Plans for 96 Affordable Studios to Rise Right Here
January 8, 2018
While not currently zoned for the development of residential units, plans for a five-story building with 96 below market rate studios to rise over 2,100 square feet of ground floor “Arts/PDR” space on the 56-space parking lot parcel at 71 Boardman Place have been drawn.
As proposed by the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund and Holliday Development, the building would stretch from Boardman to Harriet with an internal courtyard and the Western SoMa parcel would be rezoned from “Service/Arts/Light Industrial” to “Service/Light Industrial” (which allows for the development of either group housing or “affordable” dwelling units) in order for the development to proceed.
And as always, we’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
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I look forward to the comedy of how these ground floor retail spaces throughout SOMA will attempt to frame themselves as”Arts/PDR.”
Which will feature frosted windows hiding “production” uses, read tech offices.
Always with the orange cladding, every new building must have orange cladding somewhere. And not International Orange, but some generic orange that is probably a default color in whatever CAD program these architects all use.
I agree! How was it that orange paneling became necessary?
i dont think we should be building so much parking for BMRs. we should be building BMRs in the most basic way possible. Also, why no use the density bonus and make this 2 floors higher. seems like a waste to put in a 5 story building here.
The only “parking” as proposed would be for 96 bikes.
Seriously, 7 seems like the minimum we should be planning for…
56 space parking lot = existing use
because it’s Holliday’s project and because of how it looks, i’m assuming this is another modular construction project, where dwelling units are built off-site and assembled above a cast-in-place podium. good to see the city starting to warm to this.
That’s correct.
I know that Panoramic Interests is bullish on modular construction but I didn’t realize that Holliday Development is in on it as well!
Rick Holliday has started his own modular company called Factory OS over on Mare Island.
These BMR units are needed. Why don’t we build bigger structures than this? With all the talk about affordable housing …
Why are they needed? Why do entry level low pay workers get to cut in front of more skilled middle class workers? From what principle does “the right to live in San Francisco” originate?
Sabbie, please do tell us what you think the income levels are for your conception of “entry level low pay workers” who are going to “cut in front” of more skilled middle class workers. I’m willing to go out on a limb and predict that whatever you have in your head is going to be much lower than the household income of people who end up living in these units.
It varies by unit but it doesn’t really matter. The City says Area Median Income is $80k for one person, so some fraction of that. The cheapest studio in that area is about $450k. Someone making $80k would only qualify for about $400k, at around $100k you could probably qualify for $450k. So basically, everyone making between around $70k to $100k gets screwed by the City. Because if the conventional wisdom is true, then an increased supply of studios and a stable demand should result in lower prices for these buyers. But instead the units are handed out to people with less education, experience, skills, motivation, and/or luck than this group. And also to lots of people who are gaming the system. I’ve asked why that is justified multiple times but I only get crickets.
When I was in my 20s and 30s I never expected to be able to afford my own studio in a nice part of San Francisco. I bunked up with roommates like most other people my age, in the outer neighborhoods no less, while other friends chose to commute from nearby cheaper cities. I always figured owning a property in a nice part of SF was something for really successful people. Not sure why people today feel so much more entitled to their very own studio in South Beach than we did.