San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
California provides $36 million for low-income housing project
A contentious, low-income family housing development in the Sunset District landed $36.3 million in state money on Friday — the most of any in California in a new round of funding — even as neighbors continue to fight the affordable project.
The funding from the California Department of Housing and Community Development will help pay for the 90-unit development at 2550 Irving St., for which the Tenderloin Neighborhood Housing Development Corp. is hoping to break ground on late this year.
“San Francisco is embracing the work we need to do to dramatically expand housing in this city, including affordable housing,” said Mayor London Breed.
But the news comes on the heels of a four-hour hearing Wednesday night at the Board of Appeals, where attorneys for the Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association made the case that in approving a demolition permit for the project, city and state regulators had ignored evidence of toxins on the property. The demolition would remove the San Francisco Police Credit Union building currently on the property.
At the hearing, attorney Enoch Wong, who represents the neighbors, said the California Department of Toxic Substances Control had failed to investigate the toxic contamination from a dry cleaner that was located on the north side of the development site decades ago. Wong said, “there is an absence of testing” in the demolition plans.
“We are asking them to collect soil samples at certain, specific locations during the demolition process,” he said. “It’s critical to do it during demolition. If you wait you are going to destroy the evidence. Just collect the soil. Ship it out and test it.”
The fight comes a week after the state approved San Francisco’s housing element, which requires the city to build 82,000 units over the next eight years, of which 46,000 units must be affordable for low- and moderate-income residents. The housing element is focused on west side neighborhoods like the Sunset District, which have produced virtually no affordable housing in recent decades.
While the Board of Appeals continued the neighbors’ appeal to the next meeting, Mayor London Breed criticized the delay.
“This obstructionism is unacceptable,” Breed said on Twitter. “This project must move forward and we need to reform our laws so we can build the homes we badly need.”
Earlier this week, the mayor announced her Housing for All Plan, a strategy to meet the stateimposed housing goals by rezoning parts of the city, lowering fees and removing other obstacles to development, including red tape and an approval process that allows neighbors to delay and often kill housing projects.