News – Page 9 – Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods

July 7, 2020

Jane Morrison, lifelong activist, dies at 100

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

She was an urban environmentalist before anybody knew what that meant — and a hero and mentor to many.

Jane Morrison, who was an urban environmentalist before anyone knew what that meant and a central part of the progressive movement in this city for more than half a century, has died at 100.

I got the news from John King at the Chron, who sent me an email asking if I wanted to say anything about someone who was already an legend in local politics when I arrived at the Bay Guardian in 1982…

Every year, well into her 90s, she would call me and inform me that I would be speaking at the San Francisco Tomorrow holiday party. It wasn’t a request, really – it was a piece of information. Of course I would be there; Jane told me I would.

She was funny, determined, a proud member of the progressive wing of the San Francisco Democratic Party going back to the 1950s, a former journalist, a community organizer and agitator, a Depression-era Oklahoma farm girl who never forgot what it meant to sacrifice for the greater good…(more)

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020

WeWork Accused of Abandoning San Francisco Development Project

By Malathi Nayak : bloombergquint – excerpt

Bloomberg) — WeWork was accused in a lawsuit of reneging on a pledge to invest $450 million in a San Francisco development project that was supposed to showcase the WeLive communal living initiative.

Parkmerced Investors LLC sued the troubled co-working startup Thursday in New York state court, saying it abandoned a promise to help build WeWork-designed apartments and communal living space with media rooms, hot tubs and activities such as happy hours and yoga classes. Parkmerced Investors is seeking at least $100 million in damages.

The sprawling Parkmerced neighborhood, flanked by a lake and the San Francisco Golf Club, dates back to the 1940s and now offers high-rise apartments and town homes spread across 150 acres. Over the years, the complex has had backing from high-profile investors including the late real-estate billionaire Harry Helmsley and Fortress Investment Group.

The lawsuit comes after WeWork sued Parkmerced Investors in March in the same New York court, claiming it didn’t meet financing conditions for the deal and refused to return a $20 million exclusivity fee to complete the equity investment in the project…(more)

How stable is a project that relies on WeWork to succeed? The current tenants of the existing affordable garden apartments at Parkmerced are watching the corporate investors preparing to demolish their homes fight over millions, after they spent millions for the right to tear it down. The infamous State Supreme Court case overturned a ballot initiative voters fought for to protect the office housing balance that made the city a freedom loving comfortable highly popular cultural icon. Since that case was settled, San Francisco has been tuned into the golden goose that everyone wants a bite of. The city is being picked to the bone by greed and the corruption that it breeds. Hopefully the investors will eat each other and leave the residents in peace.

May 27, 2020

Homeless crisis: Newsom proposes ditching environmental review when converting hotels into housing

By Kevin Fagan : sfchronicle – excerpt

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing that state environmental regulations be waived for cities and counties that want to convert hotels into homeless housing using federal coronavirus relief funding.

His plan was sent to the California Legislature on Friday to be added to the state budget negotiations, and if it remains intact it would eliminate a key tool opponents use to fight projects they don’t want in their neighborhoods. By law, the budget is supposed to be passed by June 15.

Before the pandemic hit this winter, the governor had said he wanted regulations under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) eased for many types of homeless housing, and this current plan — sent in the form of a “trailer bill” addition to budget talks — narrows that ambition… (more)

A few people may explode over this, but, it sounds like the perfect karmic solution. Sort of a boomerang effect, correcting a major flaw in that turned housing into hotels and through many people out onto the street who were previously housed in those hotels. It could be like a happy homecoming to some, moving back into recently repaired rooms they were kicked out of. There are all kinds of possibilities here. Who might object?

May 21, 2020

Tell SF Planning that the Balboa Reservoir Project Must be Postponed

The Commission must hear from you by Friday, May 22 to assure that CCSF will be preserved and protected.

Next Thursday, May 28, the SF Planning Commission will be deciding the fate of CCSF by ruling on the Balboa Reservoir Project. We recently asked you to write the Commission asking them not to approve the project. If you’ve sent a letter, thank you. If you haven’t, we hope you will. In the meantime…

RIGHT NOW we need your immediate help!

We’ve just learned that the City and developers were supposed to enter into written agreements with CCSF regarding parking, transit and roadway access through City College. But despite assurances that this would happen…it hasn’t.

We’ve been told for years that this project is a collaboration with CCSF. Yet there’s never been a written agreement with this assurance. The Planning Commission must not rule on a project that doesn’t consider the needs of City College! We need to stop this train before it leaves the station. The future of students at City College is at stake.

Please write the Planning Commission NOW and ask them to postpone the May 28 Balboa Reservoir Project Hearing until these important agreements between CCSF, the City, and the developers have been reached.

