Stakeholders Attempt to Balance Diverse Goals in Eastern Neighborhoods
By Alison Fromme, Special to the Neighborhood Newswire, Feb 01, 2006
San Francisco expects to add another almost 80,000 residents over the next two decades, enough new inhabitants to populate a medium-sized town. Many, perhaps most, of these newcomers will be drawn to the City’s eastern neighborhoods—Mission, Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero, and South-of-Market. The anticipated population increase, coupled with emerging land use policy changes, will soon determine the future of these once predominately blue-collar, mixed-use and demographically diverse communities.
 Photo: Jennifer Pickens |
AFFORDABLE HOUSING A PRESSING CONCERN
In a City with the highest housing prices in the country, there’s steady pressure on local officials to create affordable homes. In 2004, the median price of a three bedroom San Francisco house was $730,000—a luxury that a family of four earning upwards of $120,000 would have trouble paying for.
Home ownership is out of reach for most of the Inner Mission’s 50,000 residents. Less than one out of five neighborhood residents own their home. More Inner Mission families live below the state poverty threshold than any other San Francisco neighborhood, with Outer Mission residents only slightly better-off.
The Mission District’s housing stock is steadily changing. Over the last few years more housing demolitions occurred in the District than any other neighborhood. Destruction has lead to renewal—the District ranked third in terms of new units constructed citywide. Many of these new homes, however, were too expensive for locals to afford.
Between 2001 and 2004 just 2,284 affordable housing units were constructed throughout San Francisco. A few, such as Valencia Gardens and Bernal Dwellings, were located in the Mission or adjacent neighborhoods.
However, increasing supplies of affordable housing are expected to be built in the eastern neighborhoods in the coming years, and there will be growing pressure to balance residential with commercial uses. The Mission provides almost 19,000 jobs for the City. More than a third of these are in apparel, manufacturing, construction, utilities, and communications, with retail and restaurants responsible for only one-fifth. Increasing the amount of land designated as residential could put upward pressure on commercial rents, driving-out existing employers.
Preserving and enhancing light-industry jobs, increasing affordable housing supplies, and maintaining the neighborhood’s diversity are all high priorities for existing residents, according to the San Francisco Planning Department. The challenge is how create a balance between these potentially competing goals.
CHANGING LANDSCAPES
As any Californian knows, change is inevitable. The Third Street Light Rail will bring new transit and land use patterns that will ripple throughout the Bay-View-Hunters Point and Potrero neighborhoods, as will the development of Mission Bay and the Hunters Point Shipyard. The question is how best to choose among a variety of futures. To that end several legislative and regulatory efforts are underway to alter San Francisco’s land use decision-making process and outcomes.
One of the most significant policy tools to control development is through “zoning,” which defines how an individual parcel can be developed, whether it’s for high-density housing or industrial uses. An effort to redefine how best to zone the eastern neighborhoods has been underway since 2003. The current proposal includes three options, with varying degrees of change for the Mission, the Central Waterfront, Showplace Square, and Eastern SoMa.
The most conservative option would retain much of the current zoning that allows light industry, such as repair shops, design studios, concrete works, and catering businesses to remain in the area. On the other extreme, more land would be converted to residential uses. The plan would also increase height and size restrictions in many areas.
The Better Neighborhoods Plus legislation is another effort to address concerns that community values be reflected in new developments. Sponsored by Supervisors Jake McGoldrick and Sophie Maxwell, Better Neighborhoods Plus would require community input and consultation with City agencies before large construction projects are approved. The legislation was created with input from more than 30 individuals and groups, including the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, Housing Action Coalition, and San Francisco Urban Planning and Research (see “Neighborhood Planning Improvements Proposed,” www.neighborhoodnewswire.com).
Long-range community planning and evaluation of each neighborhood’s unique role in the City are important, according to City planner Jasper Rubin. Such efforts will help avoid “hotspots for a hodgepodge of development.” Development will bring change, Rubin says, but that change should be guided in ways that will enhance the quality of City living.
For more information, visit the San Francisco Planning Department’s website (http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp) and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s website (http://www.sfgov.org/site/sfra_index.asp).
This is the first of a series of three articles focusing on land use changes in San Francisco’s eastern neighborhoods.
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