayshore would attract Day Laborers to move their congregating point to Bayshore. Despite their actions to facilitate Hope Depot’s approvals, NWBA members have supposedly been working on a ban on “formula retail” which would help to safeguard local businesses from out-of-scale competition. Then, the NWBA showed up to the April 19 Kelly Moore hearings actively, vocally supporting the 24-hour Walgreens proposed to occupy the development’s ground level.
But, you might be asking, what’s wrong with a 24-hour Walgreens, why bring up Home Depot, and why should you or the NWBA care?
Just down Cesar Chavez from the proposed project, the City-funded Day Laborer Program operates in a space much too small for it, causing day laborers trying to find work to wait at the Kelly Moore site and on 26th Street. La Raza Centro Legal which runs the day labor program has been advocating for more space and rights for these marginalized workers. Home Depot, during their 2005 project approval process, said publicly that they will call police on day laborers waiting for work at the new store. The community was outraged and learning from the resulting opposition to that statement, the current condo developer, Seven Hills Properties, knew they would not have a viable project if they merely displaced day laborers, so the Mayor’s Office came up with the ideal solution–take $100,000 from Home Depot (so Home Depot makes good on the vague commitment forced on them during their project approvals to support the Day Laborer program) and use that money to establish a new Day Laborer Center on Bayshore near the Home Depot. Home Depot’s letter committing to this strategy was presented during the planning hearing to approve the Seven Hills Development at the Kelly Moore site. Without consulting the Day Laborer Program or other community groups, the Mayor moved ahead with plans for the new site conveniently for Seven Hills and Home Depot.
If you’re not upset by this collusion of big-money interests already, consider then that healthcare corporations may be looking to this development to get out of providing a pharmacy at St Luke’s that also provides union jobs! When St. Luke’s hospital was sold five years ago to Sutter Health they negotiated a five-year community commitment in response to community activism to save needed services. Now Sutter Health has been closing community based services and eliminating union jobs right and left. Sutter’s recently approved controversial merger with California Pacific Medical Center (”CPMC”) has many people worried that CPMC will close St. Luke’s rather than continue to serve the poor, the underinsured, and the uninsured. In order to avoid the state’s seismic retrofit requirements, CPMC would then relocate services into the mega-hospital they’re planning to build on Van Ness. CPMC has been talking for months about cutting the pharmacy at St. Luke’s that provides patients with convenient service and workers with union jobs. A 24-hour Walgreens across the street would provide the perfect justification for them to close the St. Luke’s pharmacy.
MAC received a letter in December 2006 from Seven Hills stating that Seven Hills was not able to meet the demands of the community to provide affordable housing, community services or blue collar jobs, so would be interested in selling its development interest to MAC if MAC could come up with a development proposal. MAC then worked with us at BHNC, and together, we created a viable offer which Seven Hills dismissed as unrealistic both in conversations with us and during the April 19 hearing. Are we confident that our development plan is feasible? Our proposal was to develop between 60 and 70 units of affordable housing over community services. Across the street, in 2001, BHNC opened its Bernal Gateway development, 55 affordable family units, with on-site community services that subsequently won 2 highly coveted national awards, with a similar financing strategy that we propose to employ at the Kelly Moore site. So, obviously, the answer is yes!
Let’s stop playing money politics with our community! The Kelly Moore site is perfect for affordable family housing to keep families in San Francisco. The City’s General Plan and the Supervisors’ policy statement for the Eastern Neighborhoods demand it! The fact that working families and the working poor are being forced out of San Francisco leaves us with an unsustainable social, economic and environmental future for San Francisco. This site is also perfect for an expanded Day Laborer Center capable of taking more workers off the street and helping them receive job training, facilitated connections to employment, and family support in a dignified environment rather than standing out on the street all day. We also can’t let a 24-hour Walgreens add to the dangerous traffic at this intersection and at the same time provide St Luke’s with an excuse for cutting its community serving pharmacy and union jobs. We have to support progressive City policies already in place in the City’s General Plan and policy statements related to development of the Eastern Neighborhoods. It is the Planning Department’s job to hold developers accountable to these laws and policies. Since they did not, we’re taking these issues to the Board of Supervisors where we look forward to restoring sense and responsibility in government to support development in our communities that creates social justice rather than exacerbating inequities.
