Coop OKs huge redevelopment in Fillmore district
For decades, residents of the Freedom West housing cooperative in San Francisco’s Fillmore District have watched the new city rise up around them.
The torch atop City Hall’s dome, visible from the upper floors of the dilapidated housing project, was restored with 24karat gold leaf. The elevated freeway came down above Octavia Boulevard, and up sprang $ 2 million condos, yoga studios, French bistros and stores selling $ 400 shoes. A few blocks south, tech companies like Twitter, Dolby and Square moved in.
Yet through it all, the poorly constructed beige and brown apartments and townhomes that make up the 1973 vintage 382home Freedom West — which straddles both sides of McAllister Street between Gough and Laguna streets — have sunk into further disrepair. Pipes leaked. Tree roots pushed up through bathroom floors. Boilers were frequently on the fritz. The threestory walkup buildings became hazardous for elderly residents.
But now the coop residents have approved a redevelopment plan that would bring the housing development into the 21st century and dwarf anything built in San Francisco’s central neighborhoods in terms of size and investment.
This week coop shareholders voted to advance a plan from developer MacFarlane Partners and Avanath Capital Management to redevelop the fourblock complex built in the wake of the city’s destructive “urban renewal” effort. The $ 2 billion proposal, which will require city approvals, would replace the existing housing and add 133 affordable units and up to 2,000 marketrate units.
The contrast between the conditions of the largely African American coop and the luxury buildings that have surrounded it has been jarring for years, according to Darryl Stitt, a retired draftsman who worked for the city.
“I’m walking over to Hayes Valley and seeing all these other folks in their milliondollar places, these wonderful livable spaces like you see on TV? With their gyms and dogwalks and rooftop gardening? How come we can’t have that?” said Stitt. “Those are new people. We’ve been here the whole time.”
Most of Stitt’s neighbors agreed. The vote for the plan was 139 in favor of the project and 66 opposed.
The existing 382 homes, which are in need of repairs, would be replaced with eightstory modern buildings for current residents at no additional cost. They now pay around $ 1,000 per month. Revenue from the new project will help cover existing debt payments.
At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has put racial inequality in the spotlight, the development could strengthen San Francisco’s African American community, which has seen its population fall from about 13% in 1970 to about 5%
“These are the last remnants of the African American community.” Victor MacFarlane, CEO of MacFarlane Partners, on plans for the Fillmore area
today, residents said.
“We wanted to revitalize our community,” said Mattie Scott, president of the Freedom West board of directors. “We did not want to be uprooted and pushed out.”
Unlike other megaprojects, such as Parkmerced, the San Francisco Shipyard and Treasure Island, which are on the outskirts of the city, Freedom West would be in its heart, just three blocks from City Hall.
Anne Taupier, director of development for Mayor London Breed, said “they are taking the right steps.”
“We have encouraged them to do as much outreach as possible and get input from as broad a spectrum of residents as possible,” she said. “We support the Freedom West Homes’ goals of economic sustainability and revitalized housing.”
Freedom West coop owners would also have a 15% profit share in the new marketrate units, which include new buildings rising 12 and 18 stories. The developer plans to seek tax credits and public funding to build the affordable housing units.
“It’s an equitable development. It is communityled,” said Victor MacFarlane, CEO of MacFarlane Partners, one of the largest Blackowned real estate companies in the country. “These are the last remnants of the African American community.”
MacFarlane, who also built the Venn on Market apartments in San Francisco, hopes to win approval in two years and complete construction of the affordable housing in the three years after that, with the entire project finished in less than a decade.
The project would include 20,000 square feet of retail space and an innovation center that would offer job training and small business assistance.
The Rev. J. Austell Hall, pastor of the adjacent Bethel AME Church, established Freedom West with government funding to provide stable housing in an area convulsed by urban renewal starting in the 1950s. The city’s Redevelopment Agency closed 883 businesses, and nearly 5,000 families moved out in an effort to wipe out blight. Critics say the city didn’t create adequate replacement housing.
“Urban renewal completely decimated the Fillmore community,” said Landon Taylor, cofounder of Legacy First Partners and an adviser to the coop. Taylor also lived in Freedom West as a child.
“Unlike the tragedy that happened with redevelopment where the residents were not involved, we need to get the residents involved,” he said.
The neighborhood’s challenges continue today, and attempts at revitalization have been uneven.
The Fillmore Heritage Center, built in 2007 to bring jazz and blues back to the neighborhood, struggled for years and finally closed last year after a shooting outside the event venue.
At Freedom West, about 60% of residents are seniors, and half of the families have been there since the 1970s. Chancellor Ryu, who moved into Freedom West 15 years ago, called the plan “an opportunity for a lot of immigrants.” While African Americans account for more than 50% of the households at Freedom West, Koreans make up about 30%, and there are also immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia.
Ryu said the project would set an example for San Francisco that he predicted will be copied in other cities. He said all the surface parking lots are a poor use of scarce land.
“We are occupying four whole blocks,” he said. “Look at us? All these useless parking lots.”
Currently, 51 units are vacant and need upgrades to be occupied again. “We got all these people looking for housing, and 51 units are sitting there with nobody living in them?” said Scott. “That’s absurd.”
Deborah Jones, retired from the California State Auto Association, has been living at Freedom West since 1975. She said she is tired of leaks and hearing hissing pipes.
Still, the project faces hurdles. City reviews can take years, and other major projects have seen additional construction delays. Apartment rents have plummeted by 20% or more during the last year amid the pandemic.
“I still have a longterm belief in San Francisco,” MacFarlane said.
While most of the new noncoop housing is slated to be market rate, there will be opportunities for more affordable units as well, Scott said. All of the replacement units will be more spacious than the current apartments.
“Where can a family find a threebedroom house in San Francisco?
It’s impossible. You gotta be making six figures to pay that kind of rent,” said Scott, who runs an antiviolence nonprofit. “A lot of us were young when we moved in here, but we’re seniors now. We are tired of BandAids. We want quality.
We deserve the best.”