Who Is The Real Jane Kim?

How Supervisor Kim’s New Affordability Law Lets Developers Off the Hook
http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/how-supervisor-kims-new-affordability-law-lets-developers-the-hook

Joe Eskenazi | Photo: 5M Project/Forest City | February 2, 2016
Fuzzy language and fuzzier math helped ensure landmark affordability.


Last month, in an act of legislative panache, Supervisor Jane Kim introduced a ballot measure mandating that developers produce a minimum of 25 percent affordable housing in medium and large projects—essentially double what they’re now required to do.

In a city in which rents and real estate prices are climbing assuredly to infinity and beyond, this was a potential masterstroke: This measure is polling well with voters. Kim notably led negotiations on the high-profile San Francisco Giants waterfront development and the Hearst Corporation and Forest City’s 5M project—extracting 40 percent affordability pledges from both. “Forty is the new 30” is a hell of a catchphrase, and Kim, who is running against Supervisor Scott Wiener to succeed state senator Mark Leno, can do well by doing good here.

Her audacious ask of 25 percent affordability is, deservedly, getting plenty of attention thus far (and, behind the scenes, is providing a lot of negotiating leverage with the mayor, who proposed a similar but less stringent ballot measure). But if you peruse the fine print of Kim’s proposal, you’ll find something counterintuitive: It exempts projects in which “a height limit increase has been approved by a vote of the electors...prior to January 12, 2016,” or “has entered into a development agreement or other similar binding agreement with the City as of January 12, 2016.” That would grandfather out the Giants’ project and Hearst’s 5M project.

Why would two projects lauded as achieving 40 percent affordability be specifically exempted from a subsequent requirement to merely achieve 25 percent affordability?

Perhaps because, when you crunch the numbers, it’s uncertain either would qualify.


San Francisco land-use politics is an aneurysm-inducing affair. And, you know, math is hard. But the equation the city uses to calculate how much affordable housing a project creates is straightforward. You divide the number of affordable units by the number of total units and come up with a percentage. Simple. If you have 29 affordable units in a 100-unit project, then you’ve hit 29 percent affordability.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. In the world of San Francisco development agreements, strange things happen. Math gets…fuzzier. The development agreement for the 5M project calls for “the creation of affordable housing units anticipated to equal to forty percent of the total market rate units for the project...” (emphasis ours).

Very cute: Instead of affordable units composing 40 percent of total units—as the city and any fourth grader would calculate it—5M is promising 40 percent as many affordable units as market-rate units. That’s not the same thing: In our above hypothetical, instead of dividing 29 affordable units by 100 total units and reaching 29 percent, you’d be dividing 29 affordable units by 71 market-rate units—and, jarringly, claiming 40-plus percent affordability.

And so, when the 5M promotional materials crow about achieving 40 percent affordable housing, they got there by dividing the 241 built or funded affordable units by 601 market-rate units. But if you divide the 241 affordable units by total units on-site (688) you come up with 35 percent.

Why do this? Kim told us simply that “it’s a deal” and that each deal is structured differently. A planning department source told San Francisco that this methodology goes “beyond the standards” planners use, and is “complicated.” When asked if it’s a bit like an angler holding a fish closer to the camera to make it appear larger, however, the reply was “You seem to get this.”

Now, 35 percent affordability is still significant, considering the relatively paltry requirements this city currently imposes on developers (12 percent affordable on-site; 20 percent off-site). But it’s not 40 percent; the victory cry of “40 is the new 30” isn’t quite accurate. More like “35 is the new 40.”

But this weird math is only one of several ways in which the numbers have been spun.

“Affordable” is a term of art in San Francisco. But, for the most part, it’s unusual to affix “affordable” to units set aside for people earning more than 120 percent of area median income, or AMI. (Rather conveniently for demonstration purposes, 120 percent of AMI in San Francisco is currently right around $100,000.)

Kim’s legislation calls for a slice of affordable housing to be reserved for “middle-income” earners banking no more than 100 percent of AMI for renters and 140 percent of AMI for buyers. And yet, no fewer than 35 of the 241 “affordable” units in the 5M development are earmarked for residents earning 150 percent of AMI (about $125,000). Subtract them from the total, and your 35 percent affordable tally now becomes 30 percent. (30 is the new 40?).


