Rally at 3400 Cesar Chavez (edit this)
Community groups rallied in front of 3400 Cesar Chavez on Friday, protesting the Seven Hill Properties’ development of the property without looking the viable plan by Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC).
The site was used by Day Laborers to find work. MAC’s and BHNC’s plan would
build 60-70 affordable housing units for families. Seven Hills plan would only build nine affordable housing that would be sold to families earning 100% median income. The MAC’s and BHNC’s plan would have an area for the Day Laborers. Seven Hills would have yet another Walgreens on the ground floor.
Two Day Laborer leaders with David Campos, Debra Walker and Tommi Avicolli Mecca.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Building Commission President Debra Walker, State Senator Carole Migden and Supervisorial Candidate David Campos was in attendance. Day Labor workers, Pride at Work and Young Workers United Workers were there to support more affordable housing.
The Harvey Milk Club was represented by Robert Haaland, Rafael Mandelman, Debra Walker, Terrrie Frye and Kim Knox.
Rafael Mandelman and Robert Haaland
Sara Flocks and Sonya Mehta of Young Workers United
July 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am e
“…protesting the development of the property without affordable housing in the middle of the Mission.”
Actually, there are 9 units of affordable housing planned by the developer.
July 14th, 2007 at 12:50 pm e
Kim Knox wrote:
“…protesting the Seven Hill Properties’ development of the property without looking the viable plan by Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC)…”
This was your substitute for the original incorrect language, but it is also incorrect.
BHNC’s director Joseph Smooke posted here on leftinsf:
“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.”
July 15th, 2007 at 9:07 am e
Let’s be real. The city’s strategy led by the Mayor & the Planning Department/Commission for providing affordable housing has been approve as many market-rate condos and their insignificant number of required inclusionary units. The inclusionary affordable units (as required by local law) provided by Seven Hills properties will be at 100% of the areas median income which is at $64,000. 90% of the population in Frisco makes well under that. That means only an exclusive 10% of the population in SF can afford the “affordable ” units. In the Mission the Area Median Income is around $44,000; Latinos per capita income ( a more accurate account of what folks are earning) in the MIssion is $13,000 per year. Damn!
The developer talks about his project as affordable housing opportunities for teachers, cops, etc… C’mon stop the spin Barbary Coast (public relations firm hired by Seven Hills)! My wife is a teacher at the school down the street, Leonard Flynn (go Eagles!), and she makes $44,000. Ain’t no teacher able to afford these affordable units. Maybe if you go in with another teacher. But forget that- me and my wife got three kids what the hell we want a roomate. People talk about the developers nine “affordable” units as though it’s a moral act of social responsibility, like Tom Rocca (developer) was visited by the ghost of christmas past or something. The affordable units are REQUIRED by law; It’s part of any developers project.
It is time for us to send a strong message to the city. If it dosent take a more proactive role in acquiring developmenmt sites then we are doomed to be a bedroom community for Silicon Valey where dog parks will outnumber playgrounds. And lower income workers will continue living in undignified, overcrowded and dilapidated housing. Of all U.S. cities, San Francisco has the lowest number of children. This is not a healthy City.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:10 am e
how about getting a job oscarito?
you think it’s your right to have one parent stay at home?
give me a break!
July 15th, 2007 at 10:46 am e
Here are links to my photos from this event. I don’t know how the links come up on this site, so you may have to copy and paste them into your browser. Oh, and 9 units of “affordable housing.” Whoopie!!
http://www.flickr.com/gp/81834230@N00/57ZuZf - 7/9/07
http://www.flickr.com/gp/81834230@N00/L29cY8 - 7/10/07
http://www.flickr.com/gp/81834230@N00/637o96 - 7/13/07
July 15th, 2007 at 12:58 pm e
“the inclusionary affordable units (as required by local law) provided by Seven Hills properties will be at 100% of the areas median income which is at $64,000. 90% of the population in Frisco makes well under that.”
The median household income in the city of San Francisco in 1999 was $55,221, according to the 2000 Census. That means that in 1999, half of the households in San Francisco made $55,221 or more. I don’t know how the the estimate was derived for 2007, but clearly the median income in the city is higher now than 8 years ago.
The *maximum* household income allowed to purchase a BMR unit is the median household income. For example, the average salary for a BART worker is $67,000 (as of 2005)– if in a single person household, that person would earn too much money to qualify to purchase a BMR unit. The median income allowed for a 4 person household is higher, because usually, at least 2 members of larger households work, so the median income for 4 person households is higher. The maximum price is set so that a median income household will spend 33% of their income on housing.
