Hundreds of Mission residents and activists showed up at the Planning Commission Feb. 6 to demand that the owner of a building that burned down at 2588 Mission St., causing the displacement of 58 people and the death of one, not be allowed to profit from the tragedy.
Speaker after speaker said that owner Hawk Liu had neglected maintenance on the property and that fire alarms were not working. The Fire Department said faulty wiring probably caused the deadly blaze.
Now Liu wants to use state housing laws promoted by state Sen. Scott Wiener and the Yimby lobby to build 181 new market-rate condo units, with just 19 affordable.
The hearing was a stunning example of how the new Yimby-backed state laws can eliminate the rights of the city to crack down on unscrupulous landlords.
In essence, the developer’s lawyer said that none of the problems that lead to the fire mattered. State law lets him do whatever he wants.
The commissioners, some of whom were at best highly dubious about the project, agreed: The state Legislature took away their discretion. The commission continued the matter until April, but there’s no clear path to blocking it.
Speakers demanded that the displaced tenants have the right to return at the same rent they were paying before the fire.
But according to the Planning Department:
Tenants displaced by the 2015 fire on the Property and resulting City-mandated demolition of the building would have been eligible for the City’s Displaced Tenant Housing Preference (DTHP) program. Qualifying DTHP certificate holders would have been entitled to receive a priority to rent an affordable unit in the City within six years. The Property owner is not aware of any previously displaced tenants who have not already been relocated to a new unit.
A representative of the Rent Board said that that tenants are not eligible for relocation costs if the building burned down. If the building is repaired, the tenants have the right to return; if its demolished, that right is gone.
In other words: Nobody is coming back.
The 23 small businesses that were displaced have no right to return. The community market is gone, and won’t come back.
The debate focused not just on this building but on the entire Yimby theory that allowing more market-rate housing will bring down costs. Larisa Pedroncelli, representing United to Save the Mission, said in her testimony and in a written statement calling for the commission to reject the project that increasing evidence shows the Yimby narrative is wrong.
In a statement to the commission, Pedroncelli noted:
In October of 2020, the paper “Build, Baby, Build? Housing Submarkets and the Effects of New Construction on Existing Rents” showed that market-rate housing led to 6.7% higher rents on nearby lower-priced rental housing. This translates to increased displacement via No-fault evictions or even just the self-eviction threat of a no-fault eviction, that leaves evicted tenants with no opportunity to move laterally within the neighborhood due to the increase in rents. In the case of tenants that were evicted via no-fault, an eviction history on their credit report adds another barrier to obtaining safe and affordable housing.
New 2024 housing impact research by Karen Chapple et al. found that market-rate housing impacts different areas differently—and for San Francisco it showed that for every 100 units of new market-rate housing built in a neighborhood, there can be expected an increased low-income household out-migration of 14%. 3 This Project alone contains 162 units of new market-rate housing, forever changing the landscape of this location that was a hub of Latinx and American Indian community life.
After the fire, several people testified, Liu made a promise to the late Mayor Ed Lee that he would sell the property to the city for affordable housing. But after Lee’s death, that deal fell apart.
And now Liu is looking for permission to turn the site into mostly luxury housing.
“The idea that [Liu] is making any money off this is disgusting,” speaker Elizabeth Bell noted.
Not one person showed up to support the project.
The problem, planning staffers reported, is that thanks to Wiener and the Yimby allies in Sacramento, the city no longer has much jurisdiction over this sort of project:
The Planning Commission’s DR authority is significantly limited under the Housing Accountability Act (“HAA”) (Gov. Code § 65589.5) and the State Density Bonus Law (“SDBL”) (Gov. Code § 65915). This statutory framework expressly preempts any conflicting local laws and sets forth strict criteria that a local agency must apply when considering a housing development project for approval. Therefore, this statutory framework must be considered in the context of the Planning Commission’s DR for the Project. We respectfully caution that as detailed below, there is no legal basis for disapproving the Project, conditioning the Project to be developed at a lower density (including through the use of design review standards), or requiring that the Project be redesigned.
Commissioner Gilbert Williams noted that the project is entirely inconsistent with the city’s own Housing Element. “It’s frustrating to see this play out when you go to all the work of creating a Housing Element with racial and social equity built into it, and here we have a project that doesn’t meet any of those goals and standards.”
Planning Director Rich Hillis told Williams that sometimes “state law conflicts with the housing element … [and] limits your discretion.”
Commission Vice President Kathrin Moore added: “As this goes on, it gets harder and harder not get frustrated.”
A representative of the developer noted: “What you are hearing here is about social equity and social justice, but those are not related to this agenda item.”
So thanks to Wiener and the Yimbys, a landlord who numerous speakers said failed to protect his tenants from a deadly fire gets to make a lot of money by turning a rent-controlled building into luxury housing that will lead to further displacement and gentrification in the Mission.
Great work, Scott. Great outcome, Yimbys.
