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A San Francisco supervisor has introduced legislation that would seek to place an 18-month moratorium on all new parcel delivery services in the city, including Amazon’s proposed 725,000-square foot, last-mile logistics center in Showplace Square.

Shamann Walton, who represents the neighborhood where the logistics center will be located, introduced the legislation Feb. 15.

Walton said big companies need to have conversations with local residents about large projects planned for their communities.

“As a community, we must be allowed to decide if we want these types of facilities and businesses, and not just to be told that they are moving into our neighborhood,” he said at Feb. 15’s board of supervisors meeting.

The move, backed by the Teamsters and the United Commercial Food Workers, is the latest battle in the war between organized labor and Amazon, which has planned or already opened more than two dozen distribution centers throughout the Bay Area.

Jim Araby, strategic campaign director with the United Food & Commercial Workers, said Amazon has been aggressively buying and leasing “last-mile” warehouses throughout the Bay Area, spending more than $1 billion acquiring properties that are zoned for industrial uses or distribution.

“They need to build as quickly as possible with as few roadblocks as possible,” he said.

He said the 18-month break would allow the city to come up with regulations that would help ensure that parcel delivery services don’t adversely impact local residents with traffic, pollution and noise, and that the workers hired would be treated fairly.

“The city needs the tools necessary to evaluate the impact of this project,” Araby said.

Doug Bloch, political director at Teamsters Joint Council 7, said the legislation represents an escalation in the “trench warfare” the unions have been engaged in against Amazon over the past few years as the company has sought to build warehouses in and close to urban areas Contra Costa County, Morgan Hill, Santa Rosa, Hayward, Gilroy and San Jose.

“The battle has come to San Francisco — this is the big one,” he said. “This is San Francisco saying we need to pause and evaluate this project and what it means for our communities and our workers.”

Bloch said a fight in San Francisco “could have national implications” as Amazon pushes to locate its logistic facilities in the urban core of big cities.

The site where Amazon is hoping to build a warehouse has, for decades, been home to Recology, a trash hauling company. Recology sold it to Amazon for $200 million after unsuccessfully trying to rezone the land for about 1,000 housing units. The property, which abuts California College of the Arts and is at the edge of the city’s design district known as Showplace Square, is zoned for “Production Distribution and Repair,” which means that Amazon does not need any zoning variances in order to built there .

The previous effort to build housing there was strongly opposed by nearby residents in the Dogpatch and Potrero Hill neighborhoods.

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San Francisco and Alameda County are considering increasing the number of people living on the streets by about a month due to concerns about Omicron — further delaying a pivotal event that will help determine how much federal , state and local funds flowing into the homeless crisis.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development mandates the point-in-time count every two years. The census was due to take place last year but was canceled over concerns it would not be safe to conduct during the pandemic.

The San Francisco PIT count was originally scheduled for January 27, but may now be pushed back to late February. Alameda County’s was scheduled for Jan. 25 but could be moved to Feb. 23 instead.

San Mateo County pushed back its count to Feb. 24.

“The recent surge in the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus in our county has placed restrictions on staffing outreach programs, shelters and jurisdictions, and people living in the homeless, all of which are critical to both staffing and accuracy The point-in-time census is important,” said Chelsea Andrews, executive director of EveryOne Home, the organization that will conduct the census in Alameda County.

Andrews said the organization’s board voted Thursday morning to send her request to HUD and expects to hear whether her request is approved early next week.

Similarly, on Friday, San Francisco will decide whether to submit its application to HUD. Deborah Bouck, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said HUD “indicated that they are willing to move the date.”

The point-in-time census requires hundreds of volunteers who typically spend a night in January counting every homeless person they see on streets, in parks, in cars, in shelters and in jails. Though critics say the count is typically an undercount of the actual homeless crisis, federal and city policymakers are using the data to determine how much money and resources are needed to address the crisis.

Sarah Ravani and Kevin Fagan are contributors to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com, kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani, @KevinChron

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The global supply chain crisis is being felt at the base of Potrero Hill, where the opening of a condominium building called 88 im Park has been delayed by six months. The culprit? Not lumber or steel, but mirror lights, quartz worktops and duct glass.

