Activists Launch Referendum to Overturn Bayview Redevelopment

As a Bayview resident who has worked and lived in the neighborhood for a decade, I support the recently adopted Redevelopment Plan. While there is inherent imperfection in any one solution, I believe this plan offers the Bayview its best shot at harnessing development in a way that benefits current residents – both property owners and tenants – as well as local businesses. BeyondChron has admirably devoted a great deal of attention to the Bayview Redevelopment plan in recent months, with a particular emphasis on the voices opposing it. Unfortunately, much of the debate has been guided by emotion and only a small portion can be characterized as accurately rooted in fact. Below I attempt to address seven principal arguments against the plan.

• Eminent domain will be used to clear the neighborhood
The RDA’s history with eminent domain in the Fillmore is well known, unchallenged, and needs little elaboration. The use of eminent domain in the Project Area has been discussed at length and significant limits have been placed on it. At one point the PAC had considered recommending completely forsaking the use of eminent domain; however the Committee decided to limit it to uninhabited non-residential property. It should be noted that eminent domain can be used as a tool for good – one only need to look at the Dudley Street Community in Boston to see how community-led use of eminent domain can eliminate speculative land-banking, absentee slum-lords, and blight for the purpose of community benefiting development. That there is no guarantee that such use of eminent domain will occur should be a reason to fight for more community control of the redevelopment process rather than simply run from it.

• Redevelopment will result in displacement of the African-American community, and lead to the neighborhood’s gentrification
This argument is based on the assumption that African Americans are not already leaving the neighborhood and that newcomers will be a fundamentally different socio-economic group. As some may or may not know, the Bayview had and continues to have a very high home-ownership rate and a very high Black homeownership rate. The flipside of this fact is that African-American homeowners who take advantage of the run up in property values will very likely leave the area. While economic pressures are certainly one reason for San Francisco’s Black exodus, another reason is that long term African American homeowners are either cashing out or elders area passing on and leaving property to their heirs who themselves cash out. Between 1990 and 2000 the African-American share of the Bayview’s population declined by about 900 persons, about 5% of the neighborhood’s Black population. But overall, it dropped from 65% to just below 50% of the population due to growth. Whites made up only about 600 of the 6,000 new residents. Most of the newcomers were Asian and Latino families who found reasonably affordable housing. While there was a small decline of 79 renter households, nearly 250 African American owner-occupied households left the neighborhood.

• The Redevelopment Agency is a bloated bureaucracy.
Since I am not familiar with the Agency’s budget or bureaucracy it’s hard for me to answer this charge. The call for regular audits of the Redevelopment Agency’s administration of the Bayview Project area is a good idea that will provide important information about this point and identify workable solutions.

• The Bayview has no blight and redevelopment will not serve current residents
There are two arguments here that could be discussed individually, however I think the answer to both is the same. While it is easy to find plenty of structures in great condition, a short drive through the neighborhood, along the Third Street commercial core, and in the neighborhood’s industrial sections will show plenty of physical decay. This is not to say that the identification of this physical decay is cause of a wholesale clearing of the neighborhood. Rather, it is very powerful recognition of the need for neighborhood reinvestment and the placement of capital into the hands of those who haven’t had it. Willie Ratcliff, who is firmly opposed to the Plan, has continually reminded us about years of redlining and argued for such an approach to community reinvestment and development. I am sure that the Plan’s supporters will agree with it as well, and I am also sure that sufficient pressure can be put to bear on the Redevelopment Agency to ensure that this type of reinvestment occurs as part and parcel of the tax increment expenditure.

• Bayview residents won’t get the jobs created by new development
An often noted and very correct point is that locals rarely get the promised construction jobs and if they do, the jobs are usually low level with no opportunity for advancement. This argument, but expanded to all of San Francisco’s capital spending, was among the principal reasons why Supervisor Sophie Maxwell helped start the CityBuild program. The CityBuild program is intended to get young San Franciscans into apprenticeship programs with various building trades unions and working on San Francisco’s capital projects. Expanding CityBuild and integrating it into both publicly and privately financed development that will occur as part of Redevelopment will require a mixture of carrots and sticks to funnel locals into good jobs with health and retirement benefits as well as career advancement opportunities.

• Redevelopment will lock up tax increment funds that would otherwise go to the general fund.
While this is technically accurate, this statement neglects to recognize that Bayview residents have long been underserved by a variety of public services, meaning of course that the other parts of the city have benefited disproportionately. Keeping the post-Redevelopment tax increment for reinvestment back into the neighborhood will begin to redress this long-time disparity and increase levels of service. I find it difficult to believe that progressives would argue against using the tax revenues created in the Bayview to improve services for neighborhood.

• Redevelopment will take land use authority away from the people and give it to an unaccountable body
This is a valid argument and is perhaps the most worrisome aspect of Redevelopment, however it should be noted that the Planning Commission has not been uniformly friendly to local interests so it’s hard to tell what the difference will be on the margins. Although there will be a Project Area Committee to advise the SFRA on land use decisions, the PAC’s formal power is limited and there is great potential for abuse by those seeking to subvert the interests of Bayview’s current residents. The PAC and Redevelopment Commission will necessarily become critical points of activism for major land use decisions and I look forward to seeing the Plan’s opponents join its supporters to ensure that specific land use decisions serve local needs.

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