Bay Area Reporter - December 13, 2007
Heather Cassell, h.cassell@ebar.com

A coalition of more than 10 affordable housing advocates, mostly from the Castro and Hayes Valley neighborhoods, along with elected officials, called attention to the issue at a December 6 news conference in City Hall.

The press conference was held right before the Planning Commission's hearing on the proposed development plan for the nearly six-acre parcel of land, owned by UC Berkeley, that has been closed to the public since 2003.

At the meeting, commissioners seemed skeptical of UC Berkeley's sudden "fast tracking" of the project. Commissioner Kathrin Moore said, "I feel very unnerved by the whole process of this project. I think that there has been additional pressure that I felt put on me by certain interests" and described a process of "going through hoops" and "going outside of the realm" of the typical process in order to approve the project by December 20. The timing bothered her because there wouldn't be the usual 20-day courtesy notice to the public when projects are certified.

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who has been a key broker between developer AF Evans, the university, and the city, said the proposed affordability, while within San Francisco's inclusionary zoning ordinance, is "woefully lacking and quite frankly, it's embarrassing."

Mirkarimi's goal was to spotlight the need for an increased percentage of affordable units as well as a "depth of affordability" in the development of the publicly zoned land.

"This city has been very good to the University of California," said Mirkarimi, who said the 55 Laguna project is a perfect project to "make the imprint that would be satisfied" and is "long overdue."

"This city ... we all know this is extremely starved for affordable housing," Mirkarimi added. "Let's not make any mistakes about the affordability for this kind of project."

"The questions are all good," said Ruthy Bennett, vice president of AF Evans. "We are interested in affordable housing, we are doing as much as we can to make the site have a high percentage of affordability, [but] as one of the commissioners said, it has to be financially feasible."

According to Mirkarimi, the current plan still calls for 15 percent of the units to be affordable in compliance with San Francisco's inclusionary zoning ordinance.

"We've actually been very open-minded," said Mirkarimi about the project, which he said has been progressing steadily, "and trying to usher it, but now it's gotten to the point where final decisions are about ready to be made. Those final decisions need to include this piece that is so stark that it's been absent in the discussion."

The planning commission is meeting today (Thursday, December 13) to consider rezoning 55 Laguna from public use to private use. A final decision on the plan is scheduled for December 20, but if activists and others prevail, approval of the project could be put off until 2008.

AF Evans' plan calls for intergenerational housing, open space, and community services. Openhouse, the LGBT senior housing organization, has joined with AF Evans. The proposal includes 80 to 85 units for LGBT-friendly seniors out of the 455 units planned for the entire complex. Of those units for LGBT seniors, about 13-15 would be low-income.

But housing advocates ask for who would the units be affordable? Currently, the threshold for affordability is being calculated by the area median income. The problem with the formula, according to Tommi Avicolli Mecca, director of counseling programs of Housing Rights Committee, is that San Francisco is lumped in with Marin and San Mateo counties. That skews the outcome of the formula. Currently, 50 percent of the AMI translates into $38,000 annually for an individual to qualify as low-income. People living with AIDS, for example, earn an estimated $9,480 a year on government assistance, according to Brian Basinger, executive director of the AIDS Housing Alliance.

The project has been in the works for several years. Bennett said in a letter to the planning commission that the estimated cost for the entire project is more than $170 million.

Housing advocates and some elected officials believe that the 55 Laguna project is a "unique" opportunity that can set an example for San Francisco and other cities.

"This project is going to impact gentrification of the Castro," said Avicolli Mecca. "I m afraid that it's going to set a precedent for all of the projects up Market Street."

Basinger agreed. "This is something that is going to be around well over 100 years. We can invest a little bit more time ... why not invest the time on the front end to make sure that we get it right?"

State Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) requested UC Berkeley to extend its project approval deadline by 30 days to allow time to "get a superior project for our queer seniors and our low-income tenants."

"There's a lack of creativity," said Basinger. "There's an opportunity for a Special Projects of National Significance grant. The senior population is the fastest growing segment of the HIV population and so I think that that is perhaps a really good opportunity to look at a [Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS funds] and the SPNS grant to layer in some federal [Housing and Urban Development] dollars to help bring down some of the affordability of these units."

"We are working with the city on that now," said Bennett about affordability issues. "I can't comment on it at the moment, [but] it is something the city wants to talk about and we are doing that."

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