A funny thing happened on the way to Super Bowl City: Talk of clearing the homeless out of sight has served to catapult them into the spotlight instead. Everyone’s talking about how the city has failed its most destitute, and that talk has expanded, inevitably, into conversations about evictions, housing, and the cost of living. The most recent, and hilarious, example of which is this parody of Adele’s song “Hello” directed at Mayor Ed Lee, guest starring the Mission:
Candace is right – times are tough in the Mission. Not only is it expensive, but this neighborhood has one of the highest average student debt burdens of the nation, according to The Street. In the 94110 ZIP code, the average amount in student debt was just over $115,000. Incomes for those graduates with debt averaged out to $180,000 annually. The Street points out that this is roughly three times the average student loan balance and household income nationwide.
On top of this is the cost of housing. Everyone knows it’s expensive to rent here, but Curbed broke down the increase in the cost of buying a house in San Francisco since 2011 and it ain’t pretty. Home prices have more than doubled in this neighborhood since 2011, Paragon Real Estate numbers in Curbed show.
And while there are lots of arguments about how this should be addressed, two thinkpieces on the topic caught my attention this week. The first comes from the City Observatory, where Daniel Hertz argues that a recent housing construction boom has started to bring rents down (by $7 to $59 dollars, depending on the city) in some areas of the nation, and that as building continues, those prices will come down more.
But in the same piece, Hertz hits on a point that housing activists in San Francisco have been pushing for ages: Lots of new construction is done at the high end and expensive end of the spectrum. On one hand, this could mean that as new supply cools the luxury market, developers might turn to middle-income housing again – or that the affordable and middle-income housing supply continues to simply be throttled.
As an aside, San Francisco’s own rents have cooled their crazy jets a little, and actually stayed pretty flat this month, Curbed reports, though Curbed counts a $10 increase as staying flat where Hertz considered a $7 decrease a drop. So, you know, make of that what you will. It should also be noted, while we’re talking about the production of affordable housing, that supervisors just this week approved a proposal to streamline housing projects that are 100 percent affordable – they now no longer need to apply for a conditional use permit, a planning process that can add months to the development process. Some say this is vital for moving affordable housing production forward, while others worry that it won’t affect that many projects anyway and will remove an avenue for public input in the process.
Then there’s this suggestion from Governing.com: If you want density without jamming huge buildings into quaint neighborhoods, maybe it’s time to slice and dice inside spaces like Vancouver did. The logic here is that cities could respond to increased demand in trendy-if-sleepy areas of urban areas by divvying up the apartments. Interestingly, many of Vancouver’s split up apartments were divided illegally at first, but once city government jumped on board, they were legalized – an effort that is already underway at our own Board of Supervisors, which is hoping to legitimize the illegal units that many homeowners in the city have added to their buildings and where many low rent seekers find refuge.
In business news, there has been lots of turnover involving restaurants.
New Starlight Furniture on Mission street could become a restaurant and brewery. A planning notice indicates that an application has been filed to turn the space into a restaurant, and a worker there said the furniture store may close in six months or so, but declined to comment further.
As Capp Street Crap points out, that makes Mission between 18th and 19th quite the hotbed of restaurant proliferation, with plans underway for Citizen Fox (currently in the former Hapa Ramen space on the other end of the block) to go into the old discount store space on the corner. Wes Burger is also planning a brick and mortar location next to Mission Comics and Art. In other words, if there’s a long-term business on that block you don’t want to see taken over by foodservice, better get out there and support them with your dollars. Leases don’t last forever.
On Valencia Street near Duboce, a building severely damaged by a fire in 2012 (which previously housed Caesar’s Cafe and a troubled medical cannabis dispensary in the rear of the ground floor) has now been almost completely repaired. Plans are underway for a Mediterranean restaurant called Tawla to move into the ground floor. Eater SF has the details on what you can expect to find there once it opens, which is scheduled to be in spring.
Jumping to the other end of the Mission, it turns out that the recently shuttered Roosevelt Tamale Parlor’s building has been for sale for quite some time, and SocketSite reports that the business’ lease and its beer and wine seller’s license are on the market, too. According to SocketSite, the building was sold in February for $1.8 million, was brought to market again last summer for more than $3 million, but has failed to sell and was re-listed in October for $2.9 million.
Finally, Inside Scoop has a look into the future of the dearly departed Lexington Club, acquired by Gavin Newsom’s Plumpjack group: It’s going to open in March, as something called Wildhawk. The bar’s new theme will be an homage to 1800’s “bad girl” dancer Lola Montez.