Federal agency OKs preferences at senior complex

In what San Francisco officials are calling a victory in the fight to retain working-class families in a rapidly gentrifying city, the federal government ruled Wednesday that it will allow the city to apply an “anti-displacement preference” to the new Willie B. Kennedy senior apartment complex in the Western Addition.

While the Department of Housing and Urban Development is still rejecting the city’s “neighborhood preference” legislation, which it says violates the 1968 Fair Housing Act, the ruling will allow 40 percent of the 98 units in Willie B Kennedy to be prioritized for residents who live in low-income neighborhoods undergoing displacement and experiencing advanced gentrification, as defined by a research analysis conducted by UC Berkeley.

That includes census tracts in the Western Addition, Bayview, Russian Hill, Mission and South of Market neighborhoods.

The ruling comes six weeks after HUD said that the city neighborhood preference law, which passed this year, violated the Fair Housing Act. The legislation set aside 40 percent of units in subsidized developments for residents already living in the supervisor district or within a half mile of the project. The city appealed that ruling and then sent a delegation to Washington to meet with HUD officials to discuss alternative local preferences that might be legal.

More than 6,000 people have applied for the Willie B. Kennedy complex, which was developed by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. Originally a lottery to choose residents was scheduled for Wednesday, but the city delayed it because it was expecting to hear from HUD about the preference.

Mayor Ed Lee, who sent his top housing officials to Washington to lobby HUD, said the ruling represented “important progress in our efforts to halt the displacement of residents at greatest risk of being forced out of the city they know and love.”

“This will thwart the outmigration of African American and Latino communities who have been deeply impacted by the challenging housing market,” he said.

He called Willie B. Kennedy “a lifeline for many seniors in the Western Addition who were hoping to remain in the neighborhood.”

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had lobbied HUD Secretary Julian Castro to allow the neighborhood preference, said “Secretary Castro deserves praise for achieving a solution that ensures San Francisco residents at the highest risk of displacement due to gentrification have priority in newly developed affordable housing.”

Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who grew up in public housing across the street from the Willie B. Kennedy development, called the decision “a monumental victory for everyone who — like me — is struggling to stay in San Francisco.”

“It wasn’t easy, but this was never about doing what was easy,” she said. “It was about doing what is right. It was about fighting for a community that’s been there for me since I was a young girl in public housing.”