News

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

The major reform measures made it through their first round at the Rules Committee last week and will be back Monday/31 for what should a final vote before they move on to the full board. But it’s not clear what will happen to Mayor London Breed’s attack on the School Board.

That measure, an extraordinary power grab by a chief executive who freely accuses others of doing that, met with a chilly reception last week at Rules.

But there were enough votes to move it forward for another week…

Sup. Dean Preston wants a hearing to look into how many apartments in San Francisco are currently vacant, and what the city can do about it. That’s coming up at the Land Use and Transportation Committee Monday/31 at 1:30pm.

It’s a fascinating and important issue that often gets lost in all of the Yimby rhetoric about needed to build more housing—because it’s safe to say that a fair percentage of the housing that’s been built in the past ten years is empty.

The last time we checked in on this, we discovered that a lot of the new condos were bought by people as second or third or even fourth homes, and many didn’t live in them. We used property-tax data, which is available but imperfect: If someone’s tax bill for a downtown condo is sent to an address other than that condo, it’s pretty clear they don’t live there. But they could be renting it out.…(more)

By J. D. Morris : msn – excerpt

Mayor London Breed’s third attempt to ask voters to streamline housing production through a charter amendment failed Wednesday after a Board of Supervisors committee killed the proposal.

Breed hoped the charter amendment would be considered by voters on the June 7 ballot. Her proposal sought to streamline new housing construction by letting some qualified projects circumvent the city’s discretionary review process, cutting a year or two from a timeline that can take two years or more for developers to complete…

Peskin, the committee’s chair, said that the proposal had not been vetted properly with the various community stakeholders it would affect and that after hearing strong concerns from a chorus of opponents, it would be futile to advance the amendment…

The defeat underscores the ongoing conflict between the board and the mayor about San Francisco’s protracted housing crisis and how to address it…(more)

By John Elberling : 48hills – excerpt

It’s a good PR stunt, but it’s not going to create any new housing anytime soon.

Yimby Law, the developer/tech millionaire-funded legal action arm of SF Yimby, filed suit Thursday against the City of San Francisco, looking to overturn last October’s successful community appeal of the 469 Stevenson project’s environmental impact report by the TODCO Group’s Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium.

The suit—termed “legal grandstanding” by knowledgeable lawyers—dose not actually address any environmental issues about that controversial project’s EIR at all, like failing to evaluate the earthquake risks of a 27-story tower without a pile foundation on the edge of historic Soma marshlands…

When Build started planning for its India Basin, One Oak Street, and Stevenson projects several years ago, the economy was booming and it had a chance to get investment funding from one of the huge development conglomerates in China, such as the giant Vanke. But that hope was dashed last year when the Chinese government stopped all investment in projects outside China, because of a looming real estate financial crisis within China itself…

Of course, the project itself was not actually rejected by the board, just its EIR. Build could go back though the EIR process, fix what was wrong with the first EIR, and presumably get approved again and go ahead. There would be no grounds then for a second appeal. But it hasn’t. Why?

Because the irony is the 469 Stevenson project they all champion is itself a fake. There is no realistic hope that its proposed developer, Build Inc., could in fact get it built any time soon…

Build hasn’t even purchased the 469 Stevenson project site. It merely has an option lasting until 2024 to buy it from the current owner, Nordstrom’s…

You have to hand it to Yimby Law and its political allies. They sure have taken that lemon of a Stevenson project and made it into good PR lemonade…(more)

SOMA residents are painfully aware of their own circumstances so there is not much a lawsuit can do to impress them.

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Michal Barba, who is a good reporter, broke the story first in the SFStandard: Recology may have overbilled San Franciscans for even more than the $95 million the company has had to pay back as part of the ongoing City Hall scandal.

Other news outlets have picked up the story, but nobody has explained exactly what went on here, and how Recology could be on the hook for a lot more money.

There are two major factors at play here, and both of them show the problem with a single company operating as a City Charter-sanctioned monopoly with a perpetual no-bid contract—and of late, at the Department of Public Works, little to no oversight.

