June 3, 2015

San Francisco board rejects building moratorium

Update

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco Supervisors rejected a plan late Tuesday night to temporarily block construction of luxury condos in the city’s Mission District.

The moratorium would have affected two dozen projects in the district, which has witnessed skyrocketing prices amid a technology jobs boom.

San Francisco eyes a moratorium as housing prices soar

By JANIE HAR
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Check out rental sites for San Francisco, especially the trendier parts: Well over $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom flat and nearly $5,000 for two bedrooms.

Finding a place to live has become so expensive and emotional that city supervisors are considering a 45-day moratorium on luxury housing construction in the Mission District, traditionally one of the most diverse, working-class neighborhoods in the city.

The area — long home to modest taquerias and corner markets — is now teeming with Silicon Valley workers and the pricey restaurants that cater to them.

Fancy high-rises are planned to take over dilapidated street corners, including one development that tenant activists have dubbed the “Monster in the Mission,” a building with more than 300 units and rents projected to start at $3,500.

The growth is pushing out longtime tenants, according to hundreds of people who crowded San Francisco City Hall last month to support the moratorium and urge a time-out on evictions.

They say that working families, especially Latinos, are being forced out by housing developers and that city officials have a responsibility to fight back.

“It's a working class environment. I have family here, and at the rate it's going, we're not going to have anyone we know close by,” Hugo Vargas says.

The 16-year-old Vargas shares a small room with his parents and two younger sisters. Their space in a single-room occupancy hotel goes for about $900 a month, and his parents, who earn about $45,000 combined, have applied unsuccessfully for years for a rent-controlled apartment that would give them more space.

A moratorium would give the city time to purchase some of the land available in the Mission District in order to develop hundreds of affordable housing units for lower-income and middle-income families, activists say. Otherwise, they fear developers will snap up the property for even more high-priced units.

The district has lost lower-income and middle-income households, according to a recent study by the nonprofit Council of Community Housing Organizations.

Families earning $50,000 to $75,000 made up a quarter of Mission households in 2000; today that number is 13 percent. Households with incomes of at least $100,000, meanwhile, have increased.

“It's trending into something that's not a working-class neighborhood,” says Gabriel Medina, president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club.

The vote on Tuesday is largely symbolic, as the plan faces steep odds. But it shows that officials are desperate to do something about housing in a city where prices are among the nation's highest.

Dozens of moratorium opponents gathered at a City Hall rally early Tuesday afternoon. Organizer Derek Remski says officials should focus on growth, rather than attempts to artificially cap prices.

“We can't freeze the city in a block of amber,” he says. “I don't want to fossilize San Francisco.”

According to the city, more than two dozen projects would be affected by the ordinance, including the “Monster,” formally named for its address, 1979 Mission.

Most of the development's units would be for rent, with a few dozen priced for sale to households earning roughly $60,000 to $145,000 a year, according to spokesman Joe Arellano.

He says a moratorium wouldn't solve anything.

“If you limit the supply of new housing, demand is still high. And rent and home prices will continue to go through the roof,” he says.

The ordinance needs approval from nine of the 11 city supervisors to pass.