Tuesday, January 17, 1 PM
SF gray Panther Zoom event
Here’s the next event in which we can all participate in: Save the date for this SF Gray Pather Zoom Event: Tuesday, Jan 17, 1 PM: Zoom Town Hall/Update on Laguna Honda Hospital and the intersection with treatment and shelter for San Franciscans in need….What’s happening? What promises are being kept? What promises are being broken? How can San Francisco be the best for all of us? All are welcome at this SF Gray Panthers January Meeting. Stay tuned for more. FOr more background, see bit.ly/LHH-ACTION Letters and comments are appreciated.
UPDATE: https://westsideobserver.com/news/longTermCare.htm
The Feds have NOT postponed the deadly discharges at Laguna Honda they are scheduled to begin again on February 2, 2023.
Pelosi’s swan song: funding for Native American housing in S.F.
By Margaret Hetherwick : sfexaminer – excerpt (includes audio and graphics)
San Francisco’s Native American community has been waiting on a planned housing development for years — and now, thanks to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it’s on its way.
One of Pelosi’s last acts as speaker was securing $750,000 for a cutting-edge, six-story housing development in the Mission District of San Francisco called “The Village SF.”
The project is the brainchild of Friendship House, a nonprofit for Native Americans living in urban areas. It will be constructed right across the street from the Friendship House office on Julian Ave, near the 16th Street BART station and is set to break ground this year and be completed by 2025…(more)
Veritas in default on $450M commercial loan
By Emily Landes :therealdeal – excerpt
One of San Francisco’s largest apartment owners secured debt with 62 multifamily assets
The loan went into special servicing on Nov. 3, according to CMBS reports, and was not repaid when it matured on Nov. 15. The portfolio includes more than 1,700 rent-controlled units in San Francisco.
“The multifamily real estate sector is facing many of the same financial challenges as have been reported on for other asset classes including office, retail and hotel-hospitality right now, including the spiraling costs of debt,” a Veritas spokesperson said in a statement, likening its situation to that of Shorenstein Properties’ $400 million non-conforming loan on Twitter’s headquarters. “While we’ve all seen the stories about office usage going down in the wake of hybrid work, multifamily operators in San Francisco have to contend with even more challenges, including increased city regulation, increased taxes, more pandemic impacts and the rising cost of doing business here.”…
Veritas has been an active buyer in the last year, purchasing several trophy properties including a $33 million buy on Polk Street that was the city’s biggest market-rate apartment trade of 2022. Also, it is planning to build its first ground-up apartment building, an 18-story complex in the Tenderloin, next door to one of its existing properties…(more)
This leads us to wonder who is doing the credit checks on these transactions. The buyers brother or cousin? Is this a game of seeing who can lose the most money before their credit is cut off?
Coalition rallies for ban on pretext stops ahead of tonight’s vote
by Will Jarrett and Eleni Balakrishnan : missionlocal – excerpt (include auto track)
Politicians and advocates today rallied at City Hall ahead of a vote that – if approved tonight – will prevent the police from pulling people over for certain kinds of traffic violations…
San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju said that banning pretext stops would not only reduce racial discrimination in stops, but could make the city safer.
“Right now,” said Raju, “you end up with police spending their time on stops and searches that the data shows are not leading to something.” By eliminating these stops, he said, they could dedicate more time to dangerous violations such as running through red lights.
What is the policy exactly?
A version of this policy has been on the table since last summer. In its first iteration, it proposed that 18 types of stop be banned, but that list has since been chopped down to nine. Should the policy pass, people could no longer be pulled over for these reasons:
- Failure to properly display or mount license plates when the rear plate is still legible.
- Failure to display registration tags, or driving with a registration that expired over a year ago.
- Failure to illuminate license plates.
- Driving without one tail light, or driving without tail lights during the day.
- Driving with a missing or broken brake light.
- Affixing objects to windows or hanging objects from a rearview mirror.
- Failure to signal while turning or changing lanes.
- Sleeping in a car.
- All pedestrian stops, unless there is an immediate danger of a crash.
This newest iteration of the policy brings some substantive changes to the version that was tabled and discussed last month…(more)
No helpful link other than this is the new sfgovtv.org page that should have the link by date.
State Won’t Cut Homelessness Funding—but Demands Results
By Sarah Wright : sfstandard – excerpt
Despite a massive budget deficit, California won’t cut funding for homelessness programs but sent a clear message to cities like San Francisco: Use it wisely, or else.
“People are dying in the streets in the name of compassion,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference on Tuesday morning, a statement echoed by his Deputy Chief of Staff Jason Elliott later in the afternoon.
