As the Board of Supes was winding down its last meeting of the year, much of which was dedicated to commending the outgoing supes (and I will miss all of them, for a lot of reasons), Rev. Amos Brown, the pastor of Third Baptist Church, raised an issue that has been simmering in the Western Addition for months now:
Safeway, the only full-service supermarket in the neighborhood, is closing. It’s happening without adequate community input, with a corporation now run by a private equity firm interested only in short-term profit seeking to capitalize on the value of the land, with no regard for the community.
As Brown pointed out (and noted in a Chron oped piece), Safeway got that land after the Redevelopment Agency bulldozed and destroyed hundreds of Black-owned houses and businesses, destroying a vibrant community. The price was far below market value.
As Brown noted:
“Black people were crucified so that Safeway could be resurrected.”
That land, by any right, does not belong to Cerberus Capital, a $65 billion private outfit based in New York City that bought Safeway in 2015 for $8 billion.
It belongs to the people of San Francisco, who ceded it to Safeway with the idea that it would be used for a grocery store.
So here’s an interesting concept that Sup. Dean Preston has put forward:
The Black homeowners and business owners lost their land not because they wanted to sell; the Redevelopment Agency seized that land by eminent domain. The owners were paid a fraction of what their property was worth at the time—and a tiny, tiny fraction of what it would be worth today. The ability to build generational financial stability was destroyed in the process.
San Francisco, as a government agency, still has the right to take private property by eminent domain for “public use” as long as the city pays the owner “just compensation.” In fact, for better or for worse, the government can take private land and turn it over to other private entities in the name of “economic development.”
Suppose the city decided, 40 years after it gave Safeway that land, that the public needs a supermarket in the Western Addition? Suppose that valid “public use” is grounds for the city to take Safeway’s land back, the same way Safeway got it—by eminent domain?
The city has the legal right to then turn the site over to another company that promises to run a full-service supermarket (Rainbow Grocery? Gus’s Market? Good Life Grocery? There are plenty of local options) at a vastly reduced price. The land above the store could be affordable housing.
Cerberus clearly wants to sell the property at the highest possible return to a developer. But there’s a good argument, maybe even a legal argument, that the land where that store sits was valued 40 years ago, when Safeway got it for the purposes of redevelopment.
On Nov. 19, Sup. Dean Preston formally asked Mayor London Breed to
explore all legal options to ensure that the Webster Safeway lot continues to serve the community with a full service grocery store and the development of housing that is affordable to those in the neighborhood and those who have been displaced from the neighborhood. To achieve that goal, it is my hope that your office will
approach the property owners about a potential acquisition and that the owners will engage in good faith negotiations with the city. I’m requesting that your administration take all necessary steps to acquire the property for the benefit of the community through all tools available, including and up to the use of eminent domain.
Breed has not taken any action.
