Chris Daly sent out a letter to supporters last night letting us know he’s not running (which Tim Redmond has posted). As a blogger, I am obviously disappointed at the lack of a serious mayor’s race to write about. As a progressive (whatever that means), I am unhappy that we were not able to put together a credible candidate As Chris’s friend, though, I am relieved he’s not running. Without much of a record to run on, Newsom’s main strategy would be to tear Chris down. The constant barrage of “Chris Daly is a nut job” ads would be pretty hard to take, especially for those of us who know Chris, and know he’s not, in fact, crazy. Last year’s supervisor race was bad enough, but with millions of dollars to spend, things could get really nasty. So I know people will be disappointed, but I think the decision was probably for the best for Chris, his family, and his friends.
August 10th, 2007 at 9:43 am
For all I know, the inner Chris Daly may be the finest human being in Christendom. But he is his own “Chris Daly is a nut job” ad; the Newsom campaign wouldn’t have to lift a finger or spend a dime to get that message out.
August 10th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Well, I am disappointed that none of the good, level-headed progressives (Peskin, McGoldrich, etc) have chosen to run. Losing a campaign does not taint you as a loser for life (ask Dick Nixon’s ghost if you don’t believe me), and somebody should have stepped forward to at least give the progressive cause a good airing.
As for Daly, he is the progressive’s worst enemy. His boorish, childlike behavior only turns voters against the cause.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Despite the barrage of bad press, Daly is truly a policy wonk and is one of the brightest politicians in City Hall. His dedication and commitment is atypical of most electeds. Some Supervisors can barely make their way to the Board meeting, let alone read even their own legislation prior to the meeting. As you all probably know, most Supervisors rely heavily on their aides to brief them on important issues rather than read or research issues.
It is easy to bash Daly because the Chron has made it easy. I realized that there are times that Daly has left the door open and I wish he always did a good job of leaving the door shut, but he, like most, is human and capable of the same mistakes that you or I would make inside an incredibly frustrating and toxic environment.
All this year, Daly and Peskin were two of my favorites to run. I am sorry they are not getting along well because when they do, they are a powerful team. We are fortunate to have them in City Hall and either of them would be incredible.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:46 am
It’s too bad Daly didn’t run– it certainly would have been an interesting race.
Daly is bright, engaged, and passionate in his involvement in City governance.
About it being “inside an incredibly frustrating and toxic environment”: Perhaps someday, Daly will have the maturity to take responsibility for his contribution to that environment, too. Daly, is in fact one of the most powerful people in the City, as one of just eleven Supervisors, on a Board controlled by a progressive majority. He’s no victim.
Daly is also very young. He has time to mature into a politician who could be mayor.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I think that Chris demonstrated incredible maturity by the choice he made last night.
Instead of just talking opportunistically about how important kids and family are for political purposes, Chris put himself on the line for those principles.
As far as a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors goes:
Progressive majorities don’t allow for unmitigated market rate housing in the Mission.
Progressive majorities don’t allow for the poisoning of poor folks and people of color in Hunters’ Point.
Progressive majorities don’t subvert clean public power for a PG&E fossil fuel bay cable.
There is a progressive wing of the Board that has three members, a conservative wing that has three members and a moderate middle that has five.
More often than not these days, the working majority involves the moderates and conservatives counting to six or greater.
-marc
August 10th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
The labels “progressive,” “moderate,” “conservative” are in the eye of the beholder. In fact, a progressive agenda was successfully led by a progressive Board.
A ubiquitous poster during the last mayoral campaign featured pictures of Bush and Newsom as fellow conservatives, but there is a big difference politically between Bush and Newsom.
Only San Francisco “conservatives” support universal health care, same sex marriage, and equality in health coverage for transgender employees.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Bush supports government funded healthcare for himself, just not for you.
Gavin Newsom only supported “universal” healthcare and a business fee to pay for it once there were nine votes to put his gonads in a vise.
It was Tom Ammiano who made that happen, as much as Newsom wishes to claim credit.
The following came across my mailbox this week:
” Recently, some safety concerns have been raised about the Blue Angels air show, based on a recent accident elsewhere. Our City has ensured that the Navy and the City of San Francisco have a comprehensive emergency response plan to ensure the safety of the event.”
Nice to see more militaristic liberals.
But what caught my eye was the comprehensive emergency response plan. What might the comprehensive emergency response plan to one or more aircraft crashing into a part of the City with higher population densities?
Did AnnMarie Conroy, Newsom’s first choice to keep us safe and secure, write that plan?
-marc
August 10th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
“There is a progressive wing of the Board that has three members, a conservative wing that has three members and a moderate middle that has five….Gavin Newsom only supported “universal” healthcare and a business fee to pay for it once there were nine votes to put his gonads in a vise.”
