By Tim Redmond
OCTOBER 6, 2014 – Does the Chron even have anybody working on the weekends any more? I mean, a large, festive march – maybe 300 people, maybe 400, maybe more – took over Mission Street Saturday afternoon, protesting a giant condo complex that has been proposed for the 16th Street BART Plaza, and the Sunday paper has … nothing.
The intensity of the opposition in the neighborhood to this project was evident at the march and rally. There were plenty of people talking about evictions in general, but most of the anger was aimed at the plan to put 351 units of housing, most of it “market rate,” at 16th and Mission.
In this town, these days, “market-rate” is unaffordable to most San Franciscans, certainly most long-term Mission residents. Supporters of the project say it will be affordable to normal working people, but we don’t have projected prices yet – and there is absolutely zero new market-rate housing being built in the city that sells or rents at a level that more than about ten percent of local workers can afford.
The idea that the heart of the Mission could be home to a high(er)-end housing development has clearly touched a nerve. Organizing against the project has been going on for months, and the march Saturday was a testament to that. There were, of course, longtime tenant advocates – but also a lot of people who joined because of the very real fear that the neighborhood is under attack.
This isn’t a typical development protest movement – because this isn’t a typical moment in the city. This won’t be about views, or esthetics, or even the potential for the project to cast a shadow on a nearby school playground.
Just as the vote on 8 Washington was never really about one waterfront development, this isn’t about the 16th and Mission project – and the developer will have a hard time with the politics of the situation. In a lot of cases, developers can hire lobbyists and work with community leaders to offer some amenities and increase the affordable housing allocation and get enough people on board to make a deal.
Here – and more important, now — I’m afraid that won’t work. The anger over the gentrification and displacement in the Mission is so intense that it almost doesn’t matter how many BMR units the developers offer, or whether they raise the school playground up to keep it in the sun.
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If the project sponsors want to understand why almost anything the suggest (short of a complex that’s 100 percent BMR) will get a negative response, just look up the street a little bit.
This is a community under siege, with people literally fearing every day that they will be pushed out. I know, I know: Building 300 units of new housing doesn’t evict anyone. This project is entirely consistent with existing zoning and the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan. If the developer actually priced the units at, say, a level that two teachers with a kid could afford, there might be some benefit.
But that would be, by necessity, far below what every other project in the Mission is getting in return on investment, which my commenters say drives all of these developments.
And when you see this stuff just a few blocks away (and don’t tell me these places with Bosch and Bertazzoni appliances in the kitchen that are advertised as “luxury condos” will be affordable to most Mission residents — in fact, a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom unit in the building is now listed at $1.2 million, and an 800-square-foot one-bedroom at $804,000), people wonder: Will it ever end? Can the Mission be saved as the Mission? That’s why this is going to be a battle royal, with the 16th and Mission project as a symbol of a much bigger fight.
My prediction.