Thank you for all you do to save CCSF.
Public Lands for Public Good

Copoy and past to Send Urgent Message to:
SF Planning Commission
commissions.secretary@sfgov.org; joel.koppel@sfgov.org;
kathrin.moore@sfgov.org;
sue.diamond@sfgov.org;
frank.fung@sfgov.org;
theresa.imperial@sfgov.org;
milicent.johnson@sfgov.org;
aaron.starr@sfgov.org;

Be sure to Copy:
SF Board of Supervisors, CCSF Chancellor, and CCSF Board of Trustees
Matt.Haney@sfgov.org; MandelmanStaff@sfgov.org; Gordon.Mar@sfgov.org; Aaron.Peskin@sfgov.org; Dean.Preston@sfgov.org; Sandra.Fewer@sfgov.org; Hillary.Ronen@sfgov.org; Ahsha.Safai@sfgov.org; Catherine.Stefani@sfgov.org; Shamann.Walton@sfgov.org; Norman.Yee@sfgov.org; dgonzales@ccsf.edu; swilliams@ccsf.edu; ttemprano@ccsf.edu; bdavila@ccsf.edu; ivylee@ccsf.edu; alexrandolph@ccsf.edu; jrizzo@ccsf.edu; tselby@ccsf.edu; studenttrustee@mail.ccsf.edu;
Sample email
Subject line:
URGENT: Balboa Reservoir Approvals Must Be Delayed Until

Dear Commissioner,
The City and Balboa Reservoir developers were supposed to enter into written agreements with CCSF regarding parking, transit and roadway access through City College. This hasn’t happened yet!

This project is supposedly a collaboration with CCSF. Yet there’s no written agreement with this assurance.

You must postpone the May 28 Balboa Reservoir Project Hearing until these important agreements between CCSF, the City, and the developers have been reached.

Please do not rule on a project that doesn’t consider the needs of City College. The future of students at City College is at stake!

Sincerely,

www.publiclandsforpublicgood.org
publiclandsforpublicgood@gmail.com

May 9, 2020

State Legislature Continues Its Assault On Local Zoning Decisions

By Edward Ring : californiaglobe – excerpt

YIMBYs support legislation that mandates high density

With the introduction of the latest housing density mandate, AB 725 in the California state legislature, the battle between state control and local control in California intensifies. At the same time, the pandemic crisis and its economic consequences add additional complexity to an already complex issue.

The debate over California’s housing policies offers an unusual combination: vehement disagreement between two bitterly opposed groups, yet within both groups are factions holding thoroughly divergent political ideologies.

This probably should come as no surprise. California’s housing crisis, and the policies that created it, incorporate big, challenging issues: income inequality, how to treat the homeless, environmental protection, public finance. Libertarians and leftists, along with Republicans and Democrats, are lining up on both sides of the debate, confounding easy categorization…

Some of the bills that Livable California have opposed must be seen to be believed. AB 3173 (still active) provides incentives for developers to build 80 square foot “micro-units” – at least that’s a bit larger than the 70 square feet that the American Correctional Association recommends as the minimum size for a prison cell! SB 902 automatically up-zones single family areas to six units or more per parcel. AB 1279 designates “opportunity areas” where housing could be up-zoned to high rises accommodating as many as 120 units per half-acre….

The uncomfortable truth is that years of neglected infrastructure, defacto rationing, and urban containment legislation have already taken away much of the local control that would have allowed Californians to expand their cities and towns, and keep housing affordable.

Livable California, a genuine grassroots movement, has the potential to reverse this trend. If successful, they may eventually alter the policy driven economic conditions that prohibit lasting solutions. The YIMBY movement, on the other hand, funded by billionaires, will never solve California’s housing crisis, because they aren’t questioning the doctrine of densification. But so what? Their donors will see their real estate portfolio investments soar into bubbleland, as they virtue signal all the way to the bank…(more)

COVID-19 has turned the tide against density in a way no one could have imagined. The media has taken a new view of the negative impacts of density that many have warned about as we see, first hand, how dangerous urban lifestyles can be. No where has the virus spread more rapidly than in large urban centers with major public transit networks that force close contact with anonymous strangers and long commutes. Transit directors know they cannot continue this way and it is time for the all city officials to get the same message that cities have to change if they are to survive.

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020

The Coming Age of Dispersion

By Joel Kotkin : quillette – excerpt

As of this writing, the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic remain uncertain. But one possible consequence is an acceleration of the end of the megacity era. In its place, we may now be witnessing the outlines of a new, and necessary, dispersion of population, not only in the wide open spaces of North America and Australia, but even in the megacities of the developing world. Much of this has been driven by high housing prices and growing social disorder in our core cities, as well as the steady rise of online commerce and remote working, now the fastest growing means of “commuting” in the United States.

