As Families Leave SF, Land for Affordable Housing Grows Scarce

by Randy Shaw, Beyond Chron (reposted)

Tue, Feb 7, 2006 10:00AM

Mission District activists released a study yesterday that shows that only eight of 287 condominium units recently built in the Mission house families with children. The report by the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition calls on the Board of Supervisors to reject at today’s meeting proposed new condos at 2660 Harrison Street, and urges the Planning Commission to assess the cumulative impacts of the production of market-rate housing in the Mission.

But the demographics of market-rate projects are only part of the problem. San Francisco’s family exodus has also been caused by nonprofit housing groups’ failure to meaningfully increase affordable family housing in the Mission and citywide. Land for affordable housing is growing scarcer and more expensive, and trying to stop private development while not aggressively pushing for affordable family housing is a failed strategy.

The press release from the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition regarding the upscale demographics of new Mission District condos harkens back to the group’s similar arguments made during the dot-com boom. The intervening seven years saw a slowdown in Mission District development, but nearly everything that gets built---and the report includes twenty properties---serves a much higher income level than the existing neighborhood.

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http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2914#more

§Largest Apartment Building Ellis Act in San Francisco History Invoked

by Casey Mills via Beyond Chron (reposted)

Tue, Feb 7, 2006 10:01AM

The owner of a 38-unit apartment building at 901 Bush Street invoked the Ellis Act last week in an attempt to convert its former rental units into tenancies in common (TICs). Should it be approved, the site would represent the largest apartment building to fall victim to the Ellis Act in San Francisco history. The attempt comes on the heels of the Board of Supervisors rejecting the owner’s bid to convert the units directly to condos, a decision mandated by the owner's ignoring of the Planning Department and the city's General Plan. Now, the city faces both a significant loss of its rental housing stock and the displacement at least twenty of its long-time, low-income residents. The owners, however, face trying to sell a building full of tenancies in common (TICs) where every buyer will share liability and mortgage responsibilities with 37 strangers. Finding such buyers could prove difficult, making the decision to use the Ellis Act in this case financially questionable.

The fight over 901 Bush began six years ago, when the building suffered a major fire that displaced every tenant in the building. City law, however, guaranteed them their units back, so when new owner M-J SF Investments completed rehabilitation of the building, the former tenants prepared to move back into their homes.

The owners had a different idea. They wanted to convert the site into condominiums, arguing that the rehabilitation was extensive enough to exempt it from the laws requiring they let former tenants move back.

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http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2917#more

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