The way the current system works—and Sup. Aaron Peskin is trying to change that—Recology never has to submit a competitive bid. Instead, like PG&E, another government-sanctioned monopoly that has more than its share of problems—the city is supposed to closely regulate its rates…

Then there’s this piece of property that Recology sold to Amazon. It’s at the foot of Potrero Hill, and the company doesn’t need it any more. It’s a big piece of land, and at one point Recology wanted to develop it for housing. Instead, Amazon bought it for $200 million and plans to turn it into a new distribution center.

Recology has owned it since 1971. Right before the sale, Assessor’s Office records show, it was assessed at about $3 million; under Prop 13, that means Recology paid a bit less than that, probably about $2 million, for it 50 years ago.

So there’s a good bit of profit here—like, almost $200 million.

Who gets that money?…(more)

By Denise Sullivan :sfexaminer – excerpt

In a city divided, predictably there’s division in the Tenderloin

Sometime in the early hours of Christmas Eve, as the Tenderloin emergency plan was still being debated on sf.gov/tv, for reasons beyond my understanding, I couldn’t tear myself away from the very un-Christmasy livestream.

Listening as San Franciscans expressed themselves during the public comment portion of the Board of Supervisors meeting, the fright, hurt and anger were palpable, even through virtual space. The divisiveness got to me. And ever since, I’ve been thinking of the San Franciscans on the street for whom heightened emotional states are part of everyday life, as they struggle to stay alive through another season of rain, cold and the pandemic surge.

“Everyone in the TL will tell you resources are desperately needed,” said Kelley Cutler, human rights organizer with the Coalition on Homelessness when I spoke to her a few weeks later by phone. “People are in need of help. We’re all on the same page about that.”

Predictably, the problems have not instantaneously resolved since Mayor Breed announced the Tenderloin emergency order and division remains among residents and service providers about how to care for people with dignity.

In 2018, the United Nations reported the treatment of San Franciscans living in informal settlements like tent encampments was in violation of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states people have a right to life, housing, health, water and sanitation services. Four years later, the most casual observer can see the pandemic has worsened conditions for people on the streets.

But there was a moment in 2020 when things improved for unhoused folks and their neighbors.

“In 2020, when we got an influx of hotel rooms, we were not having to convince people to take them,” said Cutler. “But there’s a narrative in The City that there is shelter resistance.”…

Denise Sullivan is an author, cultural worker and editor of “Your Golden Sun Still Shines: San Francisco Personal Histories & Small Fictions.” More at www.denisesullivan.com and @4DeniseSullivan...(more)

By David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt

The imminent launch of the “Linkage Center” in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood became apparent Friday as workers in UN Plaza were seen erecting a fence around the building at 1170 Market St.

The facility, which is scheduled to open in mid-January, will serve up to 100 clients suffering from drug addiction and mental distress, according to city officials. The site is inside the mayor’s new exclusion zone that strictly prohibits street vending in the area and is across the street from a safe sleeping village that was sanctioned under the COVID-19 emergency declaration.

When opened, the site will offer essential services such as access to food, water, hygiene resources, and a referral system for specialized rehabilitation programs and supportive resources.

For drug users in the area, the initiation of the site could offer a much-needed opportunity to get clean.

Kenny Mckinnon, a resident in the Tenderloin, said he lost his job during the initial Covid outbreak after being sober for six years. He fell back into a habit of using opioids. Since then he has been unable to kick his addiction, but he said the linkage center could provide him with valuable resources.

“If I were to walk in there today, and if I can get into an outpatient through them, I would jump on it so quick,” Mckinnon said.

Mayor London Breed touted several data points last week as part of the “broader” efforts to improve conditions in the Tenderloin. But a closer look at the numbers her office provided showed many of the initiatives were already underway before the mayor’s emergency declaration…(more)

If Randy Shaw is not impressed no one is.