While Mission Bay North is fully developed, and the last market rate residential development to be built within the boundaries of Mission Bay South is under construction at 1000 Channel Street, on Mission Bay Block 1, there are still 868 units of affordable housing that have yet to be completed south of Mission Creek versus the 350 which have already been constructed and leased.

The building under construction on Mission Bay Block 6 East will yield 143 of those 868 units, another 140 affordable apartments are to rise on the western half of said block, and 119 units for homeless veterans and families will rise on the eastern half of Block 3 (aka 1150 Third Street).

And next week, a Request for Proposals (RFP) to build around 120 furnished studios for currently homeless and extremely low-income households (below 30 percent of the Area Median) on Mission Bay Block 9 – which is bounded by Mission Rock Street to the north, the future Bridgeview Way to the east, China Basin Street to the south, and San Francisco’s new Public Safety Building to the west – should be released and publicized by the City’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII).

Responses to the (proposed) Block 9 RFP will be due at the end of June with the winning proposal expected to be decided by the second week of August.

And then there’s the Giants’ massive Mission Rock project to rise on the Port’s Seawall Lot 337 (aka the Giants Parking Lot A), which sits outside the official boundaries and tallies of Mission Bay.

45 thoughts on “More Affordable Housing on the Way in South Mission Bay”
  1. Yes, let’s build lots of new apartments in prime urban waterfront locations and give them to homeless people. Nob Hill not good enough for them?

    1. A stretch of racetrack like Third Street (Willie Brown Blvd.) or wedged next to an operational fire station are hardly “prime.” More welcome additions to fill out the neighborhood.

    2. The affordable housing is a key component of the approved neighborhood plan. And, the city has long had a policy of spreading affordable units throughout the city. Also, what is with the venom against homeless people? In any event, they are getting built, so I would stop worrying about it, and channel your energy into something more productive.

      1. This IS prime property and is best sold at highest price to fund more affordable housing closer to social services. Uber, Warriors, Salesforce paid a mint to build in Mission Bay.

        Our wacky City is proposing to build 120 units of single room occupant homeless studio units which will house mostly single men. These constituents foster lottering, public urination, crime and encourage tent encampment with garbage that comes with it. Sadly most of these contingents have drug and mental illness problem. Similar projects on Harrison, a Mason St, and other south of market SRO are telltale signs of what’s to come unless there is as urgent of protest from the neighborhood. The very sad thing is what a quick way to ruin the new Mission Bay parks. Such a waste of public funds. Our Supervisor’s idealism has completely replaced their common sense . A better fit is affordable housing for local laborers, teachers, librarians, janitors, restaurant workers and other low income work force. There really should be a public outcry.

        1. Mission Bay ALREADY has several affordable units in it. Have they “ruined” the neighborhood yet?

          Look, the affordable units are part of the planned development approved long ago. Stop with the nonsense. And, Salesforce ditched their plans to build in the area and instead leased more space downtown and also built/are building two new high rises in the Transbay neighborhood. As for the Warriors, the current arena site was not the team’s first choice.

          That said, yes, the land is expensive in the neighborhood–land is expensive in pretty much the whole damn city, and many previously somewhat affordable areas have become gentrified and expensive–even the Bayview has become fairly expensive. Also, not all people of lesser means need or should be concentrated in only the most inconvenient and/or undesirable areas.

  2. Call this housing what is will actually be… SUBSIDIZED LUXURY HOUSING ! Nothing is more luxurious than getting other people to pay all of most of the cost of your housing, smack in the center of the most expensive city in the nation.

    1. Well, its costs the taxpayer more money if these people are living on the streets. Even for selfish reasons no one should be against this.

      1. Um these people are not homeless or even jobless, they still have to pay the mortgage and taxes, they just get it at a rate that is way below market. Too bad for all those middle class people who make slightly more money, the teachers will just have to move to Vallejo while the baristas get to live in San Francisco. Not to mention plenty of the units will not go to people who need a break, but rather to people who know how to abuse the system. This is what is known as perverse incentives.

      2. In no way is it good to live on the streets. It’s terrible. The reality is, it cost WAY more to build homes for the homeless. $400,000 to $500,000 each studio unit (total development cost). This includes all the building support services that’s part of the building, design and entitlement cost.
        Homeless epidemic is a tough one to solve.

        1. People need to learn the difference between helping and enabling. Common sense. Shelter is a human right, your very own studio in the most expensive city in America is not. We can provide shelter for the homeless without giving them waterfront luxury condos. The new Bay Area Council survey came out and said 40% of residents and 46% of millennials are looking to leave the Bay Area in the near future, mostly due to cost of housing and the traffic. Why do these people have to leave, but the down and out from all over the country get to stay?