But wait—there’s more. Let’s say you were going to build an office tower or hotel or other retail structure in San Francisco. Well, it’s no straightforward operation. There is a lot of process. Your office tower stands to attract people to this city. They need to live somewhere. So the city has, for decades, mandated that you pay a “jobs-housing linkage fee” into an affordable housing fund.

Even if the 5M project weren’t producing a single housing unit, it would be required to pay this fee because of its heavy retail component. And, in fact, the project is ponying up $15.2 million in linkage fees. But this money isn’t going to the city’s fund. The developer is, essentially, paying itself to fund and/or build affordable housing.

In order to meet standards like those now being proposed for residential projects, 5M is pulling in money from what is, essentially, a separate retail project—money that would have to be disgorged regardless of the project’s residential element. There’s nothing bad about this per se; millions of dollars are being put toward affordable units, after all. But reaching an affordability goal by funneling millions of office-generated dollars into a residential development is something most projects can’t do.

All of which is to say: If 5M were a more typical residential project trying to meet the standard of 25 percent affordability laid out in Kim’s ballot measure, it would fail. If you also factor out the 60-odd units funded by the jobs-housing linkage from the 5M affordable tally, you come up with 21 percent affordability. Which is, plainly, less than 25 percent. Or 40 percent.

And yet, perhaps this is still a good deal for San Francisco. In the end, 241 affordable units are slated to be built. That’s not nothing. But it’s not 40 percent. To use all of this magic to conjure up the politically palatable 40 percent tally is not just sketchy math; it could have unintended consequences down the line. If a developer offers 25 percent affordability—without fudging the numbers, without stretching the definition of “affordable,” and without funneling money in from a veritable separate project (and, perhaps, without being gifted a massive upzoning)—he or she won’t appear generous. This will now be viewed as a miserly offer.

That’s problematic. But so much about San Francisco’s housing situation is. We are told that negotiations are hot and heavy regarding just what we’ll be voting on in the forthcoming election. But talks aren’t centered on altering the 25 percent requirement, no. It’s more about what other projects can be grandfathered out.

The next few weeks figure to be noteworthy. We’re more than 40 percent sure of it.

- See more at: http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/how-supervisor-kims-new-affordability-law-lets-developers-the-hook#sthash.NDE5Xd3E.dpuf

Just a thank you to Steve Zeltzer for pointing out a truth that many of us who live and work here already know: Jane Kim is not a progressive and has often supported the agenda of the wealthy. I am a Bernie supporter and voted for him. I was sad to see this endorsement because I know how Jane Kim's actions as a Supervisor have affected me and others who live in SF. Yes she supported the anti-worker and retiree prop C which adversely affected City workers and retirees; Yes she proposed and supported the tax breaks to Twitter and other firms which began the process of evictions, obscenely high rents, gentrification and displacement; yes she even went along with the Mayor and his wealthy backers and evicted the entire Island of Yerba Buena giving the evictees the callous and deceptive choice of moving to Treasure Island which is even more toxic than Hunters Point was or still is. There is more.
I would still vote for Sanders knowing that his advisers made a poor choice with this endorsement and probably got his information from people who do not know our community and politics. If anyone out there is considering a Bernie backed candidate, please do your homework first.
Thanks again, Steve.

Jane Kim has no chance of winning the state senate race as clearly the viciously reactionary Democrat Scott Wiener of District 8, has been selected by the capitalist class to be the next do-nothing state senator. Since the Democratic Party registration is so high in San Francisco, the June primary effectively elects the winning Democrat, so hopefully he will pack his bags on June 8 to move to Sacramento. In the unlikely event Kim wins, reactionary Democrat mayor Ed Lee would be able to pick a reactionary lickspittle for District 6, which has had half way decent supervisors. District 8 always has reactionary supervisors, all Democrats, of course.

