Building a case for Divisadero housing
Developer seeking OK for project with affordable units
The recent transformation of Divisadero Street has brought new restaurants and nightlife venues to the corridor. Bi-Rite ice cream cones, Boba Guys milk tea, Brenda’s award-winning shrimp and grits, and pinball games at Emporium SF have landed over the past few years.
What the transformation hasn't brought is more housing.
On Thursday, developer David Kriozere of Genesis Realty Advisors hopes to change that with the approval of the biggest development the neighborhood has ever seen. Kriozere wants to replace a car wash and gas station on the corner of Oak and Divisadero streets with 186 units. The apartments, the developer says, will tie together two of the area’s prime commercial corridors, Lower Haight Street and Divisadero.
The project has dragged on for four years, in part because of a rezoning of Divisadero and Fillmore streets that allowed for increased height and density, but this is the first big project to come out of that effort. Supervisor Vallie Brown later increased the amount of affordable housing required by the plan.
During that time, Kriozere has been busy building community support. The project has been endorsed by the following neighborhood associations: Lower Haight Merchants, the North of Panhandle, the Alamo Square and Haight-Ashbury. While it is not uncommon for developers to engage in extensive public outreach to win over residents, Kriozere may have set a record. He says he participated in 1,000 meetings over the past four years.
“The project gives us more retail, less traffic, fewer cars, less grime and grit.” Rob Patterson, who owns Black Sands Brewery in the Lower Haight
“It was sometimes painful, but you have to get out of your office and into the community to expose yourself to what the public has to say,” he said.
Along the way, in addition to raising the percentage of affordable units from 12% to 20%, Kriozere redesigned the project at least three times. He made the apartments smaller to squeeze more into the site. He moved the main entrance from the corner to mid-block on Oak Street because merchants argued that the retail corridor would be better served by having a store or cafe on the corner. He also agreed to include permanently affordable replacement units for tenants of three apartments who will be displaced because of the development.
The project has not won over everyone, however. The group Affordable Divisadero, led by Board of Supervisors candidate Dean Preston — who is running against Brown in the November election — still opposes it on the grounds that it does not include enough affordable housing units.
In a letter to the Planning Commission, Preston pushed to increase the affordable level to at least 33% and require the developer to pay attentional transit impact fees and use union labor.
“Our view continues to be that it’s a good site for housing, and that it’s good to replace a gas station with housing,” said Preston. “But it’s a missed opportunity to get more affordable units from the developer.”
The majority of the affordable units will target people making 55% of area median income, or $46,500 for a single person. Some of the units will target households making 80% and 110%, which comes to $66,300 and $91,600 per household.
Supervisor Brown said that she can’t take a position on the development because it could end up appealed to the Board of Supervisors. But she said that it enjoys widespread support and that she worked hard to increase the number of affordable units.
“The consensus in the neighborhood had been that people wanted more affordable units and rental apartments as opposed to condos,” said Brown.
Kriozere said that requiring more than 20% affordable units would kill the project.
“While it is a steep increase from 12 percent to 20 percent because of some unique factors on Divisadero Street, we think it’s feasible,” he said. “It’s a big lift, but we are up to the challenge.”
He also said that he has had “very productive conversations with labor unions” and would be “working with them once the project is (approved).”
Over the past decade, Divisadero has rivaled Valencia Street as one of the city’s most successful retail and restaurant stories. First came a $6.5 million reimagined streetscape — new trees and streetlights and wider medians — followed by dozens of new eateries and retailers. Then came a new Bi-Rite grocery store, Emporium SF — a night club with games — as well as the trendy soul food spot Brenda’s Meat & Three, the Italian restaurant Che Fico and drinking establishments including Horsefeather and Mini Bar.
The explosion of new business, much of it upscale, has been challenging for longtime residents of what was once primarily an African American neighborhood, according to Hudari “Coach” Murray, who grew up in the neighborhood and owns the Newbills Barber Shop. Murray said Kriozere has been uniquely interested in “bridging the gap between the people born and raised here and the people who moved here.”
“You have a lot people moving here who want to forget about those of us who are already here,” said Murray. “David is not like that. He has been the biggest gap bridger I have met in the last 20 years.”
He said replacing a gas station and car wash with housing will “lift people’s spirits.”
“I have lived within eight blocks of here my whole life,” he said. “I run a business on the corridor so I think the development might mean more clients for me. My spot is one of the only places in the Fillmore where the old meets the young, where everybody shakes hands and laughs and shoots the breeze.”
If he wins approval, Kriozere plans to break ground in a year and finish the project in 2022. One other project in the neighborhood, 75 units at 650 Divisadero St., was approved earlier this year.
Rob Patterson, who owns Black Sands Brewery in the Lower Haight, said that 400 Divisadero will draw customers to his part of Haight Street.
“The project gives us more retail, less traffic, fewer cars, less grime and grit, and it connects the two neighborhoods together,” said Patterson. “David has been very good at compromising. He has been listening to us for three years. I wish every developer was like that. It would really save (the) planning (department) a lot of time.”