By your labels of “moderate” and “conservative” the nine votes on the Board for universal healthcare included one conservative and all five moderates.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Isn’t universal health care part of the Democratic Party’s platform? Anyone with a vote who wanted to move up in the Democratic hierarchy who voted against universal healthcare would kiss their career goodbye.
Even Hillary Clinton and Dianne Fienstein, conservative Democrats both, support universal health care at least in theory.
Recall that Newsom was nowhere to be seen on the issue until Tom had accumulated 9 votes to make it a fait acomplis
I think we all know that in San Francisco, almost everyone in politics is a social liberal at the risk of suicide (see Tony Hall and Ed Jew), but we designate as moderates those social liberals who are quite conservative in a rightist sense on economics.
-marc
August 10th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I wish Assemblyman Mark Leno were running for Mayor of San Francisco against Newsom, instead of against State Senator Carole Migden for her Senate seat.
August 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I think it’s time for someone to write a history of the progressive left in San Francisco, 1999-2007 — a post-mortem, if you will.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
“..we designate as moderates those social liberals who are quite conservative in a rightist sense on economics.”
Marc, your statement that on the Board there are only 3 progressives (I assume you refer to Daly, Ammiano, and Mirkarimi, but correct me if these are not the 3) means that you think that McGoldrick, Peskin, Maxwell and Sandoval are are “rightists” and “quite conservative” on economic issues. I think they would disagree, as would self-identified “rightists” and “conservatives.”
August 11th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
There is relative autonomy, but when push comes to shove, the five in the middle are not proactive in pushing economic or environmental justice issues with any dependability.
Just ask the folks breathing asbestos in Hunters Point or the people clinging to residency in the Mission in the face of the impending flood of luxury condos.
Pray for a credit crunch!
-marc
August 11th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Yes, I’m sure all of the “residents” of the closed paint stores and other abandoned lots are clinging to residency and hoping for an all out credit crunch! Down with the middle class!
August 11th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
The middle class cannot afford to pay $5000 per month for housing.
If interest rates rise and prices fall, the cost of housing remains essentially constant and high.
-marc
August 11th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
There were quite a few loft condos built under a loophole that let them be built without BMR units, but the board stopped the construction of new live work lofts. The Board then put a moratorium on the conversion of PDR land to market rate residential, with the 2660 Harrison decision.
The vast majority of proposed projects for market rate housing in the Mission have been stopped, or at least put on hold pending the Eastern Neighborhoods process. A handful of projects in the Mission were judged by the Planning Department and the Planning Commission not to fall under these restrictions. The approval of 3400 Cesar Chavez does not change the moratorium on most construction in the Mission.
3400 Cesar Chavez will include 51 market rate units and 9 affordable units. Given that there are 60,000 people living in the Mission, the residents of the market rate units of 3400 Cesar Chavez will constitute just over 1 in 10,000 residents of the Mission. No one was displaced by the construction of the project, and the project will not make a significant change in the demographics of the Mission District. The construction is using union labor, and the pharmacy will provide permanent union jobs.
Schadenfreude Marc may be praying for a credit crunch, but the subprime mortgage crisis is not a happy thing for working folks. The federal government and Bank is already bailing out the big investors with cheap cash. Meanwhile, the President has pledged not to bail out individual homeowners. Struggling Latino families in the Central Valley are losing their homes to foreclosure as rates on their variable loans skyrocket. The government failed these lower-income families by failing to adequately regulate the mortgage market–but only bailing out the poor is off the table. The people who made the unwise decisions to buy these homes with shady loans bear responsibility for their poor judgment– but poor families losing their homes to foreclosure is nothing to be happy about.
August 11th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
“the residents of the market rate units of 3400 Cesar Chavez will constitute just over 1 in 10,000 residents of the Mission”
Sorry for the typo– that is “1 in 1,000″
August 11th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
3400 represents the opening of the floodgates that will allow the Mission Area Plan to be ignored in whenever necessary in favor of market rate condos, just as zoning was ignored to allow for residences gussied up as live work or dot.com as business services because the money is flowing that way, fuck the planning code.
A credit crunch is not good for me as a homeowner, as it serves the same role as rent control by locking us into living here whether we want to or not. It drops the price of our housing while raising the cost of housing, a deadly mix.
But such is the nature of corrections when the government provides bogus information to participants in the market system and participants realize that they’ve been making poor decisions based on bad data.
The flip side of rampant urban real estate speculation that benefits a few is the economic crisis spurred by loose credit and poor information hurts the many, those already hurt by speculation.
As a union household, I can’t see the logic in having union labor build housing that displaces them from where they are building it if they can still afford to live here now and is unaffordable to most all who live in that neighborhood.
