Bayview Redevelopment Referendum Appears Headed for Ballot

Brian Murphy O’Flynn may have been the only person who never lost faith in the ability of the referendum on Bayview-Hunters Point Redevelopment to qualify for the ballot. O’Flynn’s tenacity in the face of funding problems, and the failure of any single powerful organization to take ownership of the campaign, shows how a single person’s passion and commitment can still make a difference in San Francisco.

O’Flynn and many others became motivated to get involved out of concern over the Redevelopment Agency’s perceived misuse of its power of eminent domain. While current Agency leadership disavows Redevelopment’s history of appropriating property from African-American residents of the Western Addition, the Agency’s track record of demolition, destruction, and displacement left O’Flynn and others unpersuaded.

O’Flynn and others argue that the Redevelopment Agency cannot generate the revenue to support its large staff without building upscale condo projects that will cause gentrification and displacement in Bayview-Hunters Point. The condos approved by the Agency at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard support this claim, as even its so-called “affordable” units are too expensive for current neighborhood residents.

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