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by\u00a0H.R. SMITH<\/a><\/strong> SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Neighborhoods-United-Forum.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSign up below to get Mission Local\u2019s free newsletter<\/strong>, a daily digest of news you won\u2019t find elsewhere.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for each of the major contenders in the mayor\u2019s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Aaron Peskin. Read earlier dispatches here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a Monday night, but the nave of the Noe Valley Ministry is packed with well over 100 people. They\u2019ve come to hear from Board of Supervisors President and mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin, District 8 supervisor Rafael Mandelman, and a panel of speakers put together by Neighborhoods United, a coalition of more than 50 neighborhood associations across the city. The topic is zoning, and the crowd is anxious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay informed on local elections \u2014 sign up for Mission Local’s free daily newsletter<\/strong> today!Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neighborhoods United is there to talk about the evils of an imminent boom in new apartment buildings, brought on by rezoning in the western neighborhoods, and changes to permitting at the state level. Mandelman is there to talk about how maybe we shouldn\u2019t freak out right away. Peskin is there to campaign, but in his own particular way, which is to say that there will be discussion of variable floor plate sizes and the history of the I-Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neighborhoods United goes first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had some feedback from certain people saying that it\u2019s fearmongering to share these images,\u201d says historic preservationist Katherine Petrin, as a slide of a giant gray rectangle blocking the Golden Gate Bridge appears on the screen behind her. \u201cWe really do not believe that\u2019s true. We\u2019re sharing them to show you what\u2019s possible. Not to create fear, but to make you aware. Next slide, please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neighborhoods United is behind these renderings, which show San Francisco being menaced<\/a> by giant gray and white rectangles \u2014 massing studies meant to show how tall buildings can get along certain streets once the rezoned streets are combined with the state density bonus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, says Petrin, a state bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (SB423<\/a>) and a verdict from the state\u2019s Regional Housing Needs Allocation<\/a> (which says that San Francisco hasn\u2019t built enough new housing) means that, as of June 28, anyone with plans to build multi-unit housing in San Francisco can do so if they follow certain state guidelines. Builders no longer need to assess environmental impacts (CEQA) <\/a>or follow neighborhood notification requirements<\/a>. This permit party will last until 2031, when the Regional Housing Needs Allocation will once again crunch the numbers and determine whether the city is meeting its housing goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on who is talking, the next years are going to be either the bad old days of redevelopment come to smash everything San Franciscians hold near and dear, sowing the earth with generic condo towers, or not really that bad. But again, SB423 only went into effect on June 28. The future is unwritten. So far, the only well-known change to future San Francisco is an eight-story, mostly market-rate housing project at 1965 Market St. that, following June 28, dropped new plans<\/a> to the effect of \u201cSurprise! We\u2019re 23 stories tall now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A forum like this one is invariably going to draw large numbers of the kind of politically engaged people who are going to take the time to vote in November. They are also an intense place to be, even if you aren\u2019t running a political campaign. Passions ride high. Residents who moved to neighborhoods that were zoned single-family housing, and who were already outraged at the city\u2019s western neighborhoods rezoning plan (now quite modest in comparison) are, because of the intersection of SB423 and state density bonus<\/a> regulations, are not even sure what kind of a building they can anticipate being angry about. In other words: a tough crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one of Neighborhoods United\u2019s June events, District 7 residents booed their supervisor<\/a>, Myrna Melgar, for her support of upzoning transit corridors<\/a> in the western neighborhoods. Upzoning allows for more housing to be built on a single parcel, generally by raising the height of the buildings, but also by increasing the amount of square footage on a lot that can be dedicated to housing, so that, for example, the owners of a single-family home can build another house in their backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the District 7 event, held at the Scottish Rite Memorial Hall in West Portal, some attendees expressed opinions that were a vivid reminder of where the term NIMBY came from. A few shouted angrily about the seven stories of affordable senior housing<\/a> slated to replace an old Motel 6 at 1234 Great Highway \u2014 how it was too tall, too close to the water, what if homeless people ended up living there? (\u201cDon\u2019t we want to give housing to people who are on the streets?\u201d asked Supervisor Joel Engardio. \u201cEspecially seniors?