But the notion that all cities must grow in order to remain “world class” is one that is easily upended by the impending credit crisis.
I look forward to all of the abandoned cranes.
-marc
August 11th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
3400 Cesar Chavez isn’t displacing anyone. It will be built on the site of an empty building and parking lot.
Whom did you displace, Marc, when you became a Mission homeowner?
August 11th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
We were evicted by the City and ended up buying a place that was condoized as a result of a probate sale by the estate of a woman who died at 98 years of age.
The price of new units now is twice the price of what we pay. Had we been evicted five years after, we’d be moving out of San Francisco at about this time.
Dan, you keep arguing that new market rate housing is affordable to the middle class when clearly it is not. You also deny the record of displacement and gentrification that the last market rate housing boom spurred. And you offer up no scalable solutions to any of this, except to enrich developers by building tens of thousands of market rate, upper class, units in the Mission and adjacent communities.
-marc
August 11th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
So marc, we should just build no new housing in the Mission? Leave a vacant lot there? MAC offered no viable solution, other than “give us cash and we’ll build something, as long as no one from outside the neighborhood can move into it.”
August 11th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
“We were evicted by the City and ended up buying a place that was condoized as a result of a probate sale by the estate of a woman who died at 98 years of age.”
So, in other words, you made it into the neighborhood through a bizarre loophole in the “don’t ever displace anyone” rulebook, yet now the lifeboat is full, so let’s keep everyone else out.
August 11th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
“ended up buying a place that was condoized”
OK, condoized is passive tense. Did you participate in the conversion of a unit from TIC to condo? That unit otherwise would have been a rent-controlled apartment, had it not been converted to TICs, then condos.
“Dan, you keep arguing that new market rate housing is affordable to the middle class when clearly it is not.”
The 9 affordable units at 3400 Cesar Chavez will cost in the $200,000’s. That is affordable to many middle class buyers.
“You also deny the record of displacement and gentrification that the last market rate housing boom spurred.”
Uh, no I didn’t. But it looks like you participated in that gentrification.
“And you offer up no scalable solutions…”
Sorry that I can’t offer up a solution to the San Francisco affordability problem. But having 9 affordable units where a parking lot used to be will mean affordable housing for 9 households, with no displacement, at the developer’s expense. If the City could afford to build enough affordable housing to solve the problem, that would be great. But even a proposed $30 million set-aside to build affordable housing only pays for 60-70 family units, at $400,000-$500,000 per unit, which is what recent affordable housing projects have cost. That doesn’t solve the problem either, for more than a few lucky lottery winners.
The biggest impact that could be made on preserving affordability in the City is in trying to preserve the older rental stock as rentals, as has been done with changes in city law, though changes at the state level are also needed (e.g., through modifying or repealing the Ellis Act).
August 11th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
We’ve lived in the North Mission for 18 years, the past 5 in this condo which was converted by the people who sold it to us. Through sheer luck and grit, we were able to remain in the neighborhood, under tremendous duress we were the only two out of 13 artists, tenants and small business people who lived in the building in which we lived and which the City had demolished to remain in this neighborhood. We got in with an ARM and a second, ate rice and beans and franks for a couple of years, and as the value of the house rose, we consolidated into a single loan 30 year fixed loan at 5.75%, right after the market had bottomed out.
We were able to stay in the N. Mission without displacing anyone, only at the cost of paying 6 times more for housing than before.
As market rate housing comes in to poor urban neighborhoods like the Mission, property values rise to a level much higher than rent under rent control support. That differential means that people are bought out and replaced either with TICs or better heeled tenants.
There is a debate between the eastern neighborhoods as to who is better at planning, city staff or residents. We know that citizen planning can work but the political and economic pressures against democracy and for capitalism are tremendous.
-marc
August 11th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
“As market rate housing comes in to poor urban neighborhoods like the Mission, property values rise to a level much higher than rent under rent control support.”
The rise in property values and pressure to push out tenants happened in SF neighborhoods whether or not new housing was built nearby. Most of the new market rate housing in the Mission has been built in the NE quadrant of the neighborhood, yet most evictions happened in other areas of the Mission, where most of the housing was located. Surrounding neighborhoods had similar increases in property values without new construction. For example, Bernal Heights has had very little new construction– and much of that has been the affordable housing complexes built by BHNC. Yet housing prices in Bernal went up similarly to the Mission. It’s far from clear that new housing is a cause rather than an effect of gentrification.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:06 am
marc, nothing you have said so far sounds any different from the typical ELITIST lifeboat mentality - “I made it into the neighborhood, so everyone else not yet in, stay out!”