Pandemics naturally thrive in large multicultural cities, where people live “cheek by jowl” and travel to and from other countries is a fact of international tourism and commerce. Europe’s rapidly advancing infection rate is, to some extent, the product of its weak border controls, one of the EU’s greatest accomplishments. Across the continent, cities have become the primary centers of infection. Half of all COVID-19 cases in Spain, for example, have occurred in Madrid while the Milan region, with its cosmopolitan population and economy, accounts for half of all cases in Italy and almost three-fifths of the deaths… (more)

April 16, 2020April 16, 2020

Sloat Garden Center likely to close for new mixed-use development

by Sasha Perigo : hoodline – excerpt

It’s been over a decade since plans to demolish the Outer Sunset’s Sloat Garden Center (2700 Sloat Blvd.) were first announced. Now, it appears that the proposed mixed-use development on the site — a neighborhood staple since the 1950s — may finally be happening.

On March 30, owner Dave Straus submitted dueling proposals for redeveloping the site to the Planning Commission. The first proposal calls for an 85-foot building with a total of 213 condominiums, 49 of which would be “affordable”—sold at prices below market rate (BMR).

At 125 feet tall, the other proposal is larger; it would have 283 condos, 85 of them affordable. In both cases, the units would be condominiums built for sale, not rental apartments. Market rate units are expected to start at $200,000. BMR buyers can apply for lower priced units through a lottery…(more)

No more gardens or plants in the city. Is that the future of San Francisco? We managed to save the Flowermart, sort of, yet, we lose the largest garden supply company in San Francisco? Wow! This truly is a goldrush where we plow over everything in site to erect the towers to the sky, a la Miami Beach.

March 28, 2020March 28, 2020

Newsom Takes Executive Action to Establish a Statewide Moratorium on Evictions

Press Release:

Governor Newsom Takes Executive Action to Establish a Statewide Moratorium on Evictions

The order is effective immediately and will apply through May 31, 2020

Builds on the Governor’s previous executive action authorizing local governments to halt evictions

SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today issued an executive order banning the enforcement of eviction orders for renters affected by COVID-19 through May 31, 2020. The order prohibits landlords from evicting tenants for nonpayment of rent and prohibits enforcement of evictions by law enforcement or courts. It also requires tenants to declare in writing, no more than seven days after the rent comes due, that the tenant cannot pay all or part of their rent due to COVID-19.

The tenant would be required to retain documentation but not required to submit it to the landlord in advance. And the tenant would remain obligated to repay full rent in “a timely manner” and could still face eviction after the enforcement moratorium is lifted. The order takes effect immediately, and provides immediate relief to tenants for whom rent is due on April 1st.

Today’s action builds on Governor Newsom’s previous executive order authorizing local governments to halt evictions for renters impacted by the pandemic.

A copy of the Governor’s executive order can be found here and the text of the order can also be found her e.

March 20, 2020

volunteers recruiting volunteers

www.ho2pe.org

We are a group of volunteers recruiting other volunteers in a position to help (healthy, below 60) to support people who are particularly isolated and need help. We are also looking for people and small businesses that need assistance. We are using www.ho2pe.org to centralize requests.

Immediate needs may include:

1. Transport material (food, cleaning equipment) to specific locations

2. Prepare meals

3. Virtual after school care for families of healthcare workers

4. Virtual companionship for elderly people and those who are more isolated than most of us

We’d be so grateful if you could share the below blurb within your community, or let us know the best way for us to do so. We created quickly a website for people to request and propose help.

“Friends and neighbors in the Bay Area, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting all our lives. Some at risk communities are disproportionately impacted. This is an open call to stand in solidarity as a community, in supporting and caring for one another. If you can offer time or resources, or know someone who needs support please sign up at www.ho2pe.org.”

March 19, 2020

Updates from SFMTA

OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT ON SFMTA BUDGET. With declining transit ridership (before and after Covid-19), focus on simpler/ citywide transit improvements. No more boondoggles.
https://www.sfmta.com/projects/meeting-transportation-needs-growing-city-sfmta-budget-fiscal-years-2021-2022

Tell them what you think is important now!

For the duration of the current public health emergency related to COVID-19, we are responding by making important changes to key SFMTA operations. This is an evolving and challenging situation, and it’s reasonable to have questions. That’s why we created an up-to-date resource to help you keep up with changes that currently include:

Modified Muni service
Paratransit guidance
Parking enforcement rules
Parking garage operations that include some facility closures
Temporary adjustments to SFMTA “Fines and Fees”

To get the most up to date information, please check our regularly updated webpage at SFMTA.com/COVID19.
The SFMTA is also taking proactive measures to minimize the risk of exposure for employees and customers and to ensure that our transportation system works for people when needed – like when residents need to make a grocery trip or when a healthcare worker needs to go to their job.

We all should continue to follow public health guidance

Stay home if you are sick
Wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
Cover your cough or sneeze
Avoid touching your face
Try alternatives to shaking hands, like a wave or smile

The current “Shelter in Place” Public Health order could be extended. And we are preparing. Thank you for your support and your patience.

SFMTA Updates: SFMTA.com/COVID19
Citywide Updates: sf.gov/topics/coronavirus-covid-19