{"id":28503,"date":"2023-09-15T12:53:52","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T19:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28503"},"modified":"2023-09-15T12:53:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T19:53:53","slug":"22nd-and-mission-fire-site-owner-will-seek-10-story-housing-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/15\/22nd-and-mission-fire-site-owner-will-seek-10-story-housing-project\/","title":{"rendered":"22nd and Mission fire site owner will seek 10-story housing project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" by\u00a0ANNIKA HOM<\/a><\/strong> SEPTEMBER 14, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2588
2588 Mission Street at 22nd. Photo by Lydia Ch\u00e1vez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The project proposed at 2588 Mission St., the site of a 108-year-old building destroyed by fire in 2015<\/a>, will come before the Planning Commission by the end of the year as a 10-story market-rate project, according to  Planning Department Chief of Staff Dan Sider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe short version is that the developer continues to push forward,\u201d Sider wrote in an email to Mission Local. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That developer is the owner, Hawk Ling Lou. Because the scheduling for Planning Commission meetings can be \u201cfickle,\u201d Sider couldn\u2019t comment on the exact timeline of the standard hearing yet. But it\u2019s no secret that hordes of outraged community members will probably attend and object to it, over Lou\u2019s past negligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2015 fire killed 38-year-old resident Mauricio Orellano, and displaced dozens of residential and commercial tenants, including Mission Local. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subscribe to our daily newsletter<\/strong> and have the latest stories from Mission Local delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin later charged contractor Tommy Jue<\/a> with fraud and grand theft for installing a faulty fire-alarm system 2588 22nd St. that Lou, in the midst of lawsuits, claimed contributed to the conflagration. Lou had hired Jue to install the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lou did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2015, Lou has refused to sell the property to affordable-housing developers, and pushed ahead with plans to build market-rate housing, despite community pleas to build a fully affordable project on the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Lou has envisioned increasingly taller buildings. The most recent iteration asks to use a state density bonus law to build a 10-story project, rivaling the tallest building in the neighborhood, the U.S. Bank building kitty-corner from the site, on the northwest corner of 22nd and Mission streets. That law gives Lou a 50 percent increase in density if 15 percent of the total project is affordable<\/a> to those earning 50 percent of the area median income, or $50,450 for one person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lou\u2019s proposed project would include 152 market-rate units and 30 affordable units. The ground floor would be a nearly 4,000-square-foot retail space. While the original 2015 tenants who were displaced could possibly have the Right to Return \u2014 it depends on whether officials deem the building New Construction<\/a> \u2014 most have moved on in the eight years since the fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, major community groups, like the Mission Economic Development Agency, continue to urge Lou to hand the property over to someone who will develop it as 100-percent affordable housing, and to emphasize the right to return for former tenants. In 2021, a pre-application meeting for an earlier proposal from Lou was met with a community petition<\/a> and public criticism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a Planning Commission hearing is planned, it is unclear what, if anything, would curb Lou and his current aspirations. As California grapples with a housing crisis and state officials crack down, locals have less power to stop a project. Other projects, like 469 Stevenson St.<\/a>, which the Board of Supervisors controversially rejected after local appeals<\/a>, invited swift scolding and threats from the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Lou\u2019s project is a separate case. \u201cThe project isn\u2019t ministerial,\u201d Sider said, indicating the project could not be automatically approved, \u201cso the hearing will be meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORE ON THE 22ND STREET FIRE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"One<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One Fire in a Real Estate Empire Rife with Issues<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>by DANIEL HIRSCH<\/a><\/strong>, ANDREA VALENCIA<\/a><\/strong>, LYDIA CH\u00c1VEZ<\/a><\/strong> and LAURA WENUS<\/a><\/strong>FEBRUARY 13, 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mission<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mission Fire Tenants: There Were No Smoke Alarms<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>by DANIEL HIRSCH<\/a><\/strong>, LYDIA CH\u00c1VEZ<\/a><\/strong>, ANDREA VALENCIA<\/a><\/strong> and LAURA WENUS<\/a><\/strong>FEBRUARY 6, 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Debate<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Debate renews on fate of 22nd and Mission vacant lot, site of a deadly 2015 blaze<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>by\u00a0ANNIKA HOM<\/a><\/strong> JUNE 23, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/a>ANNIKA HOM<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

annika.hom@missionlocal.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REPORTER. Annika Hom is our inequality reporter through our partnership with Report for America. Annika was born and raised in the Bay Area. She previously interned at SF Weekly and the Boston Globe where she focused on local news and immigration. She is a proud Chinese and Filipina American. She has a twin brother that (contrary to soap opera tropes) is not evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow her on Twitter at @AnnikaHom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0ANNIKA HOM SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 The project proposed at 2588 Mission St., the site of a 108-year-old building destroyed by fire in 2015, will come before the Planning Commission by the end of the year as a 10-story market-rate project, according to  Planning Department Chief of Staff Dan Sider.  \u201cThe short… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1073],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28504,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28503\/revisions\/28504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}