It seems like the only scenarios that would make you happy are:
1. Every new resident to the neighborhood must first submit their income. If that income is deemed to be too high, those people are “Hey rich boy! Go live in some other neighborhood! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”
2. Legislation is passed that makes it illegal for anyone to move into or out of the Mission. The only possible exception are kids adopted by families already living in the neighborhood - otherwise, you live there now, you stay forever, you don’t live there, you stay out of our neighborhood!
If either of these are not your ideal scenarios, I’d love to hear what your best-case is - or at least something other than the waving of the hands and yells of gentrification that you’ve offered so far.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:11 am
The solution for the Mission is to hold down on new market rate, clamp down on conversions, impose fees on buy-out evictions, raise the bars to the price of housing determine whether or not existing residents can afford to live here without being forced out.
The California Government Code allows for localities to stabilize their communities through zoning. This code was approved by Republican white men in the Assembly and Senate in the 1940s, and yet here we see local San Francisco Democrats like yourselves arguing the property rights Republican line, dismissing any efforts at stabilization as NIMBY.
This is what I mean when I say that many local Democrats are Republicans economically, and it demonstrates how far the center of the Democrat Party has moved to the right.
From what I saw of the 3400 hearing, even some locals who support traffic calming from points just west seemed to be going NIMBY against affordable housing and the existing proximate and poor Latino population.
I live on a very short block. Since we’ve lived here, there have been two homes which have been emptied and turned into TICs. A third is in process now as we speak. That means that three out of 8 buildings where people had been living have been emptied and converted to ownership in that time.
Our building was emptied by a hearse and filled by eviction refugees.
Most market rate housing has been built as Live Work Lofts at the eastern margin of the district, north to south.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 10:24 am
More waving of the hands, marc.
3400 is not live/work lofts. 3400 was not a TIC conversion.
My partner and I have lived in a small “Jr. 1 bedroom” for six years now. We have scrimped and saved, both taken new jobs twice, and eaten beans and rice six days a week (we save the seventh for beans, rice, AND weenies). We have put together a sizeable down payment, and hope to buy something in December of 08 - so we are hoping for stagnation or even decline in housing prices over the next year and a half. Do we not deserve to live in your neighborhood? You mention rich, white Republicans, yet you have the same attitude, only towards my family - which is one white gay Democrat and one Hispanic gay Democrat - you want to keep us out, for fear of us hurting your neighborhood.
I’m fine with you looking for ways to help the poor in your neighhborhood and help prevent displacement - but 3400 and other projects developed on empty lots displace no one. You have stated yourself that you want to keep the people that would buy those market rate units out of your neighborhood. You seem to be someone (like many of the people in MAC) that started on a noble course, but along the way came to hate everyone who wasn’t “with” you - and now justify blatant elitism with thoughts of helping the poor.
Stopping all building is not “stabilization”, as it only increases the margin between the haves and have nots in the neighborhood. You would call my partner and I “rich” because we will have saved for eight years to buy a place - we call ourselves middle class who developed a plan and stuck to it. We will not qualify for a BMR unit - why are you trying to make us pay even MORE to buy here or exclude us from your little posse altogether?
August 12th, 2007 at 10:55 am
3400 is housing that costs 5-10 times as much as surrounding dwellings.
The matter is not one of a vacant lot or disused store, rather one of cumulative impacts of a trend of imposing significantly more expensive housing in a neighborhood which is one of the last bastions of affordability.
Building market rate housing increases the difference between the haves and have-nots in the neighborhood.
Actually, MAC and I were at odds 7 years ago, when the price of housing was in line with some significant (30-40) percent of wages citywide, say to double income union households. But since the price has almost tripled, we are of the same mind now. MAC was right with foresight that history has proven was not paranoid and I was wrong.
It is not a matter of whether we middle class white people are rich, it is clear that we are not, but on what impact our aspirations have on the aspirations of folks who will never know the privileges we do no matter what choices they make in life.
Although milage can be had in politics by appealing to people’s most base and selfish instincts, sometimes it makes sense to approach these things from an other-centered perspective.
Even though we middle class people and poorer Mission residents, not to mention conservative neighborhood groups have more in common between us than any of us have with the downtown corporate elite who are pushing and profiting, both financially and politically, from forcing market rate housing construction on the Mission, you all would cleave to the corporate Republicans rather than the poor.
That pretty much just says it all about your political priorities.
Let us watch the hilarity that ensues when construction financing and capital dries up as the economic system spins into a frenzy trying to figure out how to get out of this liquidity crisis.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Marc wrote:
“3400 is housing that costs 5-10 times as much as surrounding dwellings.
The matter is not one of a vacant lot or disused store, rather one of cumulative impacts of a trend of imposing significantly more expensive housing in a neighborhood which is one of the last bastions of affordability.”