\u201d) Melgar didn\u2019t speak at the forum, and left before the Q&A portion. \u201cIf I lose this election on this issue, then that\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d she told<\/a> Mission Local<\/em> reporter Kelly Waldron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peskin also supports the plan to upzone the western neighborhoods, which is good, because he helped write it<\/a>. He also voted for numerous other things that District 7 residents are furious about \u2014 the constraints reduction ordinance<\/a>, for example, which, made it easier to build new senior housing, shelter and group housing (like the former Motel 6). At the District 7 forum, Peskin both acknowledged this, and pivoted towards a common enemy. \u201cI voted for those things to show the state that we\u2019re putting our best foot forward, that we\u2019re trying to meet those mandates, and that we are being real about it.\u201d Instead, he said, the state has only demanded more. \u201cI don\u2019t think the state is doing this because they care about development. They care about getting rid of all of our local laws that protected our neighborhoods. That\u2019s what this is really about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peskin\u2019s stump speeches always vary depending on who is being addressed. At District 8, his speech consists of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flattery<\/strong>: \u201cOne thing I know is that we have the smartest electorate that anybody could ask for.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n History: <\/strong>\u201cBy the way, those laws that were used for redevelopment, those were state laws. Those were not local laws. I also want to remember things like the fight over the International Hotel, where we ripped down low-income, and we ended up paying the bill for that years later, when we rebuilt it after it laid vacant for three decades.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The current state of construction financing: <\/strong>\u201cOver 70,000 units are fully approved and shovel-ready. The reason they\u2019re not being built isn\u2019t because of bureaucratic problems and YIMBY\/NIMBY neighbor fights. It\u2019s because interest rates are too high. I probably should have realized this years ago, but the city and county of San Francisco are actually able to issue tax-exempt bonds<\/a> for infrastructure, and housing is infrastructure.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Architectural wonkery<\/strong>: \u201cWe\u2019ve passed legislation to make it easier to convert vacant offices. I always warn people: Don\u2019t think this is a panacea. The larger, big floor, plate-glass-window buildings are not going to be right for conversion to residential<\/a>, but the smaller ones with the smaller floor plates, openable windows, five stories are perfect for adaptive reuse\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reminder that San Francisco\u2019s agonizing slowness when it comes to building permits are as much, if not more, the <\/strong>result of corruption<\/strong><\/a> than they are bureaucracy-as-usual.<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s never fun to say we have a Department of Building Inspection that has been riddled with corruption. We have a Department of City Planning that doesn\u2019t have a lot of work because not a lot of stuff is being built, but it still takes months and months to get a hearing for a conditional use. We need better management to fix it. So thank you all for coming tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peskin is navigating a tricky balancing act in this election. His natural base of voters is progressive, which includes homeowners who are not keen on changing their neighborhoods. His other base is community activists who are extremely keen on building more affordable housing for seniors, families, teachers, and other San Francisco residents who can\u2019t keep up with the stratospheric cost of real estate. He managed to thread the needle as Supervisor for District 3, but now he\u2019s having to do it for an entire city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandelman, meanwhile, is not presently running for public office, and is less diplomatic. He suggests, cheerfully, that the state may not have wrestled environmental and neighborhood notification requirements<\/a> from San Francisco residents for absolutely no reason at all. He invokes the Kamala Harris meme<\/a>. \u201cYou did not fall out of coconut trees,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is a context for this conversation. There is a grievous, serious statewide housing affordability crisis, and some of us do believe that that crisis is not just related to a shortage of regulated affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of new construction \u2014 in District 8 and around the city \u2014 between now and 2032 could actually be pretty good down the line, even if it\u2019s sometimes bad, Mandelman continues. \u201cThirty or 40 years from now, it could result in us not having a housing crisis. Some of it may be really stupid, and threaten the demolition of buildings that we care about. But the folks in the state legislature \u2014 and it is not just Senator Wiener \u2014 are doing what legislators do, which is try to come up with some way to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe state has passed \u2014 this is the area where I agree with the presenters \u2014 a slew of laws,\u201d says Mandelman. \u201cThey don\u2019t know what all these laws do. We don\u2019t know what all these laws do. We don\u2019t know how all of this is going to play out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the District 8 forum, at least the outward appearance of the crowd is calm. If they are particularly upset about rezoning the western neighborhoods, it\u2019s not apparent. No one gets up and yells when Mandelman tells the crowd that maybe this showdown with the state is their fault? He hedges this one. \u201cThere are people in this room who could argue that the local communities in California have brought this on ourselves, and we don\u2019t deserve to be regulating our own land use. I think that probably goes too far. But it is undeniable that we have HCD<\/a> looming over our shoulder, looking at every move that we make, and getting ready to work with our Attorney General<\/a> to do all sorts of terrible things to us if they think we\u2019re not serious about housing. That is the context for this.