If you are interested in this issue, please contact Jane Martin, BHNC Community Organizer, at jmartin@bhnc.org (415) 206-2140 x 155 and join us at the upcoming Board of Supervisors hearing on the Seven Hills Properties’ proposed development which is calendared for July 17.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
I’m speaking from the perspective of longtime Bernal Heights resident. I often pass the corner of Cesar Chavez and Mission, on my way to and from the 24th St and Mission BART station.
What hypocrisy from Joseph Smooke and the BHNC! The “cash politics in the community” is that the BHNC is a housing developer posing as representatives of the community. They hope to stop the Seven Hills development, and then get the city to buy the property for BHNC to develop, which would benefit the BHNC financially.
I haven’t seen this edition of the New Bernal Journal, BHNC’s newsletter. But appearance of the New Bernal Journal usually means that the BHNC is trying to convince the neighborhood to support its latest venture. It’s like those “newspapers” you only see at election time.
It’s telling that the BHNC would try to demean NW Bernal’s longtime volunteer organization that actually does work in the neighborhood, the Northwest Bernal Alliance (NWBA), rather than to try to understand why the neighborhood supports the Seven Hills proposal. The BHNC’s style is to hector its Bernal neighbors, rather than to listen to their concerns.
I’m not involved with the NWBA. I’ve only been to 2 NWBA meetings in 12 years. One was to support Chicken John’s getting an entertainment license for Odeon. The other was in the ’90’s, when the NWBA met to stop a supermarket from being built on Cesar Chavez and Mission, so that the BHNC could buy the land and build the Bernal Gateway affordable housing project. The NWBA was OK when it helped the BHNC get the land that let the BHNC get $14.5 million in public money.
This time, however, it was Seven Hills, and not the BHNC who got the support from the neighbors of the proposed development. Unlike the competing housing developer, the BHNC, Seven Hills communicated with and listened to the neighbors of the development. The development will expand sidewalks and green the median of Cesar Chavez St. They plan to commission a mural from Precita Eyes. They plan to provide space for car-share programs. They plan to provide 9 below-market units, when they only needed to provide 7, because the project was filed under the lower requirements.
If the NWBC succeeds in killing the development, chances are that the community will be stuck with the current fenced-off parking lot indefinitely. This dark corner is a concern for neighbors who walk this stretch regularly to and from BART. An older lesbian neighbor was savagely beaten there recently, walking from Bernal Heights to 24th St BART in the morning. The SFPD just did a sting, with an officer disguised as an old man walking that block; the undercover officer was promptly mugged. That block has suffered from years of shuttered stores; the only recent new business is a check cashing store, while several other store fronts are shuttered. More pedestrian traffic would encourage foot traffic between the NW Bernal and Mission neighborhoods.
Smooke makes a number of other conspiratorial claims, of a NWBA in cahoots with Home Depot, even though the there was a lot of opposition to Home Depot in NW Bernal, especially with our loyalty to our neighborhood Cole Hardware.
There is already a day laborer center a few doors down Cesar Chavez. Smooke says that the reason day laborers are still on the streets is that the center is too small. But in fact, Rene Saucedo has said that the purpose of the center is not to get day laborers off the streets, but rather to support them however they wish to get work. It’s not clear to me what the day laborer center would do with an additional space the size of a Walgreens.
I hadn’t heard anything about Walgreen’s competing with a union-represented St. Luke’s Pharmacy– I wasn’t aware that St. Luke’s had an outpatient pharmacy open to its neighbors. However, at Sutter-owned Davies, the outpatient pharmacy is independently-run, and non-union, and I suspect that Sutter could do the same at St. Lukes, if it wished, or use the existing Walgreen’s at 29th and Mission.
The NWBA has tried to beautify the neighborhood, planting trees on Mission, sponsoring clean up drives, and trying to save local businesses from chain stores.
My neighbors in NW Bernal don’t always agree with the NWBA, but respect it more than the hypocritical and self-serving BHNC.
The neighbors of the Cesar Chavez and Mission development support the project not because they are anti-day labor, pro- Home Depot, or anti-affordable housing, but rather because they were won over by a developer who listened to community needs. That same community supported the BHNC in the past, but the BHNC has lost their trust. I suggest that the BHNC try to woek with the community again, and perhaps it can regain their support.