Calvin Li of First City Development, the company leading the project, says his company considered opening the building without these surfaces but ultimately decided against it. “We don’t want to compromise on quality or the first impression for buyers.”

Virtually every construction project in San Francisco is affected in some way by the current state of the global supply chain, say developers, contractors and architects. Some, like 88 in the park, see delays. Other projects will be slightly redesigned in the middle of the construction phase, while those that have not yet broken the ground are going through far more extensive pre-planning than before the pandemic. While there is some evidence that the most acute bottlenecks may be easing, there are other signs that the current crisis may mark the beginning of a new normal for the construction industry, making it all the more difficult to find much-needed housing in the Bay Area to build.

At this point, it’s not so much about a shortage in a particular material, but about a general feeling of unpredictability in the supply chain. “The worst part is the uncertainty,” says Sam Moss, CEO of the non-profit developer Mission Housing. “Everything can be delayed in the truest sense of the word. There was no rhyme or reason for it. “

The tangled journey of the missing materials at 88 in the park illustrates this uncertainty. The building’s countertops were made in Vietnam and loaded onto a ship on schedule. The delays came from the ship waiting in port here in the United States and the shipment languishing on the dock to be unloaded. The building’s Ohio-made LED mirror lights had to wait for electrical parts from Asia. When the lights were ready, a shortage of truck drivers delayed them even further.

In response to a request from The Examiner, San Francisco-based David Baker Architects surveyed its employees and identified over a dozen materials that contractors were having difficulty sourcing that affected almost every part of the construction process. Steel and wood were sometimes difficult to come by, as were different types of insulation, certain types of windows and doors, and paint and acrylic panels for the exterior.

In response, DBA adapted some of its designs, downsizing building frames and stairs, and replacing certain plastic elements with metal elements.

For Moss and Mission Housing, the supply chain crisis has forced the nonprofit to “spend a lot more money on pre-development before the building breaks the ground”. In the long term, that could be good, says Moss. By working more closely with architects, contractors and community members right from the start of a project in detail, the client should be able to bring more security to the construction process.

Joe Olla, vice president of Nibbi Brothers General Contractors, says his company has also changed its practices in recent months, adding a warehouse to store high-demand equipment and materials like refrigerators, stoves and windows. “Gone are the days when you could basically deliver just-in-time,” says Olla. “You have a day it is delivered, it shows up, you move it to the unit or floor you want – you can’t really rely on that anymore. The delivery times are too demanding. “

Supply chain issues add an additional variable to the already difficult process of “inhabited rehab” or renovating a unit currently housing a tenant. “If their unit is torn apart and waiting for closets or whatever, it doesn’t make a happy customer or happy tenant,” says Olla.

Material delays have forced a handful of Mission Housing residents to stay in a hotel or other accommodation provided by the landlord for weeks longer than planned, in some cases. “It has a human price,” says Moss. “The thought of going back to your brand new home and waiting another two or three weeks is emotionally brutal.”

Of course, it’s not just the global supply chain that is a challenge for construction projects in San Francisco. For the development team at 88 Arkansas, it ultimately made economic sense to postpone sales by a few months. With condominium prices still bouncing off the pandemic-era lows, the project’s creditors were “okay to postpone sales later,” says Li, “because we’re seeing the market picking up.”

Natural disasters here in North America also seem to be a factor. Successive hurricanes that hit the Carolinas have “made it very difficult to get box cabinets right now,” says Olla. This year’s winter storm Uri, which caused a deep freeze in Texas and much of the south, made it difficult to obtain plastic pipes and foams for insulation. Although the nationwide shortage of truckers was sparked by the pandemic, it doesn’t look like it is going anywhere anytime soon as more people find ways to “make a living without making a living,” as Olla says .

Fortunately for professionals in this business, adapting to changing circumstances is nothing new. “One of my mentors always said that we measure things with a laser, but then we do it with a stick,” says Moss. “It sucks and brutal, but the supply chain is just the next obstacle that the affordable housing industry has to jump over.”

bschneider@sfexaminer.com

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CUPERTINO (CBS SF) – A surge in COVID cases fueled by the Delta variant is thwarting Silicon Valley companies’ plans to get workers back into offices.