I know 3 people who have bought or are in the process of buying BMR units– each are women, and two are women of color. One is an administrative assistant, one is a research assistant, and the third a substance abuse counselor.
http://www.sfgov.org/site/moh_page.asp?id=48083
July 15th, 2007 at 1:07 pm e
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this info, but googling, I found, for the Mission zip code 94110, an average household income of $74,650 and a median household income of $59,495.
http://homes.point2.com/Neighborhood/US/California/San-Francisco-County/San-Francisco/Inner-Mission-Demographics.aspx
July 15th, 2007 at 5:09 pm e
keep up the good work dan. the average muni driver makes 100k. don’t believe the hype. bmr’s are a great deal and continue to get scooped up with folks sleeping in cots to line up and buy them. till then, it’s a fabulously successful program for folks willing to get jobs.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:46 pm e
So painfully obvious (to me anyway), that Latinos are being displaced from the Mission just like African/Americans from the Bayview, and Queers from the Castro.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:01 pm e
Official federal median incomes vary by family size.
Any discussion of median income absent family size is absurd.
The average MUNI operator does not make $100K:
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/sfmuni/default.cfm?action=viewclassspec&ClassSpecID=8547&Agency=474&ViewOnly=Yes
Class Title: Transit Operator
Salary: $16.83 - $26.77 hourly
$1,346.40 - $2,141.60 biweekly
$2,917.20 - $4,640.13 monthly
$35,006.40 - $55,681.60 annually
The fact is that the number of applicants for BMR units is orders of magnitude more than there are available units. If we were to entitle market rate housing construction at the most ambitious rates, then we’d flood the market with luxury condos, providing a sink for international capital investors and provide affordable units to meet a slim fraction of today’s, not to mention tomorrow’s demand.
These inclusionary units remain BMR for only 40-50 years. Then what?
-marc
July 16th, 2007 at 7:14 pm e
A few thoughts on breaking it all down.
The market rate units in this project will go for between the high $500K range for studios to more than $1m for a 3BR. You’re looking at having to service $3K/mo minimum in PITI–principal, interest, taxes and insurance, which means $102K annual income.
For the $7K/mo PITI for the $1m 3BR, you’ve got to be pulling in $240K per year.
If so few in the neighborhood qualify for BMR, then how many will qualify for these market rate units?
Calls for more family units might have converse consequences, as the prices of these 3BR units are so astronomical.
But I am glad that we might get another Walgreens, 24 hr no less. I don’t know about you all, but whenever I am more than 3 blocks away from a Walgreens, I become disoriented and a sense of vertigo consumes me. Proximity to a Rite Aid does nothing for me, it must be a Walgreens. Fortunately, our home is within visual line of sight of a Walgreens.
No, this project should be opposed because a Conditional Use is to be granted when a project is “necessary or desirable.” More luxury condos that nobody who lives here can afford and Walgreens are neither necessary nor desirable.
I’m sorry I will miss tomorrow’s meeting to support sending the EIR back, as work crimps my activist style yet again.
-marc
July 16th, 2007 at 10:25 pm e
I very much doubt the developer could get $1 million each for condos at Cesar Chavez and Mission. New two bedroom condos in nearby buildings sold in the $500,000’s.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:25 am e
At 15th and Mission, around the corner from our home, units went from the high $500K to the low $1ms.
In general, the larger the unit, the higher the price, although some 300 ft2 market rate SRO units in SOMA go for $1K/ft2, because there is nothing else at that price point.
Once the sales price of housing gets detached from the costs of construction (~400+/ft2) and the local wage base (median income), then it is no longer “necessary nor desirable” for a neighborhood like the Mission.
In fact, it is unnecessary and undesirable to build housing nobody living here can afford when so many families are living crammed into SROs on Mission Street, when so many are couch surfing, when so few LGBT can find a safer landing spot in SF, when there are so many instances of housing shortage for folks who live here.
-marc
July 17th, 2007 at 9:09 am e
Actually, at that building at 15th and Mission, condos sold from the low $500,000’s to the low $600,000s:
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2007/01/1587_15th_street_representative_pricing_and_pictures.html
That’s expensive anyway– so why exaggerate?
July 17th, 2007 at 9:58 am e
Uh, I don’t think any of those quoted were of the ‘01′ stack as you put them.
The units where prices were quoted were much smaller and faced out back to the Marshall School.
The top units went for more than $700/ft2, around $700-800K, were sized at under 1100 ft/2, 2BR, 1BA.
Again, the kinds of incomes required to service these loans are above and beyond what might be termed “middle class.”
Add in the other bedroom as we’d see for demanded family housing at 3700 Cesar Chavez, and you’re at a cool $1m.
-marc
July 17th, 2007 at 10:22 am e
I just linked to the site that listed the range of prices of the available units, shortly after the opening of the building, from the low $500,000s to the low $600,000.
Another website suggests that the most desirable, top floor corner unit may have sold as high as $700,000:
http://leblog.exuberance.com/2007/01/1587_15th_stree.html
I’m in agreement that the condos were expensive– just not the $1 million condos you claimed.
July 17th, 2007 at 12:42 pm e
Marc– Since you are a neighbor of the 15th and Mission condos, have you noticed any harm to the neighborhood since they opened?
The appeal to the Board of Supervisors for 3400 Cesar Chavez is that it would be environmentally harmful to the neighborhood.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:16 am e
The question is not one of harm.
