San Francisco housing challenge for homeless rejected
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – As the affordable housing crisis continues in San Francisco, some city leaders, including Mayor London Breed, expressed frustration on social media Wednesday at the board of directors’ rejection of a nearly 500-unit housing project brought the SoMa district.
The project should provide more than 100 affordable apartments.
Few overseers supported the housing project, while a majority voted not to advance this plan, citing concerns about gentrification.
Mayor Breed and other overseers say otherwise, however.
The place at the center of the controversy is a parking lot near Stevenson and 6th Streets in San Francisco, which is currently surrounded by tents and homeless camps.
The nearly 500-unit SoMa project was to include more than 100 affordable residential units, including everything from one to five-bedroom apartments.
However, planning stalled on Tuesday when a majority of city officials rejected the development with 8 to 3 votes.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai was one of the few who supported him.
“A few years ago people would have rolled out the red carpet for a project with 24.25% affordable living space. Here we are today and it’s like slapping the golden goose in the mouth and we have the ability to do amazing things in San Francisco when it comes to housing, but when we take these opportunities for granted they won’t always be there and we definitely have a housing crisis, ”said Safai.
Safai, along with superiors Matt Haney and Catherine Stefani, appeared to be blind when their colleagues rejected this plan, even Mayor London Breed was not happy.
She tweeted about the project on Wednesday:
“It met the approval criteria and would have created more than 100 new affordable apartments. If you are wondering how we got into our housing crisis, so. ”
Several supervisors, including Dean Preston, argued that the project raises concerns about gentrification.
“I think what the low-income communities in this city know all too well is that hundreds of off-the-shelf units in particular in a low-income community naturally have an impact on gentrification. I think there might be a dispute they might have eviction implications, ”Preston said.
Addressing these comments in a later tweet, Breed said:
“Managers expressed vague concerns about gentrification and possible shadows to justify rejecting the analysis by the planning department’s experts. This was during a hearing on perceived environmental concerns. We’re talking about a parking lot in SoMa, surrounded by high-rise buildings. ”
“If we are serious about this housing crisis, we cannot refuse such projects,” said Safai.
Meanwhile, city officials on Tuesday abandoned another plan for a homeless drop-in center on a vacant former McDonald’s property in Haight, citing lack of funding.