Obviously you don’t know the neighborhood very well. Immediately to the south of 3400 CC is the Bernal Gateway, which is subsidized housing, and not subject to being turned into TICs or condos. Market rate housing to the south of CC (e.g., Precita Ave in Bernal Heights) sells for higher prices than 3400 will.
To the west of 3400 CC is lots of housing that sells for more than 3400 CC will– the Valencia/ Guerrero/Fair Oaks areas.
Immediately to the north of 3400 CC is a large apartment complex, with a bar/nightclub on the ground floor. It’s too large for condo conversion.
To the east of 3400 CC, down Cesar Chavez, are a string of large subsidized housing complexes, which again, are not subject to condo conversion.
In the North Mission, however, you participated in the gentrification of your immediate neighborhood, by buying a rent-controlled apartment turned condo. This conversion greatly increased the value of the property, encouraging the conversion of neighboring rent-controlled apartments to TICs and condos.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Yet more waving of the hands…
This is my plea to MAC - stop your reactionary tactics that only push the price of housing for those of us in the middle further out of reach. Learn a thing or two from less thuggish organizations like the TNDC, which are proactive and work on things to DO, rather than just things to STOP.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:56 am
The cumulative impacts of market rate housing are not just limited to the blocks immediately adjacent to 3400. The aggregate price of housing in the Mission and Eastern Neighborhoods planning zones is impacted by the entitlement of market rate housing.
Our condo is in a 2 unit building which are exempt from the lottery and allowed to convert to condo essentially as of right. There are few if any 2 unit buildings left. To a certain extent, the conversion of our building did contribute slightly to the gentrification of the neighborhood, but it did so at a rate that is about one half of what current equivalent units would go for, all while preventing our displacement without displacing anyone else–a very unique set of circumstances which is very different than constructing new luxury housing that nobody who lives here can afford.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
“…constructing new luxury housing that nobody who lives here can afford.”
Since the units at 3400 Cesar Chavez will likely cost less than many if not most Mission condos, presumably anyone who currently owns a more expensive Mission condo could afford it, by selling their current home. How much is your “luxury condo” worth, Marc?
August 12th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Our unit us 99 years old and without the kind of amenities that would befit a luxury condo.
I believe that the cost of an equivalent unit at 3400, if there is construction financing around to build them, will be just south of 2 times what we paid.
Middle class people cannot afford to service notes north of $500K.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
“…the conversion of our building did contribute slightly to the gentrification of the neighborhood…”
Admission of your problem is the first step to recovery.
I would certainly hope that you have put a deed restriction on your property to prevent yourself from ever receiving any profit in the event of a sale.
“…all while preventing our displacement without displacing anyone else…”
3400 added units to the neighborhood, without taking any away - including 9 affordable units. Densification of any neighborhood will likely bring some people from outside the neighborhood - you’re adding additional units than were currently there.
August 12th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
“Our unit us 99 years old and without the kind of amenities that would befit a luxury condo.
I believe that the cost of an equivalent unit at 3400, if there is construction financing around to build them, will be just south of 2 times what we paid.”
So, you’re saying that your unit would not sell for north of $500k? I find that very hard to believe.
August 12th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Your Victorian condo flat, in a 2 unit building, is worth quite a bit. You probably could afford instead to live in a little condo in a high density building on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Mission, but why would you want to?
The nine affordable units at 3400 CC, of course, will sell for maybe 1/3 of what your place is worth. And those nine units will be priced controlled to be affordable to future buyers, unlike your market rate condo.
August 12th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
We could not afford to purchase our unit today is what I’m saying. Five years ago, we were maxed out. 3400 and speculative projects like them are contributing to driving up the price of housing in the Mission and leading to displacement.
If I did not have to liquidate the entirety of my meager savings under duress to put into a down payment for our home, I’d consider equity restrictions. Our relocation into this condo was not for speculative purposes rather to prevent our displacement.
Jumbo loan rates have just been sighted north of 10% in the NYT for borrowers with stellar credit, this is all about to come to a screeching halt!
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
“…this is all about to come to a screeching halt!”
If so, new construction (if built) will sell for less, or will be rented, rather than sold.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
“3400 and speculative projects like them are contributing to driving up the price of housing in the Mission and leading to displacement.”
Says you and your waving hands. You have yet to provide any evidence to back this claim - I could just as easily assert that the lack of more projects like 3400 has driven up the price of housing currently there, which has lead to displacement.
“…this is all about to come to a screeching halt!”
Echoing what Dan said - hard to see how 60 more units on the market will keep the “market-rate” prices higher in a falling market.
“If I did not have to liquidate the entirety of my meager savings under duress to put into a down payment for our home, I’d consider equity restrictions. Our relocation into this condo was not for speculative purposes rather to prevent our displacement.”
