City Insider: 130 affordable housing units result of land transfer between SF agencies
A proposed property transfer between San Francisco agencies that could yield up to 130 new affordable housing units was approved Wednesday by the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee.
The roughly 30,750square-foot property at the corner of Geneva and San Jose avenues — known as the Upper Yard — is being used by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency as an employee parking lot.
The MTA’s Board of Directors passed a resolution supporting the sale of the lot in 2012. Two years later, the agency struck an agreement to sell it to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, which has long sought to develop the site for 100 percent affordable housing.
As part of the agreement, the SFMTA would sell the parcel to the mayor’s housing office for $6.15 million. As a so-called enterprise agency, the SFMTA — like the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — is allowed to buy and sell its own properties. Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would cover $2.5 million worth of transfer costs. The remaining $3.65 million would come from the city’s affordable housing fund.
Along with housing, city officials envision creating child care amenities and retail on the ground floor of the project. The full Board of Supervisors will vote on the sale next week. Kate Hartley, director of the mayor’s office of housing, said construction could begin as early as the first quarter of 2020.
“We’re super excited to have this development move forward,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who represents District 11, where the lot is located. Safaí introduced the resolution to induce the sale.
“There’s a significant need for affordable housing for families,” he said. “And this is transit-oriented housing — it’s across the street from the Balboa Park BART Station.”
Developing the windswept lot into housing will cost an estimated $96 million. To pay for it, Hartley said the city would contribute around $35 million, with the remainder coming from low-income housing tax credits, taxexempt bond debt and additional state credits that the developers, Related California and the Mission Housing Development Coalition, can apply for.
“This is a really important project,” Hartley said. “We’re going to be bringing affordable housing to a district that is definitely in need and is not one of those neighborhoods where we build all the time.”
— Dominic Fracassa