Apple reportedly postponed plans to get most employees back to the office from September to October. Many smaller companies do the same.

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“The first concern is the type of new virus called Delta,” said Bochen Wang, who runs a small financial services startup called Zeitro.

His company only has 15 employees but is grappling with some of the same problems as the tech giants.

“We should be back on July 1st and have postponed our return to the office
plan three months later. Now it will be October or November 1st, ”said Wang.

Google had planned to bring back 60 percent of its employees for a few days a week from September. But now the schedule is in question as the company is observing what is known as a “dynamic” situation.

In the meantime, the City of San Jose is seeking the gradual return of its 6,000 employees and the reopening of the City Hall on August 2nd.

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“We are not currently planning to change our current plans,” said spokeswoman Vicki Day.

And this week, Santa Clara County brought back many of its 22,000 employees who were still working from home.

“We prepared ourselves by having the vaccination status of each employee determined,” said District Chairman Dr. Jeff Smith.

Smith said over 90% of the county workers are vaccinated and all
must be masked in all public areas of the district buildings.

But many public and private company employees are in no hurry to get back to the office. They hope to be able to permanently extend work from home for at least a few days a week.

“Your productivity has increased significantly,” said Zeb Feldman, a CEMA Union official who represents 2,000 people in the county.

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“You have been able to work from home successfully and we would like to push employers like the county in that direction,” Feldman said.

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San Francisco restaurants hoping to expand their indoor dining service over the next month will have to postpone those plans after Mayor London Breed announced on Friday that it would temporarily stop expanding some activities.

For restaurants, this means dining indoors will continue at 25% capacity instead of the planned 50% capacity, which San Francisco’s reopening schedule says is expected to begin on November 3rd.

“During our response to COVID-19, San Francisco has demonstrated our willingness to make difficult decisions and to reopen carefully and deliberately. Given what we see in our numbers here, as well as across the country and around the world, we want to make sure we continue our cautious and deliberate approach. So we decided to take a break before moving on to another reopening. “Mayor Breed said in a statement.

The precautionary measure comes because COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations have increased from 3.14 cases per 100,000 to 4.17 cases per 100,000 in the past two weeks in San Francisco. San Francisco recently had 21 COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to a statement from the mayor’s office, but “that number has increased again to 37 people.”

“That’s an increase of 25%,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, SF Health Director, on Friday during the announcement.

San Francisco restaurants began indoor dining service late last month after the city shifted from the more restrictive red to the orange layer in California’s color-coded reopening guide. Since then, Wayfare Tavern, Spruce and many other restaurants have added indoor service. Tadich Grill recently announced that it would reopen on November 9th after months of closure, but Mike Buich expressed his frustration after learning of the announcement from Mayor Breed.

“We try to be optimistic, but it becomes increasingly difficult not to be disappointed and frustrated when we decide to cut the 50 percent indoor dining capacity just days before announcing it is allowed,” said Buich to SFGATE by email. “Not only does it require the financial resources to try to reopen a business after more than seven months of closure, it also takes operational planning. And the combination of those two things is harder to activate than just being on the go.” Button when we finally get the green light. “

Laurie Thomas, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, said in a statement that while it was disappointing to learn that restaurants were not 50% busy, she understood the need to take a break to “get cases and hospital stays under control hold . ”

“This is not the news we were hoping for, but we are grateful that the indoor dining continues at 25% capacity, as is the outdoor dining, all of which are in line with our SF Department of Public Health guidelines “said Thomas. “We appreciate the hard work of the mayor, the Department of Health and our community to keep our city from being exposed to the waves and reopening traces that we are witnessing in many parts of the country and internationally.”

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SACRAMENTO (AP) – Critical care nurse Meynard Villa was on the verge of losing his family’s $ 150,000 investment in his new retirement home because he could not hire workers while grappling with a flawed government system designed to automate verification of the criminal background.

The California Department of Social Affairs’ new portal is designed to help home and community care providers, foster families, and even nannies and babysitters who apply for approval under the state background check system.