Why does this matter? You can still put equity restrictions on your home for the amount that you put up.(Protecting your “savings”, but not allowing yourself any profit) Or are you really that hypocritical? Profit for you is not negative because you put all of your savings in, but it is negative for someone who put 90% of their savings in? What?
August 12th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
You’re arguing in circles.
There is evidence that increasing supply while lowering demand leads to asymptotic increases in price. This is precisely what we’ve seen since 2000.
There is also evidence as to the presence of Live/Work causing displacement in the NE Mission, given the number of Ellis Act, OMI and buy out evictions.
There is no evidence that adding supply will depress price enough for long enough to make a difference. When asked to provide any sort of economic model to prove this point, your reply is silence.
And we know that 3400, should interest rates revert to stability, means the floodgates of market rate have opened.
Of course, the point of 3400 was to study these things, and it seems clear that Seven Hills was able to play McGoldrick like a fiddle to make that study not happen.
If I had my choice, I would not have thrown all I had into a house. I would have been content to stay in our warehouse a few blocks away, paying a pittance in rent for a massive space. We fought hard for that. My savings are out of the stock market and in the real estate market and that is where they are going to stay for the duration not to retire in luxury rather to have some hope of not eating cat food. We bought this house to live in for the duration, not to sell at a profit.
You are urging us to construct housing for those few San Franciscans who can afford them and for people who don’t live here and would never live in sprawl land, probably another central city somewhere else.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
“There is evidence that increasing supply while lowering demand leads to asymptotic increases in price. This is precisely what we’ve seen since 2000.”
No. What we have seen since 2000 is a transient inflation in prices caused by a credit bubble.
“There is also evidence as to the presence of Live/Work causing displacement in the NE Mission, given the number of Ellis Act, OMI and buy out evictions.”
Never disputed this. 3400 has nothing to do with anything in that statement - why do you keep bringing up unrelated topics? - that’s called fear-mongering.
“There is no evidence that adding supply will depress price enough for long enough to make a difference. When asked to provide any sort of economic model to prove this point, your reply is silence.”
You never asked this, and I never stated that it would. I talked of the nine BMR units in 3400 and the fact that it was unlikely that 60 units on the market in a falling market would contribute to raising prices or displacement. You have yet to respond to either of those statements.
August 12th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
If market rate housing caused displacement in the North Mission, then why would market rate housing not cause displacement elsewhere with relatively similar demographics?
3400 is not just 60 units, but the beginning of a trend which has proven itself to displace in adjacent parts of the Mission.
I was wrong in asserting that international capital was divorced from the US monetary policy and operated under different interest rate regimes. They were not connected as being subject to the same central banks and distinct monetary policies, but they were ultimately connected as they were all sold as securities, the defaulting US ARMs threatens the international credit regime.
Time will tell how the impending uptick in interest rates and concomitant drop in price will play out in San Francisco. The system is in crisis and crisis means that you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“If market rate housing caused displacement in the North Mission, then why would market rate housing not cause displacement elsewhere with relatively similar demographics?”
You’re being ridiculous and comparing apples and oranges. Any market rate housing that displaces people from current housing(converting rentals units to TICs and condos, Ellis Act evictions, etc, as well as live/work lofts that had no BMR inclusion) is COMPLETELY different from 3400. Building on a vacant paint store site is not even remotely comparable to an Ellis Act eviction.
You’re arguing that market rate housing is the evil, where I’m arguing that displacement is the evil. The two are completely separate issues which sometimes coincide, but do not in the case of 3400.
August 12th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I’m arguing that market rate housing causes displacement and displacement is evil. The more market rate housing, the more displacement. 3400 is part of a rezoning that will entitle more market rate housing, ergo 3400 is part of a cumulative impact which portends more displacement.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
And I am saying you have done nothing to prove that link. Market rate housing on a vacant lot which includes 9 BMR units does not in any shape or form “cause” displacement.
And this is all coming from someone who freely states that he sunk all of his life savings into a recently converted condo where he pays SIX times as much per month. Are you trying to say that there were no available apartments for less than six times your previous rent? I don’t believe that for a second. So - you freely participated in what you now deem as evil and wish to prevent others from following in your footsteps - am I wrong?
August 12th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
If you were given a one-time five figure tax free relocation payment to be used only for housing costs, would you mete it out to a landlord over time our would you capitalize it? That was what federal and state law mandated in our situation.
How can you generalize from that unique circumstance and why must you personalize this argument?
Market rate housing in the aggregate, which 3400 is a part, drives displacement. The amenities provided by any given project do not compensate for the observed trend–market rate = displacement.
Our home ended up housing people who were evicted a few blocks away.
