For the crowd of around 100 people who filled the auditorium of the Mission Language and Vocational School Wednesday night to hear the plans for an 130-unit affordable housing building, it couldn’t arrive fast enough. This kind of community input meeting, where developers pitch their proposed building, usually draws small groups of immediate neighbors who critique the height of the...
Developments in Development is a “weekly” column recapping real estate, housing, planning, zoning and construction news. Turns out New York City and San Francisco, for all their differences, have remarkably similar housing crises. At least that’s my take on this New York Review of Books piece sent my way by a reader this week. Clearly opinionated throughout, Michael Greenberg nonetheless...
Developments in Development is a “weekly” column recapping real estate, housing, planning, zoning and construction news. Bubblewatch: VCs are apparently throwing money at an app that pays people to drive tanker trucks to big parking lots and pump gas for car owners who believe their time is more valuable. So…that’s where we’re at. Meanwhile I got several reminders this week...
The idea for property owner Robert Tillman to strike a deal with the city was first floated publicly at a community meeting in 2016. He was pitching 55-unit development on his property at 2918 Mission St., currently home to a laundromat, and neighbors didn’t take kindly to it. Amidst the angry exchanges in the meeting, there was one that might...
Developments in Development is a “weekly” column recapping real estate, housing, planning, zoning and construction news. Apparently Bay Area home prices have barreled through yet another record. So reports SFGate, noting this is the fourth straight record-breaking month. This bit stuck out to me in particular: “… limited supply, especially among lower-price homes, failed to keep up with demand…” Followed by...
San Francisco’s Latino population struggles disproportionately in key areas that determine success and stability, said a coalition of nonprofits that serve low-income Latino communities around the city. The groups, under the name San Francisco Latino Parity and Equity Coalition, are calling for more funding to go to services for struggling Latino families. The coalition held a press conference Wednesday highlighting...
In its layout, aesthetic and on-site services, the new housing complex planned for 16th and Folsom streets will be geared emphatically toward housing families. Up until 2008, the site operated as the shipping warehouse for a large-scale bakery. Representatives for the developers, the Mission Economic Development Agency and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, as well as the architect and landscaper, told...
Activists and the developer of a 117-unit mixed-use project at 2675 Folsom Street have come to an agreement under which the activists opposed to the development will drop their appeal and the project will be able to go forward. As part of the agreement, the developer of the project will make more than 5,000 square feet of arts space available...
Developments in Development is a “weekly” column recapping real estate, housing, planning, zoning and construction news. In what might be an annual tradition, Curbed brings us another potentially controversial statement on land use by a Silicon Valley official. Last year, it was Palo Alto’s mayor saying job growth is the most problematic contributor to affordability. This year, we’ve got Sunnyvale’s...
Some 60 people, including whole families, turned out for the first in a series of community outreach meetings concerning the construction of a 130-unit affordable housing project at 681 Florida St. that could break ground in Spring 2019. People were there to learn about applying for the spaces and to make suggestions on the use of its community space. ...
Every time the words “affordable housing” are used in local media, commenters appear and argue about the phrase. Either they’re frustrated that, in a region where someone thinks it’s okay to charge people $800 a night to sleep on the floor, nothing is really “affordable.” Or they’re mad that we use the term in reference to city-administered below-market-rate units with...
In a rare specimen of lightning-speed bureaucracy, the Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously re-approved an entirely below market rate building planned for 17th and Folsom streets, dismissing a neighbor’s concerns over flooding in the area. “There couldn’t be any more win-win situation for all,” said Commissioner Kathrin Moore. The building, 2060-2070 Folsom Street, has been in the works for years...
Five more apartments are about to be preserved as affordable housing by a Mission District nonprofit – and now the city is rolling out an innovative loan program to help nonprofits acquire 1,500 more units in the coming five years. When the building went on the market, “Everything seemed really bleak and scary,” said Emily Kurland, a teacher who lives in the...
After years of opposition from neighborhood groups, a major project at 2000 Bryant Street was green-lit September 2016 after providing a portion of its land to the city to build affordable housing. Two agencies have now been awarded the contract to develop that affordable housing: The Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC). “It’s really...
San Francisco Supervisors sent a planned nine-story affordable senior housing project onward toward construction, unanimously rejecting an appeal of its prior approval. The appeal, represented at Tuesday’s hearing by Shotwell Street resident Craig Weber through the Inner Mission Neighborhood Association, raised concerns about adding 94 units of housing without additional parking, about failing to promote mixed-income housing and about crime increases...
