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by Gretchen Hildebran/PoorNewsNetwork
I was relieved to see the sky and breathe the soft
afternoon air. As I left the imposing gray building a
man from the Mayor's Office on Homelessness caught up
with me. He looked puzzled. "So you think homeless
people should be allowed to own the sidewalk they live
on?" I tried to disengage from the conversation
quickly, as I wanted to get on with my Saturday and
felt I had done what I could to advocate respect for
all residents in the path of the Redevelopment's (SFRA)
"revitalizing" reach. And I had hoped that the
mayor's bureaucrat for the homeless would understand
the concept on his own.
Unfortunately, most mayoral appointees tend to
disappoint. Most recently, the commissioners of the
SFRA , in charge of reviewing and approving development
in their Project Areas, have been stuck in a political
deadlock that has effectively stopped crucial SRO
construction in its tracks. At a SFRA hearing on
October 30, 2001 plans to rebuild the Plaza Hotel, which
would create a desperately needed 115 units of
low-income housing at 6th and Mission, were crashed by
the swing vote of recently appointed commissioner
Michael Settles. Despite the outraged reaction of 300
area residents who showed up to support the project,
the commissioner rejected the plans, claiming that
they didn't follow the proper "systems model."
Teresa Yanga, Housing Development Coordinator at
Tenant and Owners Development Corporation (TODCO),
expressed that group’s disappointment that the project
has been indefinitely stalled, and called the issue a
political football. The Plaza Hotel property was
purchased early this year by the Redevelopment Agency
and TODCO was the only housing developer to place a
bid on the rebuilding contract. After a thorough
review process, TODCO was recommended to develop the
property by the staff of the SFRA.
"We are a qualified applicant who followed the
protocol," said Ms. Yanga, "This project had community
support and would have been something positive in the
area." The plans for the hotel also included
street-level space for Bindlestiff Studio and a
Filipino-American cultural arts center.
With the
refusal to grant the contract to TODCO, the slim
majority of SFRA commissioners turned its back on
community support and their own staff’s
recommendation. The commissioners who voted against
the project also ignored the fact that the Plaza Hotel
units would finally replace the SRO units destroyed in
the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, one of the SFRA’s
original goals of the Project Area.
The vote represents an attempt to shift the policies
of the Redevelopment Agency in the city, beginning
with breaking off the Agency’s long-standing
relationship with non-profit housing developers. The
source of this shift can be traced back to Willie
Brown’s most recent "State of the City" address, when
the mayor suggested that the SFRA should not just fund
affordable housing in the city, but should also take
over the development and management of these projects.
Certain commissioners, led by president Benny Yee,
have taken this suggestion as a directive for ending
relationships with organizations like TODCO, who has
historically developed many of the Agency’s low-income
projects. TODCO currently has several other projects
in development, such as the Delta Hotel on 6th and
Mission, which are threatened by the Commissioners’
actions.
Why the mayor and certain SFRA commissioners have
taken this direction is a mystery to activists and
non-profit developers, says Quentin Mecke of the South
of Market Anti-Displacement Coalition (SOMAD). "The
pie is getting smaller," Lee said when I spoke with
him, suggesting that the economy may be a factor.
However, the activist does not think that for-profit
developers will get in on the low-income housing
market, simply because it is impossible to clear a
huge profit margin.
It is a concern, however, that the agency would
attempt to partner with for-profit developers like Joe
O’Donohue in creating more "mixed-income" housing.
This idea is ominously familiar to those of us who
attended the same PAC meetings on the Mid-Market area,
where profit-driven developers were insistent about
the "impossibility" of dedicated low-income housing
(See "Lost Between the Lines" Parts 1&2). "Many
people speak of the ‘unghettoization’ of 6th Street,"
remarked Mecke, "Instead of working on so-called
’mixed-income’ projects, they need to look towards
successful models of SROs, such as the Rose Hotel,
which counter stereotypes about SROs."
Fortunately, there are indications that the new
directive will fail. The SFRA staff is preparing an
assessment of the Agency’s ability to develop and
manage its own properties and should present the
findings as early as December 18th, but the idea is
not popular. Several commissioners have stood up for
the important role of non-profit housing developers,
although this split has meant that the Agency’s work
has ground to a halt.
"No one will trust the commission enough to bring them
a plan now," commented Mecke. "It is profoundly
embarrassing to see them at work, to see how much they
hate each other." The SFRA is the biggest funder of
low-income development in the city and for tenants and
poor folks in need of truly affordable housing, this
is an enormous political glitch that could leave us
all out in the cold.
"The community needs to take a stand," Mecke insisted.
Only public pressure and embarrassment could cause a
behind the scenes shifting of commissioners to bring
projects back online. SOMAD is holding workshops to
inform tenants of the situation and give them the
technical capacity to represent their communities in
front of the commission. "This is a fund of public
money and the commission needs to be accountable,"
said Mecke. "It is a classic example of systemic
power. They don’t want people to be able to speak
up."
Learning of this debacle reminded me of my frustration
at the Mid-Market PAC meetings this fall. The more I
advocated for a plan that would address actual needs
in the neighborhood, the more I was told how
"unrealistic" that idea was. The massive political
forces behind city appointments, funding and
development at the Redevelopment Commission has left
the Agency little room to get anything done. But
these commissioners don’t work for the mayor, they
work for us, and right now they need a giant reminder.
The SF Redevelopment Agency Commissioners meet
Tuesday afternoons at 4pm in City Hall Room 416.
Their agenda is posted on their website at
www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfra and the meetings are broadcast on
KPOO, 89.5 FM.
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