Breed Resists Building Affordable Homes on Popular SF Site

Housing activists in San Francisco want Mayor London Breed to push for affordable housing on a funky retail spot in Hayes Valley. Not so fast, says the mayor.

Proponents ramped up their campaign for the proposed development of up to 75 affordable apartments on the quarter-acre collection of shipping container shops on Octavia Boulevard, between Hayes and Linden streets, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Residents also defended the popular gathering spot containing eight shops, kiosks, an outdoor gym, cafe and food vendors on the city-owned site for movie nights and concerts across from Patricia’s Green park.

The site known as Parcel K is one of seven created after the removal of the Central Freeway following damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In 2000, San Francisco set the parcels aside for affordable housing.

When the money didn’t come through, the city allowed architect Douglas Burnham of Envelope to create Proxy, a “temporary open space” for “flexible urbanism” on the asphalt-and-gravel lot. The installation has become a popular “town square” for Hayes Valley residents, while Supervisor Dean Preston has targeted the land for affordable homes.

Advocates and supporters turned in a petition with 1,600 signatures to Breed’s office urging her to commit to building there.

“Hayes Valley for All understands that a promise is a promise,” Robin Levitt, leader of the group, told the newspaper. “When the state is demanding that we build 82,000 units of housing, 47,000 of which must be affordable, in less than seven years, I find it hard to believe that officials would block housing development.”

Despite a state mandate that the city build 46,600 affordable homes by 2031, Breed’s administration said it doesn’t plan to build in the trendy Hayes Valley spot, despite past promises to do so.

Breed won’t prioritize developing homes on Parcel K for the next three to five years, according to Anne Stanley, spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

Stanley said in a statement that the city has already built affordable housing nearby. She also said Parcel K is “not located in a high resource neighborhood,” and the footprint of the site will make construction expensive. A high resource area is one associated with positive economic, educational and health outcomes for low-income families, the mayor’s office on housing said.

A year ago, the mayor’s office told Preston’s office in an email that delays in building were partly because of “a concern that a nonprofit developer would be walking into a hornet’s nest” of neighborhood opposition.

Preston, a frequent Breed critic, lambasted the delays. Both he and the mayor face re-election campaigns in November.

“It’s not just about Parcel K when you promise affordable housing on a site as part of land-use planning, you damn well better deliver it,” Preston told the Chronicle. “It has been over a year of delay, and that’s just the latest chapter of a decade of delay. It has just got to end.”

— Dana Bartholomew