#sfhousing

Hey everyone, I’ve had conversations with some of the you about the fact that our new house is in an area with (if NextDoor is representative) a lot of vocal NIMBYs who are stuck in the San Francisco of decades ago, and expect to be able to drive their cars everywhere and live in the sort of low-density neighborhoods that should now be relegated to the suburbs -- not within the borders of a major city. 

Even if you don’t live in this part of town, if you think the solution to the Housing Crisis should go beyond “I got mine, everybody else can go live someplace else,” I encourage you to attend this important meeting and speak out in support of new housing on this site, which is currently just a parking lot. The NIMBYs will be there in force and could use some counterbalancing.

Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 

Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM 

Just put my Noe Valley Condo on the market! If you know of somebody looking for a home in San Francisco, please let them know.

EDITORS NOTE: Our up and coming Berkeley-BARF chapter has been going to meetings to advocate for plans to add housing in Downtown Berkeley. Currently, this involves supporting the 2211 Harold Way project, which has been working its way through various NIMBY roadblocks and community planning processes. One skirmish in this long campaign was last Thursday’s meeting of the Berkely Zoning Adjustment Board. Libby Lee-Egan was there with Ian Monroe (in the photo below) and Alfred Twu of First Cultural Industries to speak in favor of the project and report on what happened.

For the record, they are all Berkeley residents, and are not paid for their involvement.

Prelude - Is that a Duplex in your pocket or are you unhappy to see me?

Libby: Baby’s first ZAB meeting! It was also my first time in the city council chambers. I’m a big fan of the clock that shows commenters how much time they have left. So high tech! 

Alfred brought “Build More Housing” signs.

Alfred: [The meeting] was a double feature. The first item up was a duplex and studio being added in the backyard of two adjacent historic buildings. That ended up taking over two hours as many neighbors were opposed due to concerns about the place turning into a mini dorm of 20+ students.  (The site is a five minute walk from UC). 

Highlights included a question on how many people would be in each bedroom that led to the whole room laughing.  Neighbors also raised issues about buildings being too close to their yard and a narrow driveway.  [We] spoke in favor of the project, citing the need for more housing, whether for students or for families that can’t afford a standalone house. 

Libby: I think about five commenters were supportive, including the project’s architect, lawyer, a once-consultant, Alfred and another guy. I was blown away that nearly every neighbor of this place turned out to speak ill of it. Words like “students” and “parties” were uttered like slurs. I couldn’t believe how transparently discriminatory the opponents were. One guy pulled the old “I love students, I teach at Cal” which sounded an awful lot like “I’m not homophobic, I have a gay friend.“ Tiny details of the property were picked apart, examined, and condemned. 

Mostly, neighbors thought his project was “too dense”. One commissioner even said “What are you doing to make this less dense?” which felt backwards to me. The same commissioner also asked if the applicant could maybe make sure students don’t live there or some kind of nonsense like that.  Transparently discriminatory.

Alfred: I had to leave around 10 so I wasn’t able to stay for the 2211 Harold hearing. From hearing the opposition and talking with a couple of folks during a break, I get a feeling that a small number of renters are ruining it for everyone else with their bad behavior. I think a useful thing for SFBARF to promote would be a “how to be a god neighbor” guide.

Libby: The board denied the project 8 to 1, with suggestions for changes. I think this “we want to approve you next time so make sure you’ve addressed our concerns” ruling left many opponents grumbly that the project wasn’t killed outright. 

The Main Event – 2211 Harold Way

Libby: Finally, at 10:30pm the board got to Harold Way. I was not hopeful I would get to speak since I thought they’d adjourn at 11. The chair had a tall stack of over 50 comment cards. Public commenters mostly stayed on topic. We were there to discuss certification of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and nothing else. 

City planning staff’s recommendation was to approve the EIR, which showed “no significant impact”. Despite the clear explanation of how the report came to be, plenty of opponents presented vague complaints that it was inadequate or lacked validity. 

I have the feeling no one at the meeting actually read it. 

When you’re opposed to a project it’s not comforting to read a report that says there’s nothing wrong with it. I pored over the response to comments and Final EIR earlier in the day and felt pretty familiar with the content.

Both Ian and I had our cards pulled fairly early, so I’m glad they got to hear not EVERYONE hates the project. Ian talked about the environmental impact of people living near BART and not having to drive as much, as well as a plug for more housing in general. 

I addressed the fact that Shattuck Cinemas was built in the 80s and therefore did not meet the threshold for being a historic resource. I spent maybe 15 seconds of my 2 minutes waiting as the openly hostile opposition either muttered aloud or raised their voices over what I was saying.

