BVHP Redevelopment Plan: ‘a land grab for the rich’

Why reject the plan? Because the people of BVHP deserve the right to determine our own destiny!

The Redevelopment Plan gives control of our community to the Redevelopment Agency. It gives our property taxes to the Redevelopment Agency, not to the City’s general fund that pays for the services that San Franciscans need and deserve.

Other San Francisco neighborhoods would never relinquish control to Redevelopment. Why should we?

Anything Redevelopment can do WE CAN DO BETTER! Just unlock the doors to the jobs and the bank loans so we can develop our own neighborhood and employ each other.

The photo at the top of this column shows what the world famous Fillmore district looked like when Redevelopment took over, bulldozing over 200 Black-owned businesses and 5,000 homes. Ten years ago, Redevelopment admitted their aim was to drive Black people out of San Francisco.

Now Redevelopment wants to take control of Bayview Hunters Point away from its long time, deeply rooted residents ... take control of 1,361 additional acres, home to over 30,000 people. That’s got to be about the biggest land grab ever – taking control from over twice the population as the land grab that threatens the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans!

Today we’ll ask the Supervisors, “Do you want to be remembered as the Board that ‘repeopled’ San Francisco’s Black heartland?

“Stop! Take a deep breath! Think about your vote before you cast it. Think about your legacy.

“Ask yourself, who stands to benefit? Do you represent the people ... or the big developers?”

The words of Redevelopment Agency Director Justin Herman, spoken in 1960, bear repeating: “(C)ritics will rightly condemn urban renewal as a land grab for the rich and a heartless push-out for the poor and non-whites.”

What do we want? James Brown put it in a nutshell: “I don’t want nobody to give me nothing. Open up the door; I’ll get it myself!”

http://sfbayview.com/042606/redevelopmentplan042606.shtml