    2. It is subsidized housing. That is what affordable housing is, so putting it in caps just makes you look a bit silly and clueless. The public policy behind it is that we need an economically diverse city.

      If only millionaires/billionaires can afford to live in San Francisco, it makes it impossible to maintain a viable community. When even the surrounding communities area super-expensive where are you going to get people to do the jobs that allow the city to function if they cannot afford to live here? Are all the billionaires going to go out and start pouring their own coffee, sweeping the streets, teaching the children, chasing down the criminals, etc?

      1. What we get, are special economic privileges for a exclusive few…. How is this fair to the 99% who will never get such a huge unearned windfall ? These subsidized people are truly the 1% !

        1. Living in a small, simple studio is a “huge windfall?” On what planet? These are not “luxury units,” and no one who could afford a real luxury unit would ever want to live in one.

          My current condo that I bought in the city is worth approximately $1.6 million, and trust me, I have no plans to sell and massively downgrade in size, amenities, and quality of neighborhood to live in a little studio on the outskirts of Mission Bay. A formerly homeless person getting a safe and clean little studio to live in is not part of the 1%.

          1. Every thing in SF is now luxury. That’s a fact and why should any one be singled to be gifted said luxury housing?

  3. It would be far cheaper to give low income people free BART passes and let them commute.

    But the SF political oligarghy depends on votes from people who live here and love ‘free stuff’…which doesn’t work so good if they live elsewhere.

  4. I’m really disappointed to see so many negative comments here. It exemplifies the typical Republican attitude of “I got mine and in order to keep making mine stand apart, I need to keep you from getting yours.”

    Societies thrive when we as a society protect and care for our most vulnerable. Without affordable housing, the costs in the City will get so high new (non-ultra-wealthy) residents won’t be able to move here — the town will stagnate. The privileged few who own property (of which I am one) won’t want to live in it any more because people who live in service jobs won’t be able to justify making the hours-long commute to SF when they can make the same income in the suburbs because all the “rich folks” who lived in SF will leave b/c there’s pitiful access to amenities they once enjoyed.

    I’m thrilled to pay more in taxes to help the most vulnerable in society. I can’t think of a more noble pursuit than building thriving communities — it improves all of our lives, makes our communities more resilient in the face of disruptions (from climate, political, etc), and builds strength through diversity. I’d like to see affordable housing in every neighborhood.

    The only way to make it in America these days seems to be a question of whether you were lucky enough to be born into privilege. That’s not the America I want my kids and someday grandkids to inherit.

    1. Thank you, Bayview_Rising. These negative comments are just based on overly simplified observation and rationale. It’s sadly funny that the people complaining have nothing to worry about. They’re just out of touch, yet think they know what’s best.

    2. Bayview, with all due respect, “Privilege” is merely a sad excuse for not taking personal resoponsibiliity. My wife and I moved here with zero, with no connections whatsoever and no education to brag about. I’ve worked as a janitor, landscaper and factory worker. My wife’s parents moved here from overseas just before she was born.

      The only way we’ve been successful is by an incredible amount of hard work and sacrifice for 20+ years. No one gave us anything. So when people make stupid economic decisions, it’s their fault entirely. Just last night I was walking past thousands of Giants fans…many of them spent a couple hundred bucks last night, have zero dollars in savings, and then complain that the system is unfair.

      Similarly, but on a different scale, it reminds me of (well paid) friends who go out to eat all the time, ski in Argentina, hang out on the beach in Thailand…then complain that they can’t afford to buy a home.

      1. Exactly. totally agree with you. We did not get our NV house for free; there were years of saving for it, tons of sweat equity and real money put into it.

        There are plenty of “lazy” people in society who will never really WANT to work or earn their way thru life. They should not be entitled to this housing.

        1. trust me man you don’t end up in the street sleeping next to a trash can just because you are lazy. So many other things went wrong in these people’s lives that they ended up in the soul crushing situation they are in now.

        2. Futurist, I paid for both of my homes in San Francisco, and I am fortunate to live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods. However, I understand that even though I worked hard, I had many advantages that other people did not have, and that part of my success was a product of a bit of good luck, blessings, etc.

          There are many smart, talented, extremely hardworking people who cannot afford adequate housing. They are not “lazy,” nor are they asking for anyone to rescue them from bad decisions. It is extremely hard to get one of the scare affordable housing units in SF, and lazy people would not have the time or patience to go through the long process.

          No one is proposing to put people up on a 12,000 square foot mansion. I have been inside some of the affordable housing units in the area, and they are clean and safe, but they are small and simple, sometimes even austere–there is nothing at all luxurious about them.