As I was walking out, one of them whispered something at me but I couldn’t tell what she said. I hope it wasn’t mean!

I left a little after 11pm. Ian stayed and reported around 11:30 that they moved to continue the discussion at another time. At least one opposition website posted that they had voted against the project, but that was just wishful thinking on their part.

Stay tuned!

Alfred: BTW, an Op-ed in Friday’s Daily Cal (Berkeley newspaper) by recently elected Berkeley City Council member Lori Droste praises mixed use on transit corridors and accessory units. She criticizes UC for not building more dorms on campus, and calls on students to get involved in the political process. 

SFBARF man on the street “Dan” observed some sketchy NIMBY practices this weekend and decided to do something about it.

Photo from April 19th 2015, in Bernal Heights

First, a little background. The last several years, the City of San Francisco has been in the process of creating a plan for Central SoMa. This is the area from 2nd to 6th St around the new Central Subway from the Caltrain Station down 4th street to Market and beyond. 

One of the few sites in the area that is really appropriate for a large-plan office building is the current site of the SF Flower Mart, a beloved institution where 85 small wholesale vendors sell flowers. It is a thriving ecosystem that ties together with Fantastico and other area businesses. Part of the Central SoMa planning process has focused on how to preserve some of these traditional uses in the neighborhood while layering in a denser office scheme appropriate for the new transit axis. 

Developer Kilroy purchased the site and has been in negotiations with the planning department to build something there. The area is currently zoned for 40′, but the Central SoMa plan was already expected to raise that to over 80′. 

After a movement formed to save the Flower Mart, which genuinely would be hard to replace elsewhere in the city, the developer offered to include a new space for the vendors as part of it’s plan, and is negotiating a further height increase and all the details with the city and vendors to make that financially possible.

You can read about how the Flower Mart has already been saved. In fact, at a public community meeting a couple of months ago I heard directly from Steve Wertheim, the head planner on Central SoMa, that the city viewed expanded development on the site as contingent on the flower market plan staying real. Other sources say a final deal is near.

There have been some complaints about putting it underground, but a look at the renderings reveals they have designed a very nice space with skylights. 

( AUTHOR’S NOTE: 48 Hills has run a story attacking my views here. If you have come here from their site, I’d direct you to this article from December about the developer’s offer and the politics behind the continuing negotiations. It’s ok if you don’t end up agreeing with me, but don’t get your news from one highly opinionated source. Check the links and think about what is fair. A lot of your internal answer to that will come from whether you are predisposed to oppose new development or accept change and growth, so you will hear a lot of opinions on both sides. )

So what are we even talking about then? What is going on with the “Save the Flower Market” guy and Dan with his improvised box sign in Bernal Heights?

Well, a small group of the flower vendors teamed up with your garden variety NIMBY’s (including apparently Aaron Peskin, who could probably use a photo-op looking like he's saving industrial things – as far away from North Beach as possible). They have decided this is a perfect chance to stop the up-zoning and development of Central SoMa in its tracks. The forces aligning are people who don’t want any additional development in the city on ideological grounds, even in an area along a subway line. To be fair, many of them did oppose the Central Subway to begin with, so at least they are consistant. 

To circumvent years of community and city planning they are hoping to Ballot Box Zone the block to 40′ permanently, killing the project, and setting a precedent for future battles in Central SoMa. They have hired signature collectors, which every ballot measure needs. 

This would be bad enough if the signature collectors were being honest with people about what they were signing. Except they weren’t. 

This is where we get to Dan, who just got interested in SFBARF a couple of weeks ago.

On Sunday in Bernal Heights, according to Dan, the signature collector was telling people that their signature would “Save the Flower Market”. No mention was made of the plan to include space for them in the new development. No mention was made of the fact that they were signing a petition for a zoning ballot measure. In fact, all of the details of what they were signing was conveniently hidden behind the fold on the clipboard.

Dan’s immediate ad hoc resistance to this deception is admirable. The sign says “Read This Petition First. He is a paid signature collector... You are signing a Zoning Restriction”

I guess the lesson here is be careful what you sign. Know the issue. 

48 Hills has already questioned what someone claiming to be from SFBARF is doing supporting an office development, probably hoping to see it as some part of a vast conspiracy. Just to be clear, we aren’t the ones who collected thousands of dollars for a paid signature campaign to derail a project that was part of an open planning process. In fact, I myself have expressed frustration that the Flower Market project is slated to be 100% office, and that not enough residential zoned space is being added in Central SoMa. I argued that we should use the site as an example of the Plan’s issues with jobs/housing balance. I think we need to continue to work on this with the planning department and city. Ballot Box Zoning isn’t the answer.