June 29th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I can’t speak to the history of the groups involved, although I lived within a block and a half of the corner in question for 11 out of the last 13 years. (It’s moderately off-topic, but I find it interesting that NWBA meets in a BHNC development.)
I will say that the organizations aside, the project in question is terrible. I haven;t seen the plans, but from everything I’ve read about the project, it does not seem to meet community needs at all.
First, it’s adding a 100-space parking lot to an intersection which is already one of the 10 most dangerous in San Francisco. An intersection at which at least 3 bus lines stop, and that is within three blocks of a BART station.
Second, why the hell do we need another Walgreen? There are already two within blocks of the corner and there are two pharmacies on Cesar Chavez between Valencia and Guerrero.
Further, it’s clear to me that the neighborhood doesn’t need more market-rate housing, especially at a location large enough to support a sizable building, like BHNC is proposing–at least at the expense of affordable housing.
It’s not at all clear to me that the proposed market-rate development would happen any faster than the MAC/BHNC one. So I don’t necessarily the “we need to build something to keep the little old ladies from getting mugged” reasoning. If there are concerns about the safety of the site as it exists, why is there no effort to get the owners to light it, or whatever would make it safer?
Finally, I, for one, am pretty tired of being pressured to support projects because either we gets crumbs (woo hoo! 15%!) or because there’s nothing else on the table. In this case there is something better on the table, something that gives us more than crumbs.
June 29th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
“It’s not at all clear to me that the proposed market-rate development would happen any faster than the MAC/BHNC one.”
Of course it would; plans for the Seven Hills development have been in the works for a long time, and have been approved by the Planning Commission. Construction can start right away, unless blocked by the Board of Supervisors.
BNHC would have to defeat the Seven Hills plan at the Board of Supervisors. Then BHNC would have to convince Seven Hills to sell it the property. Then BHNC would have to raise the money to buy the property. Then BHNC would have to get architects to design a building. Then BHNC would have to meet with neighbors to get their input. (I went to the BHNC meeting for community input on the Bernal Gateway, not that any community input was incorporated into the design.) Then those plans would have to be approved. That’s a few extra years of a vacant lot, even it all of the above steps take place. If the above the steps don’t happen, without the Seven Hills proposal, the lot remains empty indefinitely.
“It’s moderately off-topic, but I find it interesting that NWBA meets in a BHNC development”
NWBA has supported past BHNC developments, so I’m not sure why you find this interesting. NWBA was critical in mobilizing neighbors to stop the supermarket at Cesar Chavez and Mission infavor of affordable housing, so that BHNC could build Bernal Gateway. It just happens that NWBA likes the Seven Hills proposal.
It’s not like Cesar Chavez and Mission is the last underutilized property in SF. Why doesn’t MAC and BHNC try to buy 2660 Harrison, where market rate development has already been blocked? It could build just as many affordable units there as at Cesar Chavez and Mission.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Testify at the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, July 17th to oppose the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition’s appeal of 3400 Cesar Chavez. Don’t let MAC build a ghetto on Cesar Chavez Street! To find out more, see http://www.3400cesarchavez.net.
At a time when the intersection of Cesar Chavez & Mission Streets is tied for 5th-highest injury collisions in the city, MAC and its partners are demanding a 100% affordable low and very low-income development there. Given that there are already 55 Section 8 households living on the same intersection in the BHNC-built Bernal Gateway, why crush the terrific diversity in the neighborhood by building a fifth low and very low-income project on Cesar Chavez Street?
The site in question is 3400 Cesar Chavez Street (at Mission), now a single-storey ex paint store and car dealership surrounded by parking lot and obnoxious billboard, where heroin and methamphetamine dealers at the head of Bartlett Street pretend to be day laborers to mask their drug dealing. MAC and other non-profit, low-income housing advocates from the Mission and Bernal Heights are trying to kill a decent, community-guided proposal offered by Seven Hills Properties (see plans here: http://3400cesarchavez.net/drawings). MAC and its partners are against creating middle-income homeownership opportunities for families in the Mission.