          1. This housing should be for teachers, fire-fighters and policemen and women, not the “homeless”.

            Not a huge fan of the “good luck, blessings” belief system. Is there “bad luck, unblessed” too? We all make choices, sometimes good ones, and yes, sometimes bad ones. I made the choice many years ago, coming from a good working class family, to go to college, earn a degree in architecture, secure good jobs, save my money, buy several properties.

            I don’t really call that “good luck”. I call it making good choices.

          2. What wonderful choices you’ve made.

            It’s smart that you chose not to come from an abusive family or that you didn’t have to drop out of college to work, having chosen not to have a family member succumb to a major illness or tragic death.

            It’s also great that you chose to have the means to attend college, especially without having to take a government handout in the form of a SUBSIDIZED student loan or scholarship.

            It’s great that you chose not to join the military and serve your country. Or if you did, that you chose not to come home suffering from PTSD.

            It’s also great that you chose not to have any sick children or come down with a major illness yourself, and that you and all of your family members chose not to get addicted to the opiates that were prescribed by a doctor.

            Yes, what wonderful choices you’ve made for yourself!

          3. Futurist, I doubt San Francisco can afford to subsidize housing for everyone that has made the wise choice to become a woman, but then that’s why we have a ballot initiative, for the people (or at least the voters) to make their own choices, sometimes good ones, sometimes.

            Like you, I also made the choice to come from a “good…family”. Entirely my choice. And a good one, in retrospect. The genes have been holding up well as well. Another good choice of mine.

            It is more than a little odd logic, though, to gift housing to those that have housing and not to those that don’t, but perhaps not from the pov of the hordes that hoard “properties” while disparaging the hordes with none. I’d call that being on the hoards of a dilemma.

          4. @ Michael: You’re trying to play a clever game of words.

            Of course, one does not have a choice of families, or where they came from. But you’re using the case of unfortunate experiences in life as an EXCUSE for making bad choices.

            And btw: I did not have the “means” to go to college. I wanted to go. I borrowed government money for student loans and paid it all back. I worked thruout college while attending a full load of classes.

            I did not go into the military, even though I was drafted but received a valid and legal medical deferment.

            But people with major illnesses, and family issues still go on to achieve success. No body said it was easy, but those who don’t use every excuse in the book can and still do succeed.

        3. Futurist, whether you are a “fan” of luck or not, it exists. No human being has the power to control their entire circumstances. I worked hard, too, and went to college, too, and guess what? Many millions of people have done the same. Some have been successful and others have not. Going to college and working hard does not necessarily guarantee that you will always be financially secure, or even that you will never end up homeless. And, even if someone DID make poor choices at some point in his or her life, I do not think that means they deserve to suffer until death. Leaving someone on the streets to keep the EMT and police busy with emergency runs can in some of the more serious individual cases cost the city close to $1 million a year for a single individual. Is that where you would rather resources go?

          Getting people into stable housing and assisting them with whatever treatment they need ultimately saves money, and it just makes the whole city a more pleasant place to live. No one enjoys having to step over people as they walk to work or go out to eat or take a stroll around their neighborhood. Also, these affordable units have waiting lists, screenings, case management, etc. No is just picked up off the street and dropped into a unit. II do not think giving a simple 400 square foot studio (and usually still charging them something for it) amounts to handing someone a life of luxury. Perhaps you imagine that formerly homeless people idle away the time in a penthouse lined with satin while laughing at everyone else who has to work for a living, but your imagination does not align with reality.

          1. The big question is why should SF be the one to offer these services? If there is not a coordinated statewide effort, and ultimately a national effort, then SF will simply become a magnet. To many, it appears that it already has, and there is a homeless survey to back this up. And the problems don’t go away once you give someone a studio. Many homeless just need a helping hand, but lots of them need much, much more than that. Would you volunteer to house a street person in your spare room or in-law unit, probably not, because you know very well there are larger issues at play than just having a place to sleep.

            [Editor’ Note: San Francisco’s Homeless Crisis is Homegrown and a Catch-22.]

      2. While you are definitely to be commended for your responsible behavior and hard work, the view that everyone who lacks housing is in that position due to laziness is a bit simplistic. Spend some time observing the homeless people in this city and you’ll quickly notice that a significant proportion of them suffer from significant mental illness. They’re not exactly in the position to make responsible decisions.

    3. So now you get the very rich and the very poor who can live in SF, the middle class can pound sand? Typical of the politics in this whole country, 25% have zero common sense and 25% have zero empathy and they drive all the policies, the rest of us in the middle just work ourselves into oblivion.

      1. Yes I agree with you. The extreme focus on the “most vulnerable” means the City will become composed of only people who can pay market price for housing and people who have the least ability to pay for housing. The whole idea of “most vulnerable” having highest priority is based on a Christian ideology that proponents benefit from feeling they are doing “God’s Work”., not on sociological knowledge of how communities actually remain functional. “Most vulnerable” certainly isn’t how triage is implemented in dire public disaster and emergency situations when many lives are in immediate and very likely peril.