Downzoning areas near transit stops and NIMBY’s digging in to resist any change in their neighborhoods is exactly what got us into our current housing crisis. We already have enough places in the city where you get out of the subway to find 1-story buildings or thousands of acres of single-family homes. The people that live in these areas are resistant to denser multifamily development that would bring renters, the poor, techies, traffic or whatever boogyman they can think of into their neighborhood. This mentality that change is bad and that people different than you are bad is already choking our city to death – a slow fiscal death where everyone is paying at least $1000 a month too much for housing.

Ballot Box Zoning won’t solve that. It just puts more ropes on the giant who, for all of our sakes, needs to rise up and be nimble.

There is a story about this condo building near 23rd and Folsom on Socketsite. Basically, it is 40′ small, and completely within the highly restrictive current zoning, but because of the politicized nature of the anti-eviction non-profits in the neighborhood, we expect a lot of negative voices at this meeting who think that the only way to make housing cheaper and more secure is to stop all market-rate construction.

With housing costs rising to unprecedented levels, many in the Bay Area want to know why we just can’t seem to build enough housing. 

Our panelists discuss how a city's political context can promote or constrain the development of new housing and how this affects prices.

February 2nd 2015 @ the LAB in San Francisco

Moderator Kim Mai Cutler - Tech Crunch http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

Please come to our first panel discussion, The Political Situation: How did rents get so high?

When: Monday, February 2nd. 6:30pm to 8:30 pm

Where: The Lab, 2948 16th Street (16th and Capp Streets)

The cause of our current housing shortage isn't technological - we know how to build. It's not financial - investors are clamouring to invest in the Bay Area. It's not the result of a raw material shortage - unlike the 1940-45 housing crisis when the war effort diverted labor and materials from private efforts, today we have all the laborers and materials we need.

The cause of our current shortage is 100% political.

We have the great fortune to be able to host three expert panelists. They will talk to us about the political landscape with respect to housing in their respective cities: * Seattle Roger Valdez, Smart Growth Seattle * Palo Alto Kate Downing, Palo Alto Forward * San Francisco Michael Cohen, currently of Strata Investment Group, former head    of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development

If the cause of the shortage is political, so too must be the solution: the goal of the SF Bay Area Renters' Federation is to organize renters (and allies) to agitate for increasing the supply of housing in San Francisco, Oakland and the Bay Area.

I'm really excited to be holding this event. It will be our first big social event! Please forward this invitation to all of your friends. Facebook event, Twitter (for RTs), Meetup event, Eventbrite (You do not need tickets, I made an Eventbrite because some people like it.), G+ Love, Sonja Website: www.sfbarf.org

I got an email from a homeowner asking why I'm doing SFBARF. Fair question, so I'm posting my response:

I was/ am horrified by the rent problem in and around SF. I used to work for my neighborhood association when I lived in Philadelphia so I knew how the planning process works. 

Imagine you went to some place where the people had built their latrines too near their water source and as a result, 1/2 their babies die before their first birthday. You would be horrified, I assume. You would say, "guys, we have to move the latrines, your babies are dying."

"Oh but that's a big job, it would take 5 years to finish it."

"Ok! So then let's start now! In 5 years your children will stop dying."

"What's the point, eventually all of our children will die anyway, so what's the sense in keeping it from happening?"

[this would shock you into silence.]

"It's no big deal, if you want 3 children, just have six. It's always been like this here, it's just the way it is here, beautiful views, but your kids die. No way around it."

That's how I feel when I talk to people about the housing situation in the Bay. A lot of people have never lived anywhere else, so I think they don't realize how both terrible and avoidable the situation here is. I have lived in cities with plenty of housing. It's much better.  So that's my motivation. On a personal level I am horrified by the situation I see here. I can't stand by and do nothing. 

I'm also working for my own preservation and the preservation of my class. You're a homeowner, so it actually makes perfect sense that you have no reason to care whether there is enough housing in SF. Other people's rent problems are really not your problem, and the value of your house rises so long as supply is constrained. 

But I'm a renter. Renters are dramatically and negatively affected by constrained supply. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that eventually a renter would show up and start organizing to ensure sufficient supply. What motivates you and the other organized homeowners? Your self-interest. It's exactly the same thing that motivates me. 

You guys are organized to preserve and enhance the value of your homes, thus making yourselves wealthier. We are organized to increase the supply of housing, drive rents down, thus increasing our effective income.