The low-and very-low income rental housing projects that MAC’s coalition partners build typically serve households making 50% of the area median income (AMI) or less. Currently, AMI for a household of 4 is $80,319 (see here: http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/moh/Rent_Levels/MOH2007AMI_IncomeLimits-CCSFonly.pdf), where such a household can afford $937 per month for housing – assuming the federal definition of “affordable housing”, as that housing which costs no more than 28% of household income.
Typical San Franciscans pay between 35 and 45% of household income towards their housing – ask them. Some Bay Area lending institutions will lend up to 50% of household income when financing a home. The 28% “affordable housing” ratio used by affordable housing advocates is not how people live – renters or homeowners. But homeownership benefits many households, for several reasons: incomes typically go up, while mortgage payments remain the same; real estate taxes and the interest portions of mortgages provide a tax deduction, unlike rent; and the value of property increases. Plus homeowners literally invest in a neighborhood. Homeownership opportunities are an important part of a healthy neighborhood, and are a path out of poverty.
Building a fifth low and very-low income rental housing project on Cesar Chavez Street will bring about an accelerated eviction rate of households in the surrounding areas. This is because households able to buy homes will have no choice but to continue picking off small two and four-unit rental units in the surrounding areas, and convert them into TICs and condominiums. Given the desirability of San Francisco, and the closeness of the Mission District to Downtown and first-rate public transit, people will always be interested in purchasing homes there. Discouraging middle-income housing such as is proposed by Seven Hills Properties (see here: http://www.3400cesarchavez.net) prices out families and pushes San Francisco into a home for only the very rich and the very poor.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I’m mystified as to why you’d describe a project that’s adding a hundred-space parking lot to one of the most dangerous intersections in San Francisco as beneficial. Seems to me the last thing we want at Mission and Cesar Chavez is a bunch of people churning in and out of a parking lot at that corner.
Imagining that building a couple dozen condos at prices that just might be affordable to people of median income is somehow going to stem the tide of evictions in the Mission (or citywide) is naive at best. In fact, market-rate developments like this usually raise rents and purchase prices in the surrounding areas, creating more incentive for landlords and real estate speculators to cash in.
And your math confuses me. I’ve heard that the 3-bedrooms will be going for $700k. Assuming that someone can put $100k down (quite a bit, for most folks), according to the well-known site some random mortgage calculator, payments are likely to be $3700/month, at current rates. That’s significantly more than 50% of monthly median income for a family of 4, even assuming that percentage was reasonable.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
“Seems to me the last thing we want at Mission and Cesar Chavez is a bunch of people churning in and out of a parking lot at that corner.”
There already is a parking lot that takes up much of the lot, and for years that lot was used by people buying paint, as well as people picking up day workers. The lot for Walgreens parkers won’t be bigger than the lot that is there now. A garage for residents will be built by whoever puts housing there.
If the property is used as BHNC has suggested, as a place for contractors to pick up day workers, it would likely generate more traffic than the small Walgreens lot.
When BHNC built Bernal Gateway, across the street, and when BHNC built the seniors housing on Mission St, in each case it built a big garage. I think the parking being proposed by Seven Hill is just consistent with current zoning.
“I’ve heard that the 3-bedrooms will be going for $700k.”
where did you hear that? I think the prices for the units that have been thrown out have been made up by its opponents. Smooke’s article suggested studios would run $550,000. There have been 3 condo buildings that I’m aware of that have been built along Mission St in recent years. In each of them, 2 bedroom condos have been priced from about $500,000 to $600,000. That’s not cheap, but it is much cheaper than most new condos in SF.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
The Seven Hills proposal will provide 9 affordable units at the expense of the developer.
Talk about the high cost of housing– the BHNC proposal would cost us San Francisco taxpayers about $30 million, to provide 60-70 units of family housing.
If the City spent that money on rent subsidies, it could house far more families than 60-70.
July 4th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Dan
Thanks for your comments
Here is my response to set the record straight on a few things
1—BHNC publishes the New Bernal Journal every 2 months without fail, with content due during each odd month and distribution happening every even month.