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandelman also warns the crowd to be careful about how they push back. The Regional Housing Needs Allocation says that San Francisco needs to build 82,000 units of housing<\/a>, 46,000 of which need to be affordable. Several people, including Petrin, have floated the idea that the 46,000 units of affordable housing is an \u201cunfunded mandate<\/a>\u201d and, therefore, illegal. Any tools that San Francisco wields successfully to block new construction may also be taken up by neighborhoods in Silicon Valley that really could stand to add a few apartments, Mandelman notes. \u201cI would question whether we want to make it easier to protect the rights of Hillsboroughs and the Athertons<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he suggests focusing less on how to stop new eight- and 12-story buildings in their district, and more on what they can do to manage them. How can they make sure that demolitions of existing buildings won\u2019t affect rent-controlled tenants? How quickly can they move to protect historic buildings that are not yet formally recognized as such? How can they make sure that new developments aren\u2019t just seven-story single-family homes<\/a>, which are already a thing in District 8 and, he adds, \u201ca personal hobbyhorse of mine<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n At this, the crowd gets excited. Here, at last, they are on familiar ground. The last decade has brought a wave of mansionification (or re-mansionification, in some cases) in District 8. While the state\u2019s upzoning only applies to multi-unit buildings, a local permitting fiction used to obtain mansion-level housing is to buy a multi-unit building and then carve out space from other apartments until all is left is one big apartment with a tiny guest house or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a little under 10 minutes, Mandelman has cheerfully lobbed a wide array of digs, subtle and not-so, at Neighborhoods United and their presentation. \u201cWell,\u201d he says, \u201cI think those are all the combative things that I was going to say. Your priorities matter. There are multiple perspectives on this, and I think you shouldn\u2019t assume people who want to see more housing in the city are developer shills or, you know, bad people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s also said nothing but flattering things about Peskin. \u201cIn every legislation we\u2019ve done \u2014 and President Peskin has been a leader on this\u2014 we have tried to make sure that if there are demolitions, they will not impact rent-controlled tenants. We can talk about whether our protections are strong enough or not, but that is a commitment that I think your Board of Supervisors has, and the planning department has agreed on.\u201d Peskin also, he adds, has been working hard to try to get what Mandelman describes as \u201creally actual historic buildings\u201d protected. There are only a few hundred buildings in the city right now that are protected as historic, and, says Mandelman, \u201cif the changes to permitting are effective and do spark a wave of development. We may come to regret the fact that we did not move with alacrity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More intensity comes out during public comment, though Peskin is gone by then. \u201cBased on everything that I have read, the presentation that we heard tonight is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of the heroic legislation passed by my state senator, Scott Wiener,\u201d says one person into the microphone, shaking with what looks like it could be either anger or excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Peskin finished his talk by continuing to split the difference between appealing to and offending residents. \u201cWe have a very generous electorate. Just last March, even though everybody was very frustrated with so many things, we all voted by over 70% to pass a $300 million affordable-housing bond. In the twenty-four years that I\u2019ve been on and off the Board of Supervisors, we passed over a billion three in affordable housing bonds, because we actually care about our lower income neighbors and we want to live in a diverse city.\u201d He brought up the Shirley Chisholm apartments in the Richmond \u2014 five stories of affordable rental housing for SFUSD teachers and employees<\/a>, built on SFUSD land \u2014 as an example of what is possible. \u201cThe only shame of that was that those 140 units were oversubscribed by a factor of five.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is, fundamentally, an earnest appeal to go into the weeds of zoning and permitting together; maybe not so different from Mandelman\u2019s talk, after all. \u201cWhat I\u2019m really calling for,\u201d said Peskin, \u201cis a sensible policy discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n strangerworks@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n H.R. Smith has reported on tech and climate change for Grist, studied at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow, and is exceedingly fond of local politics.More by H.R. Smith<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are we headed back to the bad old days of redevelopment? Or just some tall stuff? by\u00a0H.R. SMITH SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) Sign up below to get Mission Local\u2019s free newsletter, a daily digest of news you won\u2019t find elsewhere.Sign up Leer en espa\u00f1ol Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for… Continue reading
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMORE FIELD NOTES FROM THE MAYOR\u2019S RACE<\/mark><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSee how they run: Labor leaders rally behind mayoral candidate Ahsha Safa\u00ed at Duboce Park<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nPro-Lurie PAC spends over $2M on ads, while his campaign invests in staff and consultants<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSee how they run: The Peskin campaign talks to strangers<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
H.R. SMITH<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n