After the Drew School got the go-ahead to remove three (3) of the city’s roughly 365,000 housing units in order to expand their campus, Supervisor Mirkarimi introduced legislation that would require the one-for-one replacement of any demolished housing units.
Planning commissioners during a Thursday hearing into the legislation said they would like to retain the ability to use their discretion to approve the demolition of homes in some circumstances, such as the expansion of a school.
Mirkarimi said he would like to work with the commission to finesse his proposal.
“I’m open-minded in terms of how we might want to sculpt the legislation,” Mirkarimi said.
According to the Examiner, the Drew School expansion “was the only demolition project that would lead to an overall loss of housing units to have been approved since anti-demolition policies were formalized and adopted by The City in March 2008.”
∙ Drew School Expansion Plans Pass Their Appeals Test(s) [SocketSite]
∙ Proposed Conservation Of Housing Law Specific To San Francisco [SocketSite]
∙ New law would limit housing demolitions [Examiner]
If the requirements, costs and risks to develop housing in San Francisco weren’t so draconian, this wouldn’t be an issue.
But these replacement units would not be rent controlled so I don’t really see the point of this measure.
you know, in most cities and towns a school expansion is a GOOD thing.
Where was this push for legislation when people were buying up condos in the Sunset and Richmond to be converted into indoor grow houses?
Certainly there are about a million more pressing housing issues then the “threat” of SF’s ever expanding schools gobbling up the “limited” rent controlled housing stock.
Oh no, some aging hippies who came to SF during the Summer of Love might be forced out of their patchouli scented pads and have to pay market rate rents like the rest of the United States. They might have to do something that takes away from their valuable community activism of blocking new businesses from filling up vacant store fronts, filing endless complaints about the new housing going in down the block being to blue, or complain about those evil schools, who fill impressionable young peoples minds with ideas about “goals” and “achievement”, taking away all the primo apartments in their neighborhood.
Tearing down rent-controlled housing is not a good thing per se. But sometimes it is necessary, to expand schools, or to use the land more efficiently (e.g., Trinity Plaza), or because the building has outlived its useful life.
Most people in rent-controlled apartments are not hippies or even NIMBYs. It’s understandable that anyone might object when threatened with eviction, and having to move to a place with much higher rent.
But making it impossible ever to put land to better use is more harmful to more people in the long run.
Put this one down to the start of election season – the Murk has to pander to his friends on the left to stand any chance of higher office: this piece of feel-good pseudo-policy will be fairly harmless but will gain him respect in that constituency. Watch for some more “centrist” proposals from him in the coming months.
Mirkarimi = Daly lite.
As someone who sells apartment buildings and walks through rent controlled units in all parts of town all the time…i would say at least half of the people in rent controlled units don’t deserve the protections they are getting at the expense of the rest of people here who pay market rents. I don’t understand what entitles someone to not pay their fair share of costs just because they’ve rented somewhere for a long time. Propping these people up hurts the rest of us.
On another rent control note: rent control, in my opinion, hurts and holds people back. the rent control trap stagnates peoples lives by keeping them in one place all in the name of reaping the benefits of rent control. the rent control trap keeps them stuck in some shithole apartment that they won’t bother to fix up because its not theirs, but they can’t ever leave because they have to keep that wonderful rent controlled apartment.
anon$random – From personal experience, yes, rent control does “trap” someone who has stayed in one apartment for a long time due to the relatively cheap rent. My wife and I are going on 15 years of rent control in our one bedroom Marina apartment – it’s hardly the “shithole” you’d think it is. We’ve made many improvements ourselves, because we don’t see ourselves leaving any time soon in the foreseeable future.