Emotions High As Voters Take On SF Mission District Development
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS-SF) – The hotly debated future of San Francisco's Mission District faces a crucial vote Tuesday as residents determine the fate of a measure to limit market-rate development in the district for the next 18 months.
If passed Proposition I, known as the Mission Moratorium, would require the city to stop issuing permits on certain types of housing and business development projects in the city's Mission District neighborhood for a year and a half.
The Board of Supervisors would also have the opportunity to approve a one-year extension.
While the proposed moratorium is in place, the city would be required to develop a Neighborhood Stabilization Plan, which would propose legislation, programs, funding and zoning controls that would ensure at least 50 percent of all new housing in the neighborhood is affordable to low- to middle-income households and to the residents of the Mission District.
The stabilization plan would have to be developed by January 31, 2017.
The measure was put on the ballot in response to ongoing displacement of long-term residents, who are largely low-income and Hispanic.
San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, who supports the measure, say that it's not just Latino families being pushed out of the neighborhood.
"Artists are being pushed out of the Mission, teachers are being pushed out of the Mission," Campos said.
San Francisco's Mission District is roughly bounded to the west by Guerrero Street, to the south by Cesar Chavez Street, to the east by Potrero Avenue, and to the north by U.S. Route 101. Other neighborhoods would not be subject to suspension should the measure be passed.
The Mission Moratorium would also not apply to permits being issued for housing developments in which all units are affordable to low- and middle-income households.
City Controller Ben Rosenfield says the moratorium would cause the city to see a short-term loss in tax revenue.
Rosenfield said there are roughly 24 development projects in the Mission area at various stages of the planning and permitting process, that include up to 1,220 units of housing within the area.
San Francisco supervisors Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell oppose Proposition I, saying that construction of affordable units will also be paused during the proposed moratorium, thus exacerbating the housing crisis.
Farrell and Wiener, as well as Mayor Ed Lee, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Supervisor Katy Tang and Board of Equalization Member Fiona Ma argue that almost every new development in San Francisco is required to include affordable homes or else developers must contribute to affordable housing under Proposition K, passed in 2014.
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