by KELLY WALDRON JUNE 6, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)
As dozens of slides on the evils of new housing construction flashed on the screen, the 100 or so residents gathered Wednesday night at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center agreed on one thing: Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin best represents their views, while the local district supervisor Myrna Melgar does not.
Peskin — who is running for mayor and spoke skeptically of new market-rate housing for about 10 minutes — was a clear winner for the crowd. District 7 Supervisor Melgar, who represents the area in which the meeting was held and is running for re-election there, attended but did not speak. She was not a fan favorite — and she made it clear the feeling was mutual.
“These are not my people,” said Melgar about the event put on by Neighborhoods United, a coalition of more than 50 neighborhood associations across the city.
Melgar said the group’s meeting exaggerated the adverse effects of new housing construction, and was often factually inaccurate. “I think the presentation was deliberately designed to be provocative, to incite fear.”
While Peskin’s participation elicited rounds of applause, some members of the audience criticized Melgar for not speaking, and for leaving the meeting early. “I’m disappointed to see that Melgar left the meeting,” said Jim Herlihy, an attendee. “She should be here.”
In one sense, the presentation preached to a choir of homeowners who do not want change in the suburban-like feel of their neighborhoods, with their spacious front gardens and garages. But it also indicated that for some Westside voters, housing — their kind of housing — is a critical issue.
Michael Antonini, a former planning commissioner and a Republican, and Lori Brooke, a neighborhood organizer, spent upwards of an hour presenting what they considered the “ill effects of upzoning.”
District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio gave a short speech making the case for more housing, and emphasized building on corner lots.
Peskin offered his take as well. Although he did not specifically endorse any of the group’s far-flung notions, he did not disabuse anyone of them either.
“Today, much is being justified under the banner of housing and a housing crisis,” said Peskin, before delving into some of the historical context of zoning in the city. He spoke about “colossal planning mistakes” with racist undertones when speaking about redevelopment in the Fillmore and Japantown.
But he did not mention instances of racism stemming from low-density areas, like those on the city’s Westside. Large swaths of the city have had a history of exclusionary zoning policies, and neighborhoods like Forest Hill — a few blocks from the meeting hall — were deliberately built with deeds and covenants that prevented non-white homeownership.
Today, those areas are some of the lowest-density areas in the city which, some argue, are better placed to absorb additional housing.
But presenters Antonini and Brooke painted a dire picture of such change: A “sea of towers,” obstructed views, plummeting property values and gentrification. They argued that having more market-rate development would only lead to housing that is unaffordable.
“Your value of your house will fall precipitously if any of the zoning passed,” said Antonini, who came under attack in 2015 for calling the Mission a “low-income neighborhood” and saying that a proposal to halt market-rate housing there was “reverse racism.”
The presenters failed to point out that most of the areas slated for upzoning are along commercial and transit corridors, such as 19th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, and most would have building height limits increased to eight stories.
The city’s proposal for upzoning aims to address the state-mandated housing element, which requires the construction of 82,000 new housing units in San Francisco by 2031. It also specifies that housing should be built at all income levels, including affordable housing.
Antonini specifically disputed the notion that such construction is necessary, “in a state that is losing population and would lose a lot more if it weren’t for immigration,” he said. He likened the measure to Soviet-era Eastern Europe and said it was “draconian.”
Peskin said that building has far outpaced population growth since 2005, but that has not been true in recent years: Between 2010 and 2019, before pandemic-era outmigration, San Francisco saw a 9.4 percent bump in population, but only 7.2 percent more housing, according to a 2022 city report.
Peskin also touted other strides the city has made in housing since he first became supervisor in 2000, such as increased investment for affordable housing, and upzoning to increase density. He also noted that there are more than 70,000 housing units waiting to be built, and said the state’s housing mandate was a “continued march of preemption” that “remains unchecked.”
“I think San Francisco can grow and can evolve without destroying the neighborhoods that we love,” he said. “We have to get away from the polarizing YIMBY-versus-NIMBY rhetoric.”
In a conversation after the meeting, Melgar said that Peskin’s comments — on the pace of housing development — were “factually incorrect” and do not account for other factors, such as the number of new jobs created. She called his presence alongside Antonini “the frosting on this cake.”
Slide after slide showed architectural renderings of windowless, monochrome blocks overlaid onto images of different streets. “The question to all of us should be, you know, is that our future?” said Brooke.
Most of the crowd nodded in agreement, but occasionally some vocal members of the audience disagreed. For instance, Brooke, who was presenting, said at one point that there were 40,000 vacant units in the city.
“That’s not true,” said Anthony Lazarus, a reporter and co-founder of news outlet The Frisc, who interrupted Brooke’s presentation. The number of vacant units is, in fact, much lower, according to a city report: About half of the city’s vacant units are in the process of being sold or rented.
Melgar left the meeting as the Q&A began. “If I lose this election on this issue [housing], then that’s the right thing to do,” she said.
Meanwhile, Peskin stayed to take questions from the audience, and remained more skeptical about the city’s plans. “Let me say that when we make these land use mistakes, they last forever.”
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KELLY WALDRON
Kelly is Irish and French
and grew up in Dublin and Luxembourg. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, making maps and analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism. She recently graduated from the Data Journalism program at Columbia Journalism School.More by Kelly Waldron
