Cash Politics in the Community: An Editorial
by Joseph Smooke, Executive Director, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center
First published in New Bernal Journal, June 2007
On April 19th the Planning Department approved a market-rate condo development with a 24 hours Walgreens store at the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Mission where the Kelly Moore paint store used to be. The approved project by Seven Hills Properties is 50-feet and 4-stories high with 60 ownership units and 67 residential parking spaces. The developer is providing 9 “affordable” units to comply with the current inclusionary housing law that requires 15% of the units to be “below market rate”. To support the Walgreens, the developer is also including 24 customer parking spaces, 12 spaces for employees and 1 car share space.
Instead of high priced condos and 24-hour Walgreens, what the Mission truly needs are 100% affordable housing and community space. The development as proposed is not in compliance with the City of San Francisco’s General Plan or the recent Eastern Neighborhoods Planning rezoning requirements. As skyrocketing property values send families fleeing San Francisco, the Planning Department recognized the extraordinary need for more affordable housing in these working class neighborhoods when they recently adopted a policy that development in these neighborhoods should include affordable housing far in excess of the City-wide inclusionary housing requirements. These policies are an attempt to counterbalance the massive loss of affordable housing and blue collar jobs from the Eastern Neighborhoods during the recent wave of “live-work” conversions–conversions that change Production, Distribution and Repair (”PDR” also known as “light industrial”) buildings to residential use without rezoning. Despite these policies, the Planning Department has now approved a project that doesn’t even follow their own guidelines. It is an affront to our community that the Planning Department does not take the project approval process, the community’s needs, or even their own policies seriously.
Because of this mismanagement, the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC) has appealed to the Board of Supervisors Seven Hills Properties’ development approvals. By approving this development on April 19, the Planning Department has acted irresponsibly. We all need to attend the appeal hearing at the Board of Supervisors and contact the Supervisors before the hearing to let them know why this is important– because not only is the Planning Department acting recklessly, this development is manipulating both process and information, thereby affecting a host of issues in our community.
The condo developer, Seven Hills Properties, and their attorney lied repeatedly during the Planning Commission hearing. They claimed that families would be able to afford these simple, unadorned condos through first time home buyer’s programs financing help from the Mayor’s Office of Housing (”MOH”) Down Payment Assistance Loan Program (”DALP”). Truth is there will be nine below market units affordable to working middle class families in compliance with the Inclusionary Zoning law. All other units will be at market rates which according to the developer will be near $550,000 for a studio while 3-bedrooms will be close to $700,000. $620,000 is the City’s price cap for purchasing with DALP assistance. A single person making up to $63,850 (100% of median and $30/hour) qualifies for DALP. This person would have to come up with a $27,500 down payment of their own and just under $3,000/ month for mortgage payments (55% of that person’s income). As your income becomes less, your mortgage burden is greater. A single person earning $44,700 (80% of median and $21.50/ hour) and qualifying for the maximum amount of DALP, would pay just under 70% of their income for their mortgage. And, they still have to come up with the $27,500 cash. So, the DALP helps, but only applies here to single people, not families, and only those close to 100% of median income.
That the project proposed by Seven Hills is “affordable family housing” isn’t the only lie. What about the Eastern Neighborhoods’ other goal of retaining and providing good paying jobs? Building affordable housing not only creates homes for working families, but also provides good prevailing wage and/ or union construction jobs. However, the developer and their supporters in the community are using job creation as an excuse to support the condo development. One group of supporters is the Northwest Bernal Alliance (”NWBA”), a neighborhood association that has a history of helping development in order to get day laborers out of the community. For this reason and perhaps for others, the NWBA facilitated Home Depot’s project approvals in 2005 in hopes that having a Home Depot on Bayshore would attract Day Laborers to move their congregating point to Bayshore. Despite their actions to facilitate Hope Depot’s approvals, NWBA members have supposedly been working on a ban on “formula retail” which would help to safeguard local businesses from out-of-scale competition. Then, the NWBA showed up to the April 19 Kelly Moore hearings actively, vocally supporting the 24-hour Walgreens proposed to occupy the development’s ground level.
But, you might be asking, what’s wrong with a 24-hour Walgreens, why bring up Home Depot, and why should you or the NWBA care?
Just down Cesar Chavez from the proposed project, the City-funded Day Laborer Program operates in a space much too small for it, causing day laborers trying to find work to wait at the Kelly Moore site and on 26th Street. La Raza Centro Legal which runs the day labor program has been advocating for more space and rights for these marginalized workers. Home Depot, during their 2005 project approval process, said publicly that they will call police on day laborers waiting for work at the new store. The community was outraged and learning from the resulting opposition to that statement, the current condo developer, Seven Hills Properties, knew they would not have a viable project if they merely displaced day laborers, so the Mayor’s Office came up with the ideal solution–take $100,000 from Home Depot (so Home Depot makes good on the vague commitment forced on them during their project approvals to support the Day Laborer program) and use that money to establish a new Day Laborer Center on Bayshore near the Home Depot. Home Depot’s letter committing to this strategy was presented during the planning hearing to approve the Seven Hills Development at the Kelly Moore site. Without consulting the Day Laborer Program or other community groups, the Mayor moved ahead with plans for the new site conveniently for Seven Hills and Home Depot.
If you’re not upset by this collusion of big-money interests already, consider then that healthcare corporations may be looking to this development to get out of providing a pharmacy at St Luke’s that also provides union jobs! When St. Luke’s hospital was sold five years ago to Sutter Health they negotiated a five-year community commitment in response to community activism to save needed services. Now Sutter Health has been closing community based services and eliminating union jobs right and left. Sutter’s recently approved controversial merger with California Pacific Medical Center (”CPMC”) has many people worried that CPMC will close St. Luke’s rather than continue to serve the poor, the underinsured, and the uninsured. In order to avoid the state’s seismic retrofit requirements, CPMC would then relocate services into the mega-hospital they’re planning to build on Van Ness. CPMC has been talking for months about cutting the pharmacy at St. Luke’s that provides patients with convenient service and workers with union jobs. A 24-hour Walgreens across the street would provide the perfect justification for them to close the St. Luke’s pharmacy.
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