A Board of Supes committee will decide Thursday/5whether to oppose state Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 50– and at this point, there are eight votes to say No.
That’s enough to override a veto by Mayor Breed, who has been supportive of Wiener’s approach to housing.
It’s safe to say a wide range of community housing and anti-gentrification groups are going to speak in opposition to AB 50. Here’s what John Elberling, who runs Todco, told us:
Weiner and his allies know full well that the “market forces” SB 50 would unleash — while enriching property owners everywhere — will drive the mostly-minority communities of the Bay Area’s central cities out of existence. Look at what is happening to the Mission’s Latino Community right now. Look at the one-time African-American neighborhood of West Oakland.
They are fine with that.
Because conquering these “transit rich” neighborhoods served by BART, CalTrain, etc. for neo-colonization by the mostly-white new Bay Area gentry — people like themselves — in “new housing” (plus scooping up all the existing housing stock too – thanks to the Ellis Act, thanks to TIC’s, thanks to vacancy de-control) is exactly the real goal.
The Redevelopment bulldozers of the 1950s and 1960s displaced thousands of low and moderate-income Bay Area residents in a handful of neighborhoods. Justin Herman, who ran the Redevelopment Agency, is now reviled for that.
But the many, many more “market bulldozers” of SB50 will displace hundreds of thousands from dozens of vulnerable Bay Area communities. And Scott Weiner is now playing the hero for it.
It was class war then, and it’s class war now. And the colors of class are plain for all to see.
SB 50 includes some language aimed at defusing the anger from vulnerable communities when Wiener pushed his first version of the bill.SB 50 would allow a five-year delay before developers could move into what the Association of Bay Area Governments calls “sensitive communities.”
But look at the ABAG chart:
Less than half of the Mission District would be protected, even for that short time. And as Elberling points out, “developers and speculators will keep buying buildings there anyway, knowing that they can cash in soon enough.”
The hearing starts at 10am in City Hall Room 263.