Jane Kim joined all of the current supervisors, all Democrats, in supporting a ballot measure to give our tax dollars to private profit businesses to pay their rent if they have been in existence for at least 30 years, in the name of preserving legacy. As the ballot arguments against that outrage stated, anyone who has been here for at least 20 years has seen all kinds of businesses come and go. That is simply how it is. I have seen Bernstein's Fish Grotto, I. Magnin, The White House, Blum's at Union Square and at California and Polk, and many other restaurants and retail stores disappear. They are part of the past; we must look forward to the future and NEVER give our tax dollars to private profit businesses to pay their rent!

Jane Kim also supports the private profit gambling racket called the Warriors basketball team in their effort to move from Oakland to San Francisco, creating an even more horrifying traffic jam near the baseball stadium swindle, UC Hospital and Kaiser Hospital which hospitals each have separate additional campuses in the Mission Bay area. She joins the rest of the Board of Supervisors in this position as well.

As to housing, the only way we can obtain sufficient affordable housing for the workingclass, those of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, starting with the homeless and the low income workers making less than $30,000 a year is with public financing. That means opposing warmongers like Sanders, Clinton and Trump, and supporting Peace & Freedom and Green Party candidates. Meanwhile, we may as well support Prop C while we keep fighting for public financing of affordable housing.

IN SAN FRANCISCO, Barry Hermanson of the Green Party is running against Nancy Pelosi. The congressional races are not closed primaries. See https://ballotpedia.org/Barry_Hermanson The top two vote getters should be Hermanson and Pelosi not Pelosi and a Republican in San Francisco.

Bernie Sanders, the Democrats' latest sheepdog, is a warmonger. He supports the encirclement of Russia and Nazi Ukraine, as do Clinton and Trump, and no later than when Clinton takes office, if not before, this country will be bombing Russia. Will the Sanders supporters be protesting the bombing of Russia? Have they learned that we cannot have guns and butter and therefore all of the proposals of Sanders to reform capitalism cannot be delivered so long as the war machine exists? Here is more on warmonger Sanders.

Democrats' Warmonger Sheepdog Bernie Sanders claims the US targeted assassination list is legal, a lie, and supports US troops in Syria. See Bernie Sanders Says US 'Kill List' Legal, Backs Troops in Syria, 4/26/16 at http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Bernie-Sanders-Says-US-Kill-List-Legal-Backs-Troops-in-Syria-20160426-0017.html.

Cindy Sheehan, a Peace & Freedom Party candidate in the past, has compiled the reactionary voting record of Sanders on 2/17/16, "Confessions of a Real Socialist" with lots of links at:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2016/02/confessions-of-real-socialist-by-cindy.html

Barry Bush has his own listing of reactionary Sanders votes at:
http://www.facebook.com/BernieBarryBush/posts/1507933992860321

See photos & article at Bernie Sanders Loves This $1 Trillion War Machine by Tim Mak, 2/8/16 at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/bernie-sanders-loves-this-1-trillion-war-machine.html.

The Myth of Bernie Sanders
by Thomas H. Naylor in Counterpunch 9/30/11 at
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/the-myth-of-bernie-sanders/
and
Bernie Sanders Is a Russia-Bashing, Pro-Israel, Militarist Tool at
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/bernie-sanders-anti-russian-propaganda-and-vermont-socialism/ri8857
He also called Hugo Chavez, the late leader of Venezuela murdered by the CIA, a communist dictator, standard US capitalist war machine hatemongering. See
US Presidential Candidates Demean Muslims and Hugo Chavez by Steve Lendman, 9/19/15 at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/19/18777841.php

His support of US imperialism is outrageous and unconscionable. See
Does Bernie Sanders’ Imperialism Matter? by Shamus Cooke, 1/5/16
http://www.globalresearch.ca/does-bernie-sanders-imperialism-matter/5499541

In every presidential election where there is no Democratic incumbent, the Democrats have a sheepdog to make sure the workingclass does not vote socialist or Green and delivers votes to the Democrats, the twin war and fascism party of the Republicans, in the November general election. That is the only reason the Democrats exist: to make sure the workingclass never votes Red or Green or just does not vote at all.