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But only 38% of the nearly 60,000 licensed facilities in California have used the Guardian tool since it went live in January, while the rest find workarounds or remain frustrated. The department had promised that the $ 788,650 portal “will ensure background checks are done faster and more efficiently while making the process easier for applicants and agencies.”

Villa said he lost two clients for his six-bed home in the city of Arcadia, Los Angeles because he couldn’t hire the staff to look after them.

“This problem is really annoying and really disappointing because you are trying to start a business, create jobs and help people at the same time,” said Villa.

The self-service tool is designed to enable employers and employees to enter the identification information of potential employees in order to conduct background checks on crime and child abuse databases. Request exceptions for minor or obsolete issues that shouldn’t preclude their from being discontinued; and add or remove employees associated with their agency.

Instead, frustrated employers said they couldn’t sign up, couldn’t get answers through the Guardian as to why the portal wasn’t working, and couldn’t get help from equally stunned government officials. Employees were able to perform separate fingerprint checks, but these could not be linked to the correct employee files.

“When I try to hire someone, I can’t verify that they’re on the system or not,” said Ara Postaldjian, who owns the Redell Pines nursing home in Monrovia, northeast Los Angeles.

He wasn’t able to hire six people until late March because he couldn’t do their background checks through Guardian.

He checked two others the old way, calling the Department of Social Services and reading out their names and Social Security numbers – the kind of practical process the Guardian was supposed to replace. Government officials were able to log into a database to delete these two employees but were unable to give him definitive answers as to whether the other six could be safely hired.

Navigating Guardian is almost a full-time job for a recruiter at the home care provider. Instead, said HR manager Vera Davidson, who works in Pasadena for the Omaha, Nebraska-based national provider.

The Guardian’s communications are “little to nothing,” and government officials are also at a loss, she said. “So if we get an answer to one of our questions, we took care of it ourselves months ago.”

However, turnaround time for completing background checks has dropped from weeks to days, largely due to “things we figured out for ourselves,” Davidson said.

Scott Murray, spokesman for the Department of Social Services, said in a statement that the new portal will quickly process and delete most applications received, while the agency “is actively working with our provider to resolve some early technical issues … so that all applications are in a period can be edited on time. “

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The California Assisted Living Association has improved Guardian since January, said President and CEO Sally Michael.

“Our experience is that problems brought to their attention are resolved in a timely manner,” she said.

That wasn’t Villa’s experience. It took weeks for a senator’s staff to gain access to the portal.

“After investing more than $ 150,000 of my family’s hard-earned money in my business, we run the risk of going bankrupt without ever caring for a resident, solely due to the high level of incompetence and red tape.” , Villa wrote to local, state and federal officials in February.

Desperate, Villa turned to his district director, congresswoman and senator Susan Rubio. Four weeks after contacting Rubio’s office, he received a call from the department and was able to log into the Guardian in mid-March. But he said he still had delays.

It is the latest in a pattern of troubled government IT systems in recent years. During the pandemic, the California Unemployment Service’s database was overwhelmed and there was a data error that overloaded nearly 300,000 coronavirus records and cost the state’s top health authority their jobs last summer.

The auditor said in January that the nearly $ 1 billion, 16-year financial information system project for California missed four consecutive deadlines to standardize the state’s accounting systems amid rising costs.

Democratic MP David Chiu suggests centralizing IT projects under the California Department of Technology to address what he calls “disjointed, duplicate” websites and reporting systems that have “resulted in many confusing and stressful user experiences.”

Applicants can still submit fingerprints separately from the Guardian portal, said Murray, spokesman for the Department of Social Services. Villa said he was never told that.

A naturalized American citizen, Villa came to the United States from the Philippines as a teenager. He said he worked in several nursing homes to graduate from college. In 2013, he graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

He spent the pandemic in coronavirus intensive care at the University of Southern California’s Keck Hospital. But what kept him up at night was the impending collapse of his business, which received his state license in early January.

“It took me seven months to license my only house – seven months. You are bleeding money, you have a day job as a nurse and you have been bleeding money for seven months, ”he said. “And when you finally get a license, you can’t hire staff because there’s no way to check them in the background.”

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