“At some point, the money can no longer be an excuse for inaction,” Elliott said. “We need to muster the political courage to match that investment.”
On Tuesday, the governor came through with his promise to keep funding the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program, adding $1 billion to the pot after pausing funding late last year as a warning to cities to get serious about getting more people off the streets and into more permanent housing.
But the state doesn’t currently have the tools to do much more enforcement than that…
Though homelessness funding will remain intact, the governor announced $350 million in cuts to housing. Those cuts affect three homeownership programs that provide grants and loans to low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers and support the production of Accessory Dwelling Units… (more)
New and Familiar Challenges Await Supervisors in 2023
By Mike Ege :sfstandard – excerpt
Twenty-twenty-two was a challenging year for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
In addition to the usual tug-of-war for power between the board and Mayor London Breed, supervisors had to weather a massive election cycle while addressing exigent problems such as the drug overdose crisis and economic shocks from the Covid pandemic.
While there will be no marathon of elections in 2023, the board will continue to face hurdles in both policy and politics. Here’s a look at the key issues that will shape next year’s board politics, some familiar and some new…(more)
Day After SF Floods, Mayor Breed Parties in Vegas With E-40 at 49ers Game
By Josh Koehn : sfstandard – excerpt
San Francisco found itself deeply under water on New Year’s Eve to the surprise of Mayor London Breed and other city officials, who said they were expecting less than an inch of rain.
But a day after parts of the Mission, SoMa and other neighborhoods flooded with several feet of water, Breed flew to Las Vegas to watch the San Francisco 49ers play the Raiders from a private luxury box with rapper E-40. Two days later, Breed blamed the National Weather Service for the city’s failure to adequately prepare for the storm.
E-40, the celebrated Bay Area hip-hop entertainer and entrepreneur, posted an Instagram reel Tuesday that shows Breed with him and others in a midfield luxury box at the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada…(more)
RELATED:
What kind of a mayor does San Francisco want?
Historic SF Building Could Be First Office-to-Homes Conversion Since the Pandemic
By kevin Truong :sfstandard – excerpt
Preliminary plans have been filed to transform a portion of the historic Warfield Building in the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood into 34 apartments—in what would be the first office-to-residential conversion since the pandemic.
The plans to transform the building at 988 Market St. were filed by San Francisco developer Group i, which aims to turn around 25,000 square feet in the building into 27 market-rate apartments and seven listed as affordable…(more)
These renovations are not nearly as costly as we were being told they would be. And such and historic property should be well worth preserving. Early results of efforts to up zone this neighborhood with tax breaks brought in the money for a while, but, that goose got cooked and is no longer producing those golden eggs. It remains to seen how many of the corporate tax breaks will fulfill their long term promises too the city and the citizens they displaced.
City Ends Homeless Hotel Shelter Program With Controversial Legacy
by David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt
The city’s “Shelter in Place” program—a Covid-era effort that transformed hotels into homeless shelters—ended in December, leaving a controversial legacy in its wake.
To many, the program was seen as a success for quickly housing thousands of people who would otherwise have slept on the streets or been at higher risk of catching Covid in crowded living conditions. But some say that a seeming lack of oversight led to poor outcomes for clients, damage inside of the hotels and turmoil in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The program temporarily housed over 3,700 people in two and a half years, according to the SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. The availability of the hotels increased the productivity of outreach efforts, according to Sam Dodge, the director of the Healthy Streets Operation Center. And medical outcomes among the program participants also improved, according to a study from UCSF…(more)
RELATED:
Ending Homeless in San Francisco Will Cost $1.4 Billion, City Says
Notice of SF Survey – Historic Preservation Commission Hearing January 18, 2023
People who are concerned about preserving historically significant buildings, should be aware of this statement sent out by the Planning Department.
Hello,
To increase outreach for the San Francisco Citywide Cultural Resources Survey (SF Survey), we are sending this email as a courtesy to interested parties on our notification list at the San Francisco Planning Department. The following SF Survey items will be shared at the January 18th Historic Preservation Commission Hearing:
SF Survey Update
Progressive Era & Early Revival Styles (c.1890-c.1915) Historic Context Statement
Flats & Small Apartments (1915-1978) Historic Context Statement
If you are interested in receiving notifications about similar types of topics, as well as upcoming hearing dates in the future, please subscribe here: CPC.Survey or leaving a voicemail at (628) 652-7573 if you have further questions.
Thank you.
Best,
Mary Jane Green, Senior Clerk
Northern Team/Current Planning Division
San Francisco Planning
49 South Van Ness Avenue, Suite 1400, San Francisco, CA 94103
Direct: 628.652.7399 | www.sfplanning.org