The Black Agenda Report of May 6, 2015 has a good description of all of the Democrats' sheepdogs at http://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary


For those who still defend voting for warmonger, sheep herder Bernie Sanders, who is insane enough to call the pope a socialist, California does not matter in the presidential election. New Jersey's primary is also on June 7, and with the guaranteed delegates for Clinton in the 8 million population New Jersey, Clinton wins the Democratic Party nomination, which was known to be guaranteed by the end of the New York primary, which was of course, fixed by the Democrats. Thus, the only reason Clinton is campaigning in California by calling as many female Democratic Party voters (women being the majority of the population) to vote for the first woman president in history is to prevent a riot at the TV advertising show called the convention. You should also know that since Trump has stated he opposes the government's lie on Pres Kennedy's assassination and believes the fathers of Cruz and Rubio, his former opponents, were among the anti-communist Cubans organized by the CIA to kill Kennedy, Trump will not be allowed to win. You should also know that since California has such high Democratic Party registration, it does not matter how you vote in November, the Democrats win all of California's Electoral College delegates. Thus, there is no excuse in November for anyone playing the evil of 2 lesser game.

The way to protest the pending war against Russia is to register Peace & Freedom or Green. You can register online at https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US.


For more information on the only pro peace, labor and environment parties, see:
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home
http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)
and
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)

ALL ABOARD THE PEACE & FREEDOM-GREEN PARTY FREEDOM TRAIN!

I appreciate all this information. Bernie Sanders is not perfect (who is?), but overall I like what he represents and yes I will vote for him. I do not understand why Bernie has endorsed Jane Kim. She has proved herself unworthy of my support. Scott Weiner unfortunately does not get enough credit for the many good things he has done on behalf of San Francisco and it is certainly wrong to blame him for the housing crisis. Scott is also the only San Francisco politician I see regularly walking the streets and riding on Muni.

Proud millionaire ruling capitalist class member Democratic Governor Jerry Brown opposes a $1.3 billion proposal for the state budget and has removed it from the budget. His budget has ZERO housing funds. Keep in mind the Assembly and usually the state Senate are super majority Democrats. Last year he vetoed a $300 million tax credit for affordable housing supported by Democrats & Republicans. Democrat Brown supports AB 2501, a bill favored by the Association of Realtors, an anti-affordable housing gang. See
See ""By right" Done Wrong" by Nato Green, SF Examiner, 10/29/16
http://www.sfexaminer.com/right-done-wrong/

This is the same Democrat Jerry Brown who used the CIA's People's Temple in the 1970s to commit election fraud to elect him governor. See
http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown/
http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown/pics.html
http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown/jbrown.html

Only with public financing of affordable housing can we house the homeless. Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party support public financing of affordable housing.

After reading the long article here from an alledged Green Party basically demolishing Sanders as a progressive candidate, I am confused. I have been on many Sanders's websites put up by Sanders's supporters and the Green Party has been calling for Sander's to run as a Green. The attempt to bring in Sanders as a Green candidate has been going on for months - so I guess that the unsigned attempt in this lineup to undermine Sanders may not be from a Green Party member after-all. Kay Walker

Jane Kim does not care if you and your family worked hard to save up and raise a family in a home you SACRIFICED decades to buy.

Jane Kim DENIES all renters property safety and restrictions in housing occupancy to prevent fire hazards. She supports ILLEGAL subleasing with no restrictions on number of people who can reside in one unit. It might be built to support only three but to her it is perfectly safe to have six or more.

Jane Kim LIES about supporting affordable housing claiming she supports it but then turns around and BLOCKS and protests efforts to build upwards in SF. She is a lying scumbag that strictly panders to the uninformed who do not take time to actually research how her actions do not match her cheap words.

Jane Kim is ANTI PUBLIC SAFETY and specifically does not feel the SFPD helps prevent crimes. She has repeatedly stated at a Board of Supervisors hearing - as part of her opposition to increasing police staffing levels - that "police don't prevent crime." Well hopefully if she ever gets in trouble, she will have her own security because police sure won't help her.

Jane Kim SUPPORTS homeless camping tents ANYWHERE in SF. To her is perfectly fine for them to block sidewalks, urinate in public and on private buildings like your home where you live.

Personally I am DISGUSTED by Jane Kim and her spineless policies that do not help our wonderful city and it's hardworking honest residents. Jane Kim is a fraud who panders to anyone who supports her cause, she stands for nothing good.