-marc
August 12th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
“market rate = displacement”
You repeat this over and over like a mantra, but have provided no support for the statement. There is displacement in the absence of the building of market rate housing– as has happened in many SF neighborhoods. So perhaps not building market rate housing drives displacement, too.
There are market rate developments that progressives on the Board have supported, like Trinity Plaza, where market rate units will pay for current residents to get new apartments at their old rent, and for hundreds of new tenants to get subsidized rentals.
August 13th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Trinity was a first where there was 1:1 replacement of affordable AND the project is a rental project designed as an annuity for the Sangiacomo heirs rather than a cut and run condo development.
Back to the Mission, the case has been established that market rate = displacement to the extent that builders pulled out all the stops to ensure that such a thesis was not even studied.
Let’s at least hope that Alex Clemens gets paid for 3400 while that project languishes in credit purgatory, sa he owes me some good scotch for inhaling 1/2 of my Maximus ale this past week.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 9:30 am
“How can you generalize from that unique circumstance and why must you personalize this argument?”
I personalize the argument because I question your motives. Let’s see what you’ve told us - you bought a market rate condo conversion where you spend six times the rent you spent before without looking for another rental, but only to “avoid” displacment from the neighborhood. You state that all of your investments are tied to real estate now. A primary argument for increased allowance of market rate housing is that it undoubtedly adds BMR units (which your condo conversion did not) and also adds more housing period, which some would say could put pressure on prices of current units. You argue that market rate housing = evil, yet you own market rate housing, and by your own words view that housing as your investment for the future. It makes me wonder if you actually believe constricting housing drives up prices, and thus the value of your investment - it should also be noted that you have no interest in equity restrictions on your place.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:31 am
“…such a thesis was not even studied…”
So it must be true.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:41 am
If my motivation was self enrichment, I’d have leveraged my capacities to be rich by now. Don’t you think that my political mind, were I to auction it off to the highest bidder absent any concern for principle, would have made me financially comfortable by now?
But I went to high school in Highland Park Texas–parents sacrificed much to buy a home just inside the district–amidst the fabulously wealthy white people and learned that unthinkable riches are the answer to questions I had no interest in asking.
When given the largest chunk of change that either of us had seen in our lifetimes to be used only for housing, it would have been irresponsible to decapitalize that chance of a lifetime into rent.
Our eviction, aside from 18 months of slow burn stress at the prospect of displacement, was a wash to our community economically and socially.
Although past performance is no guarantee of future return, just as we’ve seen the greenhouse effect first demonstrated in the laboratory generalized to the environment at large, similarly, absent objective analysis, you’re going to need to show me what’s different between the displacement observed in the N. and E. Mission due to market rate housing and that of projects like 3400 that are building out market rate at a ratio of 8:1 to BMR.
I’ll grant that inclusionary reduces the displacement by 1/8, but that leaves 7/8 of the same forces at work.
But if a trend holds in one case, it should hold in similar cases by inference.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 10:06 am
51 market rate units : 9 BMR units equals 5.67:1, not 8:1.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Well, that changes my mind! Of course this project is great because that slight increase, from 1/8 to 1/6.66 which still leaves leaves 5/6.66 to cause displacement makes all the difference!
At this faster rate, we’ll surely solve this problem in no time, assuming we just keep the flow of market rate housing unconstrained.
And these units are to be “affordable” for a term of 55 years to families earning 100% of the area median income.
This means that families that can pay market rate rent are allowed to purchase units when poorer families who cannot make market rent are not given a chance to rent BMR.
Displacement ensues.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 11:32 am
You’ve still presented no evidence that anyone will be displaced by 3400 Cesar Chavez. If there is no displacement, then 1 affordable unit for every 5.67 market rate units doesn’t look so bad.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:35 am
More circles from you. There is evidence of displacement in the N. and E. Mission due to market rate housing.
Entitling similar construction that existing residents cannot afford would lead to similar outcomes, all things being equal.
Perhaps that is mitigated 1/5.7th but the other 4.7/5.7 causes displacement and conflicts with the general plan policies that call for 64% of all housing produced in the Eastern Neighborhoods to be BMR.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
There are many reasons that all things are *not* equal.
There may be displacement from conversion of PDR to residential in the NE Mission, specific to the loss of blue collar jobs. The NE Mission also is different from 3400 Cesar Chavez in that there was the a heavy concentration of PDR land turned to live-work lofts, whch were built with no affordable units; there is not the concentration of buildable land near 3400 CC. Displacement in the NE Mission also occurred in a period of sharp economic and population growth. And displacement occurred at the same time in neighborhoods with little or no new market rate construction.
It’s possible, in a time of economic slowdown and tighter credit, that with lots of new construction coming on the market, that we’ll have a housing glut, which will lower prices. Increased supply might not lower prices much in a time of high demand, but it can in economic slowdown. Look at the decline in home prices from 1989-1995, or the decline in rent from 2001-2004.
