Long before the special information session on building housing above the BART stop at 16th and Mission began Thursday, the arguments for and against the project that for better and for worse is known as “the Monster in the Mission” were OLED-clear. The developer, its advocates, and the community opposition have been blasting each other since the meeting, originally scheduled for November last year, was canceled.
Not an hour into the session with the opening of public comment before the Planning Commission, as the queues of speakers stretched to the back of the Mission High School auditorium, it was obvious that the discussion wasn’t going to evolve or gain any headway.
Before we run down the rabbit hole, here’s the lay of the land: The proposed project at 1979 Mission from the real-estate firm called Maximus has been in the works for at least six years. It would add 331 rental units to the housing stock — 285 at the market rate and 46 at affordable rates. At ground level, there would be more than 32,000 square feet for a drugstore and a so-called mercado of artisans and vendors; more than 160 parking spaces; and 40% more space for the outdoor BART plaza.
In addition, Maximus (a name custom-made to troll San Francisco; perhaps it could find tobacco or pharma veterans to help rebrand, just saying) is pledging to purchase two other Mission district sites and “build and dedicate” 192 total units there as 100% affordable housing, to be run by a nonprofit or the city. As the firm’s project site says, in bold, “1979 Mission Street will not displace residential homes as no housing exists on the site today.”
So on the pro side, we have the fact that San Francisco is suffering from severe housing scarcity, and the plum places to ameliorate it are on or adjacent to transit corridors. Even Berkeley (Berkeley!) just approved a 274-unit development on the same block as its downtown BART stop. What’s more, there’d be improvements to the 16th and Mission space and pedestrian safety features too. The city would incur no building or investment risk (those would be on the developer) and get much-needed units at market rate and affordable levels. It seems pretty compelling.
On the con side, there is fear that the market-rate units will further raise prices in the community. Maximus is making a lot of promises about affordable housing, but it is nowhere near sealing deals on the two other sites it says it’ll “build and dedicate” — and one of them is the infamously not-historic Mission laundromat whose owner has been blocked for years from developing housing at the location, prompting him to sue the city.
(UPDATE: A reader alerted me that appeals to block development have been exhausted, and the owner has dropped the suit.)
More con: At last night’s meeting, one commenter said that having market-rate units at 16th and Mission and the affordable buildings elsewhere amounted to an “apartheid.” The new building will cast a shadow on an elementary school, even though the city’s shadow rules are specifically aimed at protecting parks, not schools. (As I’ve reported, that’s not how things work in practice.)
‘No one has ever come to the Mission and not found a place to eat.’
There’s plenty more from critics: Having so much parking right above a BART line is inconsistent with the city’s Transit First policy. The neighborhood is in need of supportive services for vulnerable populations — a mercado, not so much. (As one commenter said: “No one has ever come to the Mission and not found a place to eat.”) On top of all this, commenters hammered home the point — over and over — that the developer is an unprincipled, unethical, hedge-fund-backed bully that has fomented divisions among residents. The 1979 Mission proposal is the wrong project at the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally (cutting to the chase), the proposal is reflective of bad urban-planning policy, policy that historically has displaced and disadvantaged the not wealthy and not white.
Even pro-growth advocates chimed in on this last point. SF’s exclusionary zoning — a product of historical redlining practices — made the Maximus project compliant in the Mission and not other districts, said Sam Moss, executive director of the nonprofit developer Mission Housing Economic Development Corporation. Moss followed up his public comments with this explanation to The Frisc: “The beauty of redlining is the people who got fucked by it and the people who benefit from it don’t even know it exists. … Maximus is literally exploiting people of color. This is the poster child for when an urbanist or a YIMBY or someone doesn’t just say yes.”
What Moss means is that being against the so-called Monster doesn’t make him a NIMBY. The debate, he argued, has become too ideological: “We can’t just say yes just because it’s above a BART stop.”
Still, there’s no escaping that throughout the time the project has been in the works, as positions have hardened among supporters and opponents, the housing crisis has grown more acute, not less. It is also worth acknowledging, as The Frisc has reported, that folks in the Mission realize that plenty of neighborhoods, particularly on the west and north sides of San Francisco, are loath to add housing. Even more troubling is how the lack of options has resegregated the Bay Area and driven minorities to outlying areas. It’s like we’re in the late stages of a disease, and 1979 Mission looks like the unproven experimental treatment that patients and their families and doctors agonize about, even though it’s their last and only hope.
Moss might not want to say “yes in my backyard” to 1979 Mission, but the planners’ and urbanists’ consensus on addressing the pathology of the housing crisis nevertheless leans YIMBY, particularly saying yes to infill development close to jobs, schools, transit, and amenities. This reverses the planet-poisoning dynamic of sprawl and megacommutes and counters the displacement and racial stratification of low-income folks and people of color. As The Frisc and others noted after November’s local election, YIMBYism has not caught on among voters, though. Opponents also charge that YIMBYs are so devoted to the “build, build, build” mantra that they discard any other concerns. Sometimes this beef becomes personal. YIMBY movement pioneer Sonja Trauss, who ran for District 6 supervisor last fall and lost, was booed as she stepped up to comment last night in support of 1979 Mission.
This, to borrow a phrase because I can’t think of a better one, is where the potential cure of 1979 Mission may be worse than the disease. Transit-oriented development is the sure-fire way to whack at housing scarcity, traffic, and climate change with one stone. So why would Moss, who is a vocal proponent of infill, density, and transit-oriented development, lean hard against this project?
One point he mentioned was the project’s 160-plus planned parking spaces: “It’s not good TOD [transit-oriented development].” But the main objection can be condensed into two words: fair share. “I genuinely, inherently, in my soul believe we shouldn’t have a monster [in the Mission] until there’s one in Glen Park, Sea Cliff, Geary all the way to the beach,” he said.
After more than three hours of public comment, with a hard stop at 8 pm to clear the auditorium, the city officials who sat on the dais and heard every single one of the hundreds of comments weighed in, briefly. Planning Commissioner Rodney Fong noted that the planning agency’s job was “to find a balance, and I don’t see any balance tonight.” He also said he wanted whoever lived at 1979 Mission to want to be in the Mission, “not hop on BART and get out.” That’s weird, since we don’t begrudge people who live in Oakland or Hayward from taking BART to work and play in San Francisco.
Commissioner Millicent Johnson called for a larger vision and spoke to the developer: “It’s not just about community benefits. This needs to be a changing point not just for a building but for the city.” The president of the Planning Commission, Myrna Melgar, said she remains “skeptical” about the project and is expecting to see more information.
The city and its planners are in a pickle. San Francisco is in crisis and people are being displaced because of rising rents and prices, with nowhere else to go if they lose their units. In the community, the project has some support and tons of detractors. Across the city, residents aren’t exactly welcoming new neighbors, not even low-income seniors. The social emergency of homelessness and unsheltered men, women, and children rolls on. Maximus, for its part, is looking at whether to place the 1979 Mission proposal on the ballot before voters.
This bind is likely what moved Mayor London Breed to expend political capital on building affordable and teacher housing “as of right,” because, as Moss took pains in reminding, even if 1979 Mission were to be approved today, “with our current process … it would still be like a fucking decade” for that housing to open its doors.
To save San Francisco and bring residents together, things are going to have to change.
Follow Anthony Lazarus on Twitter: @Sr_Lazarus
See his entire thread on the Monster in the Mission meeting, here. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter.