Projects
Time to Testify; Sunshine Ordinance Task Force
Ballot measure E: Requirements for Public Meetings
Sue the Suburbs (Lafayette)
315 Apartments
City leaders here have agreed to consider a plan to place 44 or 45 single-family homes on a Lafayette hillside instead of a 315 moderate-income apartment development known as the Terraces of Lafayette.
Agent Based Model of the Housing Market
CfA Presentation of the Model
Written explanation of the Model
Video explanation of the Model
Units in Limbo Map
Units in Limbo Spreadsheet
37,000 (as of Q3 2014) units have their entitlements, but they don't have their building permits. Why? Are they waiting in line at DBI? Are they still going through EIR lawsuits? Is the land being sold?
Bring Sierra Club Back to its Mission
The SF Bay Area Sierra Club chapter has gone rogue. Here is their official position on transportation & compact growth:
As population grows, rising housing costs push lower-income residents out into the suburbs, creating sprawl that puts pressure on our open spaces and wildlife and increases car time. We can fight that trend by building compact communities that are walkable, bikeable, and served by a robust public transit system.However,
In April, the Bay Chapter’s San Francisco Group unanimously adopted a resolution opposing height-limit increases for the 75 Howard and 160 Folsom luxury tower projects and encouraging the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors to reject them. - The YodelerIt's time to get our local chapter back on mission. If you're already a member, come with us to the Group Conservation Committee meeting on Tuesday August 18th, 6 - 8 pm at Club Headquarters, 85 Second St. (near Market). FB event page.
If you're not a member, Join the Sierra Club, send me your transaction number so I know you joined. You will use this # to vote for board members who won't oppose urban infill.
Housing PRODUCTION Monitoring
A symmetrical process in response to Jane Kim's April 21 Housing Balance Monitoring legislation. Housing Balance monitoring was prompted by Prop K, which articulates 2 policy goals:
(1) build 30,000 units/ year by 2020 (equivalent to 5,000 units/ year)
(2) 30% of these should be deed restricted affordable units to < 55% median income workers, 50% should be deed restricted affordable for < 120% median income workers.
The housing balance legislation monitors progress on the 2nd policy goal. Which is fine. But SF citizens deserve a similar process to monitor progress towards the implied goal of 5000 units per year. SF did not get to its goal of 5000 last year - We need a hearing and a bi-annual report examining the laws, policies, procedures that are getting in the way of building 5000 units per year.
The point of both of these hearings/ reports/ data collection processes is to justify law changes. For Jane Kim, she wants to find, next spring, that SF has NOT reached it's 30% goal and therefore, should require a Conditional Use Permit for any new market rate housing unit that will cause the ratio of new MR to new Subsidized to go above 70:30.
If SF does NOT reach its implied goal of 5000/ units per year and therefore, should relax height and density restrictions, or, therefore, should hire more planners or building inspectors or, therefore ... ?? Something else. Thus the questions: What are the law changes that we most need to get housing production going? What kinds of data would support those law changes?
IRL Events Archive, past and ongoing projects
No on Prop C June 2016
Click here for more:
November 2015 election endorsements. We scored 6/9, barely passing.
110 units for < 55% AMI at Seawall lot 322-1, Broadway and Front Street.
Land and financing procured. All ready to go, except ...In the letter sent to the Port and the Mayor’s housing office, the BCNA, the Telegraph Hills Dwellers and the SoTel Neighbors outlined the many concerns they have with the proposed project. They included:
1. Review the type of residents with the goal of housing people with moderate income....
Update: Project is going forward
75 Howard and 168-186 Eddy St.
There's already a wall on the waterfront. We're losing 103 subsidized units for who's view?
Should the SF Democratic Party endorse the Moratorium? NO.
May 27, 7:00 pm (arriving at 8pm is fine) - 10:00pm, about
455 Golden Gate Avenue
Here is the agenda
Success - DCCC did not endorse 13-10
Politics: SF has 800,000 + people. Perhaps you thought, as I used to, that means you have to get tens of thousands of people to agree with you to make an impact. That is False. As it turns out, the number of people who care about local politics, or pay attention to what is happening in it is Much Much fewer than 800,000. It's maybe 2,000 people all in all, and as few as 400 actually influential people. That it plenty small enough that personal lobbying makes a difference. SO, Wednesday evening, come lobby the DCCC personally.
"Why bother, the DCCC isn't a law making body. They are to government as HPMOR is to Harry Potter, right?" WRONG - politics is all about everyone trying to figure out what everyone else thinks. Being successful in politics requires maintaining a mysterious and ethereal quality called legitimacy. How does one maintain such a thing? By looking around all the time - 'what do you think, what do you think, what do you think?' Initiatives and individuals seek approval and support from individuals and groups. Here, the moratorium is looking for endorsement from a club of politicos and interested citizens. It will be a blow if the Democratic party declines to endorse it, and a coup if they do endorse it.
If you want the moratorium to fail, here and at the Board of Supervisors, come to this meeting May 27th, and bring a friend.
This is plenty late in the evening for all of you peninsula workers to be able to make it up from the Caltrain.
27 units, 600 S Van Ness
May 21, 2:30 pm - 5:00pm, about
Planning Commission, SF City Hall, Room 400
Hearing starts at 1 hour 50 minutes
Success! Approved! 7-0
27 units in the mission. This is part of the moratorium campaign. Same way we saw people just outside the area covered by the corona heights legislation, (and hoping to soon get it) argue that their neighborhood projects should be stopped, the mission nimbys are going to argue that the moratorium might happen soon so this should be stopped.
I know these kinds of things seem discouraging, because there might be only like 4 of us but 20 or more of them, but the planners WANT to say yes. They are sitting up there waiting for ANY excuse. Even a small number of us gives them that excuse. Plus, they know we're not professionals at rabble rousing. They know we have jobs, so for every one of us they see, there are 15 more plugging along in an office in soma or on the peninsula.
Foster City: Hearing on upzoning a lot from 17 units to 70 units
Monday May 18, realistically, 7:30 pm – ???
Foster City Council Chambers, 620 Foster City Boulevard, Foster City
Sares Regis Group is developing Phase C of the Pilgrim Triton Master Plan, which would replace the existing 172,943 sf of commercial uses/17 residential homes with 65 to 70 for-sale townhomes. Foster City City Council is scheduled to hear the proposal the evening of May 18. In the meantime, there is opposition who are also calling for a moratorium similar to those that were proposed in Walnut Creek and Emeryville. Monitoring.