So no, just because people have been displaced from the Mission in the past, does not mean that 3400 Mission will displace people.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
The presence of market rate housing near light industrial displaces jobs and existing residents in adjacent rent controlled housing.
The presence of market rate housing near rent controlled housing displaces residents from rent controlled housing by increased price pressures. The more market rate housing adjacent to rent controlled affordable housing, the more displacement. 3400 is but one of many projects in the pipeline, if it indeed gets built.
Capital had not become globalized seeking real estate as an investment sink until the Good Liberal, Bill Clinton, forced us into the NAFTA/WTO regime that is now falling apart to some extent.
The nature of how that is repaired, if at all, will do much to determine the future nature of housing macro economics in SF.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
“If my motivation was self enrichment, I’d have leveraged my capacities to be rich by now. Don’t you think that my political mind, were I to auction it off to the highest bidder absent any concern for principle, would have made me financially comfortable by now?”
And yet somehow everyone seems to believe that McGoldrick was “bought” with regards to 3400? If you are clearly above that and the appearance of self enrichment is just that - the appearance - then why does everyone assume the opposite for McGoldrick in this case - who had much less to gain personally from 3400 than you do from restricting the amount of housing built and excluding folks from your neighborhood?
August 13th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Jake holds the public trust, and progressives hold the appearance of corruption with public resources is unacceptable.
The equivalent for me would be if I were using my position as elected member of the Green Party County Council to enrich myself.
Pouring all one’s resources into buying a home to live in with the intent to sell it way down the road is nothing even close to speculation.
-marc
August 13th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
“Pouring all one’s resources into buying a home to live in with the intent to sell it way down the road is nothing even close to speculation.”
As most of the new residents of 3400 CC will do…
August 14th, 2007 at 7:32 am
You have no evidence whatsoever that people who are housing impoverished will be able to purchase units at 3400.
There is no way to ensure that residents of the Mission who are housing impoverished get the 15% of BMR.
All we know is that the Housing Element of the General Plan calls for 64% inclusionary and 3400 only provides 15%, rendering it noncompliant with the HE of the GP.
There is evidence that our eviction to purchase route did stave off the displacement of 2/13 of residents of 50-56 Julian in 2002, while the other 11/13 were cast to the winds.
-marc
August 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Anew building built on a vacant lot should be a way to prevent displacement of families from within ALL of San Francisco to being forced to leave. This elitist Mission-only BS pisses me off. Are Mission residents prevented from landing a BMR unit elsewhere in City? Should we make SOMA BMR units off limits to Mission residents?
I’m still awaiting your “evidence” that your eviction to purchase route staved off your displacement from the neighborhood. Statements from every rental housing owner telling us that they did not have any units up for rent at the time (that were less than six times your then current rent) should be sufficient. A tax advantage is an incentive not to rent - but it doesn’t negate the fact that you were in NO WAY facing displacement from the neighborhood.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Zoning was put in place to encourage the orderly development of neighborhoods and to stabilize communities. Under this theory and under the Housing Element of the General Plan, housing built in a neighborhood should be affordable to people living in that neighborhood.
What is the public policy interest in the City entitling housing that is not affordable to current residents of the neighborhood?
Vacant lots have no construction on them. Didn’t 3400 still have a structure in place?
The year was 2002 and rental prices were very high. We were evicted after living in the same place for 11 yr paying $1040 rent all bills paid the whole time.
Had we rented upon eviction, we would have taken on market rate rents. This would have consumed our relocation payment and made it very difficult, absent mortgage interest deductions, for us to have stayed in the neighborhood.
We were fortunate, in that our income ranged from 4-8 times that of the median in the neighborhood, making us just able to afford to stay in the N. Mission.
I also felt that it was not proper for two of us to be taking rental housing from folks who might have teamed up many more to be able to stay here in a rental apartment.
-marc
August 16th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Still waiting for the supposed “evidence” that you have of your “near displacement” from the neighborhood. If you want to argue about the displacement of others - that is a separate matter - you have continuously claimed that you faced displacement from the neighborhood - which I would say is an utter and complete lie. Evidence to the contrary?
August 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
What evidence would you want, access to our financials for the period?
Sorry, but you’re going to have to take my word for it that we were touch and go as far as staying in SF went for some time before we managed to avoid displacement.
-marc
August 17th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
You stated:
“There is evidence that our eviction to purchase route did stave off the displacement of 2/13 of residents of 50-56 Julian in 2002, while the other 11/13 were cast to the winds.”
If your only “evidence” of staving off displacement is that you bought a place - then anyone buying a house or condo in SF is staving off displacement.