2—BHNC and NWBA have a long history of working for the very same goals in our community. In fact, when BHNC started, in 1978, it came out of the activism of NWBA when NWBA members were fighting for-profit developers whose larger and larger developments were threatening the diversity of Bernal Heights by fueling the upsurge in market prices for housing. Rather than just implement land use controls, many residents of Northwest Bernal had the idea to establish a non profit community development corporation to build new affordable housing and to provide essential services for people in need in the community. That non profit, now 30 years later, is BHNC continuing to do that work
3—BHNC and NWBA worked closely on the Bernal Gateway development. Charles Bolton, president of the NWBA at that time, fought hard right alongside those of us at BHNC to make sure that southeast corner of Cesar Chavez provided affordable housing and community services rather than serving corporate interests. BHNC led many community meetings to incorporate neighbors’ input into the design. As a result, BHNC and Michael Pyatok architects have won many national design awards for Bernal Gateway. Unfortunately, Charles and many of the members of NWBA who were very active at that time are not part of NWBA any longer, so there is a break in memory within NWBA over how that process actually went.
4—The streetscape improvements NWBA has demanded from Seven Hills Properties are tremendous. It is fantastic that Seven Hills has agreed to them, and any developer who ends up developing at 3400 Cesar Chavez should agree to providing these amenities
5—It is true that if BHNC developed at 3400 Cesar Chavez that there would be a delay in occupancy. At this point, Seven Hills has their entitlements in hand, so if approved by the Board of Supervisors, they will proceed straight to their building permit/ plan check process. We at BHNC are instead focused on the long term impact of what’s built on this site rather than prioritizing expediency.
6—You allege that BHNC is acting out of some “self-interest”, and I can’t quite figure out what that could be. BHNC is a non profit organization. Our mission is to preserve and enhance the cultural, ethnic and economic diversity of the community, not to make money, and the IRS and various City agencies regulate our activities in this regard. So, to insinuate that providing housing that the for-profit world will not—housing that is affordable for the people who clean your streets, teach your kids, wait on you in restaurants, etc is somehow in BHNC’s self-interest is strange. Our interest is in providing for the public benefit, not in making a profit.
7—Further to this point. In December, 2006, Seven Hills wrote a letter to the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition inviting a proposal for the community to develop 3400 Cesar Chavez because as Seven Hills acknowledged, they could not meet the community’s demands, so BHNC’s involvement is at the request of MAC which results from a request from Seven Hills.
8—The purchase prices for the condos Seven Hills intends to build as stated in my NBJ article are from statements made by the developer’s representatives during the Planning Commission hearing on April 19
9—Many members of NWBA have stated that they support a ban on formula retail for Mission St. We at BHNC fully support that. Unfortunately, NWBA has actively supported two huge formula retail outlets, Home Depot and now Walgreens, in the past 2 years despite working admirably against other formula retail. Please note that since the June/ July issue of the NBJ hit the streets, we have learned that St Lukes’ will be moving Walgreens into its on-site pharmacy to replace the one that has been there.
10—Many members of NWBA and seemingly yourself (judging from some of your comments) are very concerned about the lack of affordable housing. So, we at BHNC share this concern.
11—Market rate housing is provided in many ways. When rent controlled units turn over, new rents are as high as the market will bear. Condos and other ownership units are sold at the highest prices the market will bear. Rental units constructed after 1980 are not subject to rent control at all. The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution stating that 64% of all new housing created in the Eastern Neighborhoods of SF must be affordable to balance the amount of market rate housing created recently.
12—Yes, a new development whether for profit or non profit developed will cost some millions of dollars. A non profit development relies on public subsidies to reduce the cost to the user, thereby making the housing affordable. BHNC does strongly believe in progressive taxation structures to create these subsidies which provide equal access to housing and other essential services for poor people, and to build a just and equitable community (also part of our mission statement). Therefore, yes, we believe it is a good thing that City funds would be used to create affordable housing at 3400 Cesar Chavez if non profit developed, but those City funds are generally only 20% - 30% of the total development cost with the rest being leveraged from a variety of private, federal and state sources some administered by the City and some accessed by non profit developers.
I think there is significant common ground here between your position and what BHNC is trying to accomplish. I also appreciate that you’ve read the NBJ and have taken the time to craft a response to it, and I hope this response helps to clarify some of the issues you have raised.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Joseph–
Thanks for your response– I agree with most of what you’ve written.
