For more than 150 San Francisco households, the clock has been ticking. There was no choice: they were going to be forced from their Treasure Island homes at some point in the next decade. But now, thanks to a big change in the island’s housing policy, many of them have a reprieve.
On Wednesday, the island’s oversight body granted some of those households, which could account for roughly 200 residents based on one San Francisco supervisor’s estimate, the right to stay on the island. They will now be eligible to rent or buy new units to be built in the next 15 years.
It’s one step toward solving several thorny problems in a massive redevelopment plan that has gained outsized attention. The Treasure Island plan calls for 8,000 new units, pushing its population from today’s 1,800 to more than 20,000 by 2035. It’s a bellwether for San Francisco’s ability to grapple with the gentrification, congestion, and public transit concerns that come with rapid development in the midst of a housing shortage and growing homelessness.
The new housing rule is the second big concession officials have recently made. Under pressure from residents, businesses, and Supervisor Matt Haney, whose District 6 includes Treasure Island, officials recently revised a plan to charge a toll to drive on and off the island, as The Frisc recently reported.
Even with concessions, will people want to wait up to a decade for new housing — for resolution to an uncertain future? By the latest official timeline, at least half the new 8,000 units won’t be ready until 2030. Islanders told The Frisc in October about water shutoffs and construction vibrations shaking their beds at night. There are frequent power outages, like those in early November. Public transport is limited; frequent ferry connections to San Francisco aren’t slated until at least 2030. Nine households have so far taken a buyout, according to TIDA’s latest report.
The island’s top official estimates that about 40% of residents who arrived after June 2011 will have the right to a new unit.
Every resident on the island is currently a renter. Wednesday’s big change affects people who moved to Treasure Island after June 2011. Those who arrived before that date were already guaranteed rights to stay. Now, residents who arrived after June 2011 gain some rights too. Those who are “income-qualified” for affordable housing can keep renting and carry their current rents over to their new units. Those who want to buy condominiums but can’t afford the market rate can try to qualify for city subsidies.
Treasure Island is San Francisco’s smallest, most remote neighborhood, and also one of its lowest-income. Rents are markedly lower than in the rest of the city and hikes are restricted. (Island officials prefer the term “restriction” to “rent control” because the rules differ from the city’s rent control regulations.) Being forced to leave would have meant hundreds of San Franciscans would have to look for new housing and likely leave the city altogether in the next 10 years.
Sherry Williams, executive director of One Treasure Island, applauded the expansion. “I”m very supportive,” she told the island’s oversight board Wednesday. Williams’s organization coordinates support and housing programs on the island that are run by Catholic Charities, Swords to Plowshares, and others.
Of the 8,000 new units in the works, 2,173 are earmarked as affordable. At least 435 units of supportive housing — such as HealthRight 360’s 72 beds for people in substance abuse treatment — will continue on the island as part of that count.
Not for everyone
Not all post-2011 arrivals will gain protection. At Wednesday’s meeting Treasure Island Development Authority director Robert Beck didn’t have an exact count. He estimated that about 40 percent of the 153 households would qualify, if the demographics mirrored those who came to the island before June 2011. Each new project will have its own affordability requirements, Beck told The Frisc last month, and there should be “a range” of affordable units available to residents who earn between 40 and 120 percent of the city’s area median income.
There is no plan to extend the rights to potentially hundreds more residents who aren’t income-qualified, says Courtney McDonald, an aide to Supervisor Haney. Doing so would require changes to the 2011 contract between the city and developers, “a much longer process,” says McDonald. “Supervisor Haney would be open to that at a later date.”
Beck is quick to point out that even residents without rights to stay won’t be forced to leave anytime soon. Construction is moving in phases, and some current units in TI’s townhouses and apartment buildings could be around for another decade.
Beck acknowledges it won’t be easy matching current residents who want to stay with new units, affordable or otherwise, of comparable size. “Roommates moving in and out, people having spouses and children” can make “replacement unit obligation” a moving target, he said Wednesday.
The first taste of the transition comes next month. In January, islanders will get an early look at the first units slated to be ready, in 2021, atop the Yerba Buena Island section. (It’s the natural island that forms the midpoint of the Bay Bridge.) But this first phase, with 266 units, will include only 14 at below-market rates. Residents suspect few of their ilk will be able to afford to live on Yerba Buena. Longtime islander Christoph Oppermann fears it will be “a millionaire’s playground.” (Prices come out early next year.)
Island officials recently made a big deal of a new steel sculpture to give TI some art cred. But another piece of heavy metal is more likely to win local hearts and minds: A new electrical switch to improve the island’s power infrastructure. Beck said yesterday it’s due by the end of 2020.
Alex Lash is the editor in chief of The Frisc