I have to wonder at what point the political establishment in San Francisco will decide that SF Yimby has crossed the line. The organization that claims to support all new housing, and that argues housing is the top priority for the city, opposes Prop. I, which would dedicate some $125 million a year to … affordable housing.
Now this: According to the BAR, SF Yimby is calling a proposal for a historic district in the Castro a “theme park” and “Disneyland.”
Ahead of it the pro-housing group San Francisco YIMBY had criticized the “lame duck” Mandelman, as he is termed off the board in January, for wanting “to preserve the Castro in amber as a parting gift to his constituents” in an email to its members encouraging them to attend the public meeting held at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center. A headline advised to tell the planning officials present that “San Francisco is a City, not a Theme Park.”
That, former Planning Commission member Dennis Richards says, is not just disrespectful but homophobic:
One meeting attendee’s parroting the “theme park” critique, saying the historic district was “nonsense” and would be “enshrining the Castro as a Disneyland” led to Richards denouncing such language as being homophobic and disrespectful of the thousands of Castro residents lost to AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s.
“It is not Disneyland. It is outrageous to even say that,” said Richards.
As far as I can tell, only the BAR has reported on this.
Los Angeles is about to spend almost half a billion dollars on affordable housing—and the money will come from a tax on very-high-end real estate sales. From the LA Times:
Los Angeles is set to go on an affordable housing spending spree. The City Council unanimously approved $466.6 million in funding that will be doled out to developers, nonprofits, land trusts and other organizations to build and renovate affordable housing.
The pool of money is the largest in the city housing department’s history, topping last year’s $387 million.
Roughly 70% of the record budget will come from Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which levies a 4% or 5.5% tax on L.A. property sales above $5.4 million.
This is precisely what Mayor Daniel Lurie is opposing in San Francisco.
Prop. I would enforce the same law as the LA “mansion tax.” A tax measure on high-end properties passed in 2020, and the past two mayors have diverted the money to other uses. The current measure would mandate that the money goes to affordable housing.
Lurie is against it. Again: I am amazed that mainstream news media in San Francisco haven’t even mentioned this.
Lurie and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins have made their “anti-crime” initiatives their number one political priority. It’s gone way over the top: Jenkins is filing charges in cases that never would have gone to court under past DAs, and after spending a lot of money and using a lot of everyone’s time, she keeps losing.
In the latest episode, a judge dismissed all the charges against 18 people accused of having an unauthorized party after the trans march in June. The Stud Alley party has been going on for years, but suddenly Lurie’s cops decided to arrest people, and Jenkins decided to press charges, and for months, folks who did nothing but have a good time on a Pride Weekend night were facing jail. They needed lawyers, and that took money, and some faced lasting issues:
During the hearing, attorneys revealed that some of their clients, all but one of whom had no criminal record, had lost employment over the charges, and one person, who is an immigrant, was dealing with potential visa complications.
Body camera footage reported by Mission Local showed the charges were based on false information.
In the end, the judge said it was a total waste.
But all of this police activity and prosecutions have caused terrible conditions at the county jail. When people get arrested, and can’t make bail, they sit in the Hall of Justice or San Bruno for months. Jail overcrowding has made what was once a pretty chill, model facility a dangerous nightmare.
The only reason the place is not on lockdown all the time is that that Supreme Court ruled in April that people who can’t afford bail can’t be held behind bars unless they are a threat to the community.
The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a scathing report in June saying that conditions in the county jail are unacceptable:
Today’s population has acute medical, behavioral, and substance use challenges; all compounded by ready access to fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other drugs in open air drug markets in the Tenderloin and SOMA’s Sixth Street corridor. The Jails weren’t built for this population. Every weekday, 100 or so inmates ride decrepit buses from San Bruno to San Francisco to wait for court proceedings. The Jails lost their court holding facility when the Bryant Street Jails closed in 2020; they received no funding to replace it. The Intake and Release Jail now overflows with people being booked, released, or waiting for court. Overflow arrivals from San Bruno now wait in the gym, making it unavailable for state mandated exercise for CJ#2 inmates while it’s being used as a makeshift holding tank in the morning. Sworn staffing in the Custody Operations Division has run 20-30% below authorized levels for years. The Jails regularly operate below minimum required staffing levels.
Most inmates in the Jails have not been found guilty of a crime. It is a population with a growing rate of acute mental, physical, and substance abuse issues when they are taken into custody. Many are unhoused and have no fixed address. It is not realistic to think these issues will be resolved by spending a day or three in the Jails. They will almost certainly have the same issues when released. Cycling people through broken, understaffed facilities and back into the city time and time again is not a win for the inmates, the staff, or the public …. And yet, the Jails have become San Francisco’s tool of last resort for absorbing residents with untreated addiction, mental illness, and no place to sleep. The treatment infrastructure wasn’t designed to, and cannot, support the volume or the acuity of the population’s needs.
The Civil Grand Jury has no enforcement authority. It’s a civilian body that has a mandate to investigate local government and make recommendations. The city agencies responsible, and the Board of Supes, have to respond to those suggestions.
In this case, the Grand Jury made a long list of suggestions around jail reforms, and the DA’s Office and the Mayor’s Office have rejected many of them. But the issue comes before the supes Tuesday/29.
The supes have the right to weigh in on the suggestions, some of which would put the board at odds with the DA and the mayor. The discussion will be yet another sign of whether this board is willing to show any independence, or whether the majority is just a rubber stamp for Lurie.
That meeting begins at 2pm.
Developers in San Francisco have to pay fees to cover (in theory) some of the impacts of their projects. It’s basic logic: If you are constructing an office highrise that will attract 2,000 new workers, you need to help pay for cost of Muni service to get those folks to work. As the longtime local urbanist Tom Radulovich says, “growth should pay for growth.”
It doesn’t matter where your project is situated; if it creates a demand for Muni, water and sewer, police and fire, affordable housing, and other impacts, you pay a modest fee.
Supervisor Stephen Sherrill has a strange idea: He wants to exempt development projects on corner lots from most impact fees and requirements. The Yimbys want to see more dense housing on corner lots—but the geographic position of the project has nothing to do with its impact on Muni service.
That proposal comes before the Planning Commission Thursday/1. The meeting starts at noon.
A final note: The Chron has tried to find a reason for the horrible traffic jam in Golden Gate Park that forced a woman to give birth in her car. They blamed a closer of 101 (far away), a Mission Lowriders parade (seriously?) … and didn’t even mention the closure of the Great Highway, which has forced people into the only other North-South route on the West Side of the city—19th Avenue and then through Golden Gate Park.
You can support Sunset Dunes or support opening the highway during the week, but it’s hard to argue that the closure had no impact on traffic in the park.
