San Francisco’s only DMV could relocate for housing project

The California Department of Motor Vehicles has indicated that it is open to negotiating a “land swap” to make room for affordable housing at its current San Francisco location, according to District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents the panhandle neighborhood where the DMV has had its field office for more than 60 years.

“This is the perfect opportunity site for affordable housing,” Preston said of the 2.5-acre lot, which is currently predominately used for parking and is located near transit, services and one of the city’s most-trafficked bike paths.

Preston made his comments at a Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting on Monday, where he, Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Supervisor Aaron Peskin unanimously approved a resolution to support affordable housing at the state-owned block-long site at 1377 Fell Street, with Melgar and Preston signing on as co-sponsors along with Preston and Supervisor Shamann Walton.

Stay or go?

In November, Preston sponsored a resolution urging the DMV to consider adding affordable housing to its plans to rebuild the 63-year-old building, which is its only field office in San Francisco. He then joined with State Assembly Member Phil Ting to work with the state and in early January the DMV initiated a 30-day request for information from affordable housing developers to bring plans for the site.

At the committee meeting, Preston revealed that the state is open to a land swap to allow more affordable housing to be built on the site. If the DMV remains on the premises, Planning Director Rich Hillis said at the meeting that he estimates about 200 units of affordable housing could be built. But if the DMV relocates, he estimated a developer could build about 350 units. The number is much higher in part because the DMV requires maintaining the 110 parking spots that it currently has. Also, the developer would need to rebuild the DMV offices, which would add to development costs.

Whether or not the office moves is “ultimately the state’s call,” Preston said. He added there could be an extension on the RFI, but that his office has reached out to affordable housing developers to let them know that, as of now, there is only a 30-day window for proposals.

The DMV has been open to adding housing to its two-story field office since at least 2008, when the state selected Build Inc. to develop a mixed-use project with apartments, retail and a new office for the DMV. That project fell through and until Preston stepped in the state had planned to simply knock down and rebuild its existing office, which has seismic and structural deficiencies.

The 2008 mixed-use plan made sense, Preston said at the meeting, but with an affordable housing component and the possible move of the DMV offices altogether, “it’s an even better idea now.”

Landbanking

The DMV vote comes as the city is on the verge of a last-minute approval of its Housing Element, which calls for a state-mandated 82,000 new units in the next eight years, with 46,000 of those affordable to low- and moderate-income households. Preston, who recently accused the mayor’s office of refusing to release city funds to buy a blighted car wash site a few blocks from the DMV to turn it into affordable housing, said he did not see how the city would meet those goals in a separate vote to approve the element and send it on to the full board for approval.

Preston repeatedly questioned the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development Director Eric Shaw about his agency’s “strategic plan” for spending hundreds of millions in Prop I funding for affordable housing. He said the money was being blocked due to “political games and retributions coming out of Room 200” and that now is the time to be landbanking as market-rate developers are on a “capital strike.”

“We are losing deals,” he said. ”We are losing sites. It is not just a disconnect, it is offensive.”

Shaw said the city will have its Notice of Funding Availability for the Prop I funds, created when voters approved a doubling of the transfer tax for properties over $10 million in 2020, ready “soon,” though he could not give an exact date and said that the city has been concentrating on buying properties where it is ready to build as opposed to land banking for an undetermined future project.

“If we get land, we want to build on it,” Shaw said. “Buy and hold has not been the priority. It really has been buy, hold and build as soon as possible.”