But a ban on the construction of market rate housing will only accelerate the loss of affordable housing, by constricting supply, as well as cutting off the largest source of funding for affordable housing. In a city that did not support the last affordable housing bond ballot measure, sixty-four percent of nothing is nothing.
So I think that the better market rate housing proposals– the ones that are most responsive to neighbors– should be allowed, and their 15% affordable units built. And as the city completes it’s PDR-to-housing planning, there also will be plenty of land for funded affordable housing projects on former PDR land, as well as at Candlestick Point and Hunter’s Point.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Sasha writes:
“…the project in question is terrible. I haven;t seen the plans…”
Hahahahahaha!!!
LMAO!!!
July 5th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Joseph:
“So, to insinuate that providing housing …is somehow in BHNC’s self-interest is strange.”
BHNC is a housing developer. Of course it is in its self-interest to build housing. Non-profits need new projects to bring in the funding to pay staff. Of course non-profits benefit from large projects. Sutter Health is a non-profit– but don’t you think its leadership benefits from taking over more hosptals, like St. Luke’s?
July 5th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Yep, sounds dumb, doesn’t it? I meant I hadn’t seen the plans in an architectural sense. What it ended up sounding like was quite different. Apologies for my unclear phrasing. You can see the plans (by which I mean drawings) at http://3400cesarchavez.net/drawings/
July 5th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Let your voices be heard on July 17 at City Hall. Join with the hundreds of working families trying to catch a break in San Francisco, the most beautiful and one of the most expensive cities in the world. We all have the right to live, work and thrive in the City.
Join the campaign to transform 3400 Cesar Chavez from exclusive condos to family affordable homes. For info on exciting ways to get involved check out www.myspace.com/missionantidisplacement.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I received a call yesterday from Laurel Muniz, President of NWBA. She called to my attention that I stated above that NWBA had supported the Home Depot development. As Laurel noted, my statement was incorrect as NWBA did not take a formal position on the Home Depot. Rather, my language in the NBJ article was correct as the agreement NWBA signed with Home Depot facilitated Home Depot’s approval, as that was in fact the impact of NWBA’s agreement with Home Depot. That agreement stated that signing on to the agreement did not constitute a formal NWBA position on the Home Depot.
One other note– to try to compare a mega-health (non profit) concern such as Sutter, CPMC or Kaiser to a community based non profit full of dedicated under-paid staff and pass it off as meaning that BHNC is acting in “self-interest” is misdirected and uninformed.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Joseph,
Thanks for your response. When your organization was compared to Sutter, the poster lost all credibility with me. Sweeping comparisons like that which have no basis in fact or reality make a reasoned debate almost impossible.
Thanks for your efforts at creating truly affordable housing at this site.
July 7th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
My statement that Sutter Health is a non-profit, too, was merely to counter Joseph’s statement that BHNC could not be acting on self-interest, because it is a non-profit. Being a non-profit does not refute acting in its self interest, since non-profits act in their self-interests, too. I have no objection to BHNC acting in its self-interest as a housing developer, except that it also claims to be the representative of the neighborhood (as opposed to the NWBA). Its self-interest as a housing developer, which include the money the project would bring in, complicates its claim to be the representative of the neighborhood.
“Sweeping comparisons like that which have no basis in fact or reality make a reasoned debate almost impossible.”
Broad statements like this, which label an opinion with which you disagree as unreasonable, make reasoned debate almost impossible. Robert, are dissenting opinions welcome on this blog– or should one only read and post if one agrees with you?
Lastly, Joseph’s statement that the NWBA endorsed the Home Depot project, and were in any way responsible for its approval, is simply incorrect. Though I am not actively involved in the NWBA, I have been on their email list for as long as there has been an email list, and I have never read an endorsement of Home Depot by NWBA. In fact, on the email list, which was once more active, I have only read of the NWBA’s support of Rick Cole and Cole Hardware, which has been one of the leaders in the fight against Home Depot. The Home Depot is being built because of the strong support for it in the Bayview. Joseph attempts to link NWBA with Home Depot to discredit NWBA’s support for the Seven Hills project.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I am happy to hear from you and you are welcome to post here. However, comparing them to Sutter is absurd and makes your argument way less credible.