Conditional uses are deemed those which are “necessary or desirable.”
That is the law.
If you want to establish a mere Hippocratic standard for housing, then by all means try to amend the law to reflect that thinking.
But as it stands, those units, as for 3400 Cesar Chavez, were neither necessary nor desirable.
We’re starving for protein and all you’re feeding us is cupcakes.
-marc
July 18th, 2007 at 9:16 am e
The appeal to the Board was of the Planning Commission’s environment report, so yes, harm is an issue.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:58 am e
Why obfuscate? This thread is a discussion of a rally at 3400 CC, not testimony at the BofS on yesterday’s CEQA appeal.
The CU is dependent on finding that a project is “necessary or desirable,” while the CEQA concerns are dependent on whether the lead agency presented potential “environmental” impacts and mitigation measures to policymakers.
The CEQA argument at 3400 Cesar Chavez is that market rate housing causes “environmental” impacts under CEQA by changing the dynamic of affordability, just as the “environmental” impacts of 2660 Harrison changed the dynamic of job provision in the former industrial areas.
The project does not hold water under either the CU analysis nor does the EIR take into account the cumulative impacts of market rate (>$500/ft2) housing on the economic existing conditions of the Mission.
In fact, the MEA (major environmental analysis) office at Planning has a horrific record of assessing cumulative impacts just like the comprehensive planning shop has a terrible record of producing comprehensive plans.
All we get are black lines drawn on the map to designate planning areas, over which there shall be no cooperation or comprehensive planning.
A quick look at the absence of transportation planning from the Eastern Neighborhoods and Market/Octavia confirms this.
Planning in SF is all about entitling luxury housing to make developers richer and squeeze out progressives as a political force. The department has become so sloppy at doing its job in this respect that these failures are now brutally apparent for all to see.
-marc
July 18th, 2007 at 10:06 am e
since when did an EIR have anything to do with the price of the housing? give me a break. would the topsoil erosion and pollution be worse if these units were priced like yours marc? is that the best you can come up with?
July 18th, 2007 at 11:12 pm e
CEQA is CEQA. Its fucked up and we’ve got to deal with it. Housing entitlement has been stopped for many months in the former IPZ due to concerns of market rate housing consuming the spaces on which the service and light industrial economies depend, all due to a successful EIR appeal.
Even the SF Chron admits things are a little wierd when it discusses the disappointment of those who view their homes as short term income generators compared to those of us who view our homes as stable places to live and ultimately a retirement account:
Although home sales slumped more than 10 percent from last year in the city, the median price increased by 4.4 percent. In fact, DataQuick found the median price paid per square foot for a home in San Francisco hit $673 — a record.
Even within the Bay Area’s desirable hub city, however, there are mixed messages. While homes are selling for multiple millions on Russian Hill or in Pacific Heights, the new inventory in the South of Market area could have a dampening effect.
“South of Market, which was a sure bet for growth in the mid 1990s with Multimedia Gulch and all of the Internet companies and the new lofts being built there … that’s pretty much come to a standstill,” Lynn said. “I have sellers there with unreasonable expectations — they’re living in two years ago.
“I hope it’s a short-term correction,” he added. “We’ve got a lot of people moving there and there’s great demand. But (it’s unclear) whether the demand and supply curves are going to align.”
August 9th, 2007 at 12:37 pm e
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/09/BU3IREG2E.DTL
Mortgage crunch hits Bay Area hard because of jumbo loans
Duncan said jumbo loans are carrying interest rates of 7.5 percent to 8 percent, 1 to 1.5 points higher than a month ago. “This is a big run-up, and we expect it to significantly delay the housing recovery, if it stays there for a while,” he said.
Increase in loan rates, payments
An informal survey of interest rates for nonconforming loans (more than $417,000) found that the average rate on a 30-year, $500,000 fixed-rate loan - which had been 6.75% since early July - suddenly jumped to 7.5% this week.
The percentage is an average of what large lenders, including Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, IndyMac, Bank of America and Citibank, have been charging for a 30-year, $500,000 fixed rate loan with a one point (1 percent, or $5,000) loan fee.
Aug. 1
Average monthly payment at 6.75%
$3,242.99
Aug. 8
Average monthly payment at 7.5%
$3,496.07
The increase in average monthly payment
$253.08
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 8:40 pm e
Rentals Reach a New Level of Luxury
registration required:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/realestate/12cov.html
“The quality of apartment fixtures and the kinds of amenities in a building naturally vary, depending on a building’s location and the kind of tenant that the developer hopes to attract. Brokers and developers agree that the target audience for many of the new high-rises is young professionals in their 20s and early 30s who may earn as much as $300,000 a year but who just aren’t ready to own yet.”
August 12th, 2007 at 10:44 pm e
3400 CC ain’t Manhattan.
August 13th, 2007 at 6:51 am e
And 3400 does not exist in a vacuum, unless you see the Mission as a vacuum into which you can pour an unspecified number of expensive condos that nobody who lives in the neighborhood can afford.
-marc