The Displacement Bomb Set to Explode San Francisco... and You’ve Never Even Heard of It

[KamaAina]

http://peoplepowermedia.net/housing/op-ed-the-displacement-bomb-set-to-explode-san-francisco-op-ed

For the good of the City, your old apartment building could be torn down! You'll be figuring out the next few years living elsewhere, while some developer builds a new “affordable” unit for you. You will have to wait a few years to move back, if the new building even gets built.

Don’t worry, though. This isn't just about you. It’s your neighbor’s place too. And your whole neighborhood. In fact, the San Francisco Planning Department has placed a developer “incentive” bullseye on nearly 31,000 parcels in every corner of the City. Colored blue on their maps, these vast areas also include your neighborhood corner store, produce market, pub, and restaurant. These homes and businesses are standing selfishly in the way of progress according to the proposed Affordable Housing Density Bonus Program.

If the City implements this program, instead of your rent-controlled home, there will be midrise buidings where the wealthy get to live wherever they want, but you’ll be relegated to a “Below Market Rate (BMR)” unit. To live there, you'll have to recertify your income every year. And if you no longer qualify, you’ll be pushed out to a hood near a distant BART or Caltrain station. Meanwhile, your neighborhood produce store will probably be replaced by an artisanal donut shop....

Remember that Redevelopment of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s promised “one for one” replacement. People who were displaced from their Victorian style homes in the Fillmore were told they could return after the Redevelopment Agency built new co-op and other BMR housing. The new housing was promised to be modern and price controlled– an upgrade from the aging Victorians considered by the Agency to be blight. However, in reality, this was the demise of the thriving African-American communities in San Francisco.

[stopbush]

1. SF is so over-priced that a shortage of low- and medium-wage workers is looming.

How does one work at the neighborhood McJob and afford to live in the neighborhood? How many people can afford the expense and spend hours a day commuting to a minimum wage job?

[Warpy]

2. They'll expect everybody to live over in Oakland

and take BART into San Francisco to work those minimum wage jobs and sub minimum wage jobs like waitressing at that artisinal donut shop(pe). Then Oakland will get increasingly gentrified. Developers are conning city planners by promising a certain percentage of low rent apartments on the bottom floors while dangling higher tax returns in front of them. Even if those apartments are built, they revert to high priced apartments as soon as the first tenants move out. That's what happened with pricey developments along that line in Boston. In the meantime, the people displaced by the glitzy building project have to scramble to find somewhere to live, especially hard on old folks who have lived in an area for a lifetime.

I have no idea what the wealthy and their corporate puppets think they're going to do for employees. They probably think they're going to get away with what they did in Palm Springs, move everybody who isn't rich out to towns in the desert an hour or so away and brush their butts out of town at sunset so nobody has to deal with people who work for a living.

[PasadenaTrudy]

8. Oakland is expensive now too

People will have to move farther east or south.

[stopbush]

19. How far does one move before they just find a McJob near their new digs?

Unless McJobs in SF start paying $20 an hour.

[truedelphi]

3. Gosh sometimes there are so many news stories that sound like something

Out of The Onion.

So a place that has virtually no rentals to spare, with rents going through the roof, is going to target 31,000 parcels, raze them all, and bring in "affordable" housing?

And what many people fail to realize is that usually thee affordable housing buildings have owners, who for ten to fifteen years agree to keep the rental prices low, but then the building can be turned back over to the owners to do as they will. All this is a great deal for the "non-profit" owners - they get governmental funding to build the place, an assurance of many renters for x amount of years and then when the properties have even appreciated more, the "non-profit" owners get the buildings back.

[pocoloco]

10. LOL not out of the Onion

Out of California!

LOL

[Overseas]

4. K&R. Oh no...

[Mr.Bill]

5. The San Francisco Giants recently

got approval by ballot initiative to develop land they own near AT&T Park. It will include retail, other commercial and residential development. They said a percentage of the residential units would be affordable housing. They said the "affordable housing" would only require an income of 200K to qualify for it. They actually said that with a straight face.

I have a good friend that lives in a condo across the street from AT&T Park. It's about 800 sq ft, one bedroom, one bath, one parking space in multi use garage and no terrace or other outdoor space. A similar unit in the building is on the market for 1.5 million.

[Lucky Luciano]

6. If that unit costs a buck and a half, then $200k needs affordable housing! nt

[Gormy Cuss]

13. "Affordable" is a qualifier link to income. It doesn't mean just "affordable for low income."

In SF terms, affordable rent for middle income (which is defined in planning terms as up to 140% of the area median income) means that a household of one can have an income of about 100K and still qualify.

[truedelphi]

17. Sometimes, I really really hate myself for being a GIANTS fan.

This is an outfit that doesn't pay its concession stand people the overtime due them, unless they go to the trouble of suing for it!

Grrh! Grrh!

Then I read what you just wrote and I further wanna barf!

[Prism]

7. I just don't know why/how people do it.

I was at a birthday party over the weekend and we got to talking about our respective apartments. A buddy was showing us video of his new place in SF. $3500/month, and it's basically a closet. I was dying inside just looking at it. I live near Berkeley in a spacious one bedroom for less than $1000/month, and my city friends are shelling out all this dough for . . . what? To avoid a half hour BART trip? Madness.

It did have a nice shower, though. So there's that.

[Auggie]

9. Huh? Several of these "properties" are condos and houses ...

at least on Russian Hill (my old 'hood). No way those could be demolished. The court fights would drag-on for years.

I bet this is a disaster capitalist-type plan ... ideas "ready-to-go" to exploit a beneficial catastrophe (namely, the "Big One&quot , and created by developers who stand to gain the most. Still, I imagine the fight over land would be monumental. I don't see this happening ... unless, like I say, there's a big disaster.

[jalan48]

11. I lived in SF in the early 70's.

It was expensive but there were areas where rents weren't too bad. We lived in the Fillmore and I was able to pay the rent and enjoy life (somewhat) on a job that paid just above minimum wage. It looks like it has become a destination city for those with lots of money.

[jwirr]

12. They are going to end up with servants quarters like some

of the big mansions have. Or slave quarters depending on how the economy goes.

[jalan48]

14. You got it.

I hadn't thought of it that way but servants quarters describes it well. We've gone from George Jr.'s home ownership stock market to servants quarters in 10 short years. Interesting.

[Conch]

15. San Jose is waiting

There are a number of home owners and home turners who are looking at this and rubbing their hands together. With the BART supposedly making its way to SJ in 2016 there is a belief that home values will increase significantly in the next few years with an influx of company openings and with a number of folks looking to relocate from SF.

Some neighborhoods will take a beating because of the BART by becoming parking lots...but it should increase business and bring in more businesses.

When folks leave one area another grows.

[KamaAina]

16. No BART 'til 2017

That's all we need. The affordable housing situation down here is already almost as bad as it is in SF.

[Auggie]

18. Growth will head east towards Livermore