Good afternoon!
Perhaps you thought the scandal around a potential deathtrap at 2867 San Bruno Avenue had dissipated. In 2021, Joe Eskanazi exposed the illegal units shoehorned in with minimal oversight from the city, the final sign-off from former building inspector Bernie Curran, who since admitted to taking bribes, and the owners’ โMickey Mouse attempts at life-safety elements.โ Today, more than a year and a half after a settlement imposed inadequate penalties on the owners, the tenants’ homes remain virtually uninspected, with janky scaffolding still serving in place of safe fire escapes. Currently, writes Joe, “the cityโs powers-that-be appear to think itโs in their best interests for everything to go away quietly” and will probably require illegal units to be eliminated. But this will displace dozens of Spanish- and Cantonese-speaking families who are still paying market-rate rent of more than $3,000 a month to live in shoddy and dangerous construction. Supervisor Hillary Ronen wants to quadruple the penalties for illegal construction, and give tenants evicted from such units priority for affordable housing. But the entire process remains scandalous: “The real misstep here, beyond dollars and cents,” writes Joe, “may be failing to track down and penalize the cavalcade of bad actors who enabled this project and brought it to fruition; they remain out and about in the city, acting badly.”
In other development news, Annika Homโs Mission Moves newsletter offers a blow-by-blow guide to battles over housing, development, and land use in the Mission. Read her story on the avocado tree thatโs sparking bad feelings between developers of a 19-unit building on 18th Street and neighbors opposed to the project. An attorney for the developers called the neighbors’ successful appeal to protect the tree “the latest attempt to derail a project that would bring 19 units of desperately needed housing.And read Annika’s analysis of the just-announced Notice of Funding Availability from the Mayor’s Office of Housingโโa $92 million pool of money which can help nonprofit developers buy sites and build affordable housing. Of the total, the city is allotting $32 million for affordable educator housing, $40 million for affordable site acquisition, and $20 million for capital repairs. Sam Moss of Mission Housing says his organization will be applying for both capital improvement and affordable housing funds, and is โvery seriously looking” at multiple sites, including one in the Outer Mission and two on the west side. Other nonprofit developers may soon be competing for the money โโ stay tuned.
As the note in today’s Snap puts it, “the struggle is real.”
More soon,
Sara
The Latest News
In San Francisco, it takes a village to do illegal construction
Overt corruption enabled this site to be built with the cityโs blessing.
Avocado tree causes latest clash on housing project
If olive trees symbolize peace, this avocado means conflict.
New affordable housing funding announced
Will Mission Housing move outside the Mission?
SNAP