        Helping people exclusively from the bottom up pressures the people above the cutoff to either move up or move down. It leaves little space in the middle because being in the middle means they can’t compete with the those way above you (who can fend for themselves) or those just below them (who are receiving the “most vulnerable” subsidy)

  5. Mission Bay Residents pay the HIGHEST TAXES IN THE CITY PLUS MISSION BAY HOA FEES. We get nothing from the city expect parking meters. Waterfront property for the homeless next to two of the largest attractions in the city. (AT&T Park and Warriors Stadium) We will have an amazing waterfront littered with homeless people, tents and shopping carts. What a GREAT IDEA!!!!

    1. Mat I call bs on “MISSION BAY HOA FEES”. OMG we pay what, $45 per month to Mission Bay Corp. to maintain our Mission Bay parks and Mission Bay shuttles? huge fee….huge. Welcome to Mission Bay, a community with a master plan. This was all in the works before you decided to move here. Live with it. It’s a done deal.

      1. BS right back at you. Mission Bay residents pay the highest taxes in the city and also paid Millions to support low income families. We also pay taxes for a School that we don’t have. We also also pay for a shuttle service because the public transport is so bad and then the city taxes us on the shuttle service. We have abandon parks that are filled with dirt and garbage. The Master plan was to provide housing for Police and Fire Fighters not a bunch of homeless derelicts.

    2. I thought the city property tax was the same rate for every neighborhood. Does Mission Bay really have a higher property tax rate than the rest of SF?

  6. I’m all for taking care of the homeless but million dollar waterfront units? That is not “progressive” in the least. It is horribly regressive to the hard working middle class that have to pay for it. 7,000 people sleeping under freeways in this town, more arriving every day and this is how our local government chooses to “solve” the problem for a few of them? Craziness doomed to failure.

    [Editor’s Note: San Francisco’s Homeless Crisis is Homegrown and a Catch-22]

    1. Where are you getting that anyone is proposing to give a formerly homeless person a $1 million unit? Have you ever been inside one of these subsidized studio units? They are very small and simple–this is NOT luxury housing. No one who can afford a $1 million unit would ever want to live in such a unit. And, I suppose you think it is better to leave people on the streets so they can suffer in misery while making the whole city a miserable place to work, visit, or live in?

      1. Many don’t realize what the city has built in the last five years. Some units are just plain and simple But many of these new affordable units is indeed like winning the lottery. Some units are actually very large, most are average in footprint. Many have their own unit washer dryer, stone top, courtyards and public amenities better than most rental apts. I’ve been to another that has spectacular panoramic views of sf. It’s mind blowing how much the city is over doing it. Go down to 4th st and Channel affordable housing project. This building has “affordable lofts” and “town homes” with very nice water view. These would indeed sell for more than $1 mill. With the City are getting more $250 million dollars+++ a year to tackle homeless and housing, you got bank it somewhere, I guest.

        1. There are different sorts of affordable units aimed at different income brackets (some are for people making the median income and they pay considerably more for their unit) and many of these units are paid for by developers through inclusionary units or in-lieu fees. Even true low-income housing is usually built by nonprofits and not the city.

          Also, NO studio apartment (which is what these units will be) sells for $1 million anywhere in the city. And, a washing machine may have been a luxury in 1940, but no longer (and yes, I know some old buildings have coin machines–I lived in one years ago, but a washing machine in a new unit is not a luxury). And, courtyards have been a common feature of modern multi-unit buildings for over 100 years–I am not sure what is so luxurious about a courtyard?

          Your gripe seems to be that people are not forced to live in a shanty town with an outhouse.

          1. If you read my comments carefully, the $1 mil is reference is not in reference to studios but to the townhomes and loft units with waterfront view on 4th St & Channel. Contrary to your understanding, there are HUNDREDS of new affordable units with in unit washer and dryer for those making 60% of household income. I’ve seen them first hand in multiple projects. In no manner am I saying studios at Block 9 will get in unit W&D, but the point is the City or perhaps the architects designing affordable housing is over doing it when most working class don’t even have this luxury. I think Chris you really need visit some of these new units for yourself to get yourself out the 1940’s.

      2. No, when there are so many people on the street, I think it is better to spend our tax money giving basic housing to 2,000-3,000 of the homeless than to give deluxe housing to 200-300 of them and let the rest live outside. Clearly with all the people outside their are not enough shelter beds.

  7. Whatever happened to the proposed 5th St. pedestrian bridge over Mission Creek? Current maps don’t even show it as “future.” It would definitely be a valued and well-used amenity.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *