tv [untitled] July 18, 2014 12:00am-12:31am PDT
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what a little bit there is we have to hang onto it. if you actually get it for the voters and whoever needs to decide there is going to be a 30 percent build and not allow the developers to go, well let us build this project here and then that 30 percent will work on another site somewhere. the potential sites for that percentage is now, is disappearing. they are building over the sites that would be available. we have to stop that. thank you. >> hi. good afternoon supervisors. my name is robert marquez. i work in district 5
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and 6. i had a lower rent apartment. like the gentleman who spoke, i too although i have been involved in conversation. i too worry about my future in my city, if the rug gets pulled out from me. what's going to happen next. i appreciate your work on the balancing act and all the shareholders who put this together. i can remember in january 2011 mayor lee went to at twitter and walked out, as part of the negotiation, they are not going anywhere. if the supervisors get behind this housing act, it's a statement on their part on behalf of the middle income and lower income people of this community that you are not going any without us trying to do something about it first. >> thank you.
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>> i'm all about san francisco. i came here 35 years ago and i raised my son here. the beauty of san francisco, excuse me are it's people. we need this for our city. that's who we are. people want to live there, we invest in people. that's what you tell them. we invest in our people. you are going to build here an be here. we are a community. and we want our cultural and economic diversity and that's the only way we keep our health and preserve our humanity. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> before this hearing i was
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with planning where they approved another tower of luxury condos. the city has created monsters called area plans. there is an area plan for eastern neighborhoods which is a monster area. those are driving right now. there is displacement of a lot of jobs and ultimately are creating the demand for $2 million to $10 million condos. a lot of them are based on, everyone of them is based on the analysis of who is the population of the city, land use and land use and the exemption here for the one that i just came from. the city use a model of who could afford to live here based on sticks that -- statistics
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that are really ancient. they are 10 and 15 years old. there is a real request to me about whether they are valid in 2014 and will be valid in 2015. planning department has also taken that next step that invalid dates the neighborhood calls the central corridor plan. ultimately the board of supervisors is responsible because every time you approve one of these area plans that is based on rotten data of who can afford to live in this city and rezone the area, massive areas for high intensity housing that is all upper end. not all, but, 90 percent is upper end. who can live in this city? >> i have never been a higher
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end person. i'm on the lower end of the chart even though i'm an attorney. i represent lower income people. i worked with them for 40 years in this city. it's hard for me to face planning studies that have no connection with reality and they are churning and churning high end housing and there is hell to pay for all of us. so pass this legislation, but if you think this is all we need, you are diluting yourself. there is a lot more than this and we don't need a bond measure in fantasy land. we need to rain in this housing measure. >> thank you. >> hi. my name is william.
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i'm asking for more affordable housing and i want to stay in this city. my parents work hard to pay rent. thank you. [ spanish speaker ] >> hi. my name is lil lean a. we need more affordable housing for our children. i really love this city. thank you for your time. >> thank you for coming to speak. >> thank you. are there anymore speakers on this item. please do come. >> thank you very much. i just came here. my name is betty trainer and board president of senior and disability action. i'm here representing our board and organization to say
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that we completely support supervisor kim's ballot initiative for the 30 percent affordable. the reason i'm late is i just walked up from my friends park in the tenderloin. i was walking through the neighborhood where of course there are poor lived and talk about the need of affordable housing it's not necessary to talk about that need. it's a minimum to have that 30 percent affordable and required in the city. we need more than that. i want to ensure that is spoken about a number of people. we support this legislation as it is. we don't want to see any compromises. thank you. >> thank you, mr. trainer. supervisor delhi, thank you for being here today. >> thank you supervisor. my name is chris bailey. while we are in the mixed of the worst
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affordability crisis probably since the gold rush in san francisco. housing was also the most pressing issue since my time here last decade from the time i walked in or stormed out that day. i wanted to come here to personally thank supervisor kim, supervisor kim's office, for your work to take the fight to build affordable housing and protect everyday san franciscans to the next level. over the course of ten 10 years here in city hall, my office and the greater community worked on affordable housing every single day. a good step was inclusionary affordable housing initially by supervisors leno and max's office. it was not enough. we pushed the limited on
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affordability too rincon hill. that was not enough. we pushed two affordable housing bonds, two transportation tax. we passed one of the four. it was not enough. we brought up the idea of housing trust fund. we failed. it was passed two 2 years ago with the support of ed lee. now the housing cost is over $2 million if it's near a good google shuttle stop. it's time to give to those who are not millionaires to get a chance in this committee. that's why i call on this committee, the board of supervisors and to support supervisor kim's measure. thank you. >> thank you supervisor. are there any other speakers for
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public comment on this item? actually i already called your name. sorry. i couldn't be here earlier. i'm a resident of district 5. i'm here tonight because i really wanted to come after work. i apologize for being late. i come to you as a mother whose raised my three children in san francisco and my youngest daughter who graduated college, she has no hope finding an apartment in this city. she is still at home with me. she wants to work. we need affordable housing for people who have jobs but don't have exorbitant salaries. i'm in very strong support of this. it's going to be hard to catch up that we are so far behind. i'm urging your support. thank you.
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>> thank you, ms. bryant. is there any other public comment on this item? seeing none, mr. chairman, may we close public comment? >> public comment is now closed. i have been instructed to have somebody make a motion as supervisor campos for the remainder of the movement. can i get a motion? >> i so move. >> supervisor kim and supervisor breed. supervisor breed? >>supervisor london breed: thank you. i wanted to be a part of this hearing because housing is important to me here in san francisco. i grew up here in public housing and when i graduated from college i came home and there was no
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housing in the 90s. there was an application process for fousing and many who did not get access for housing. it was a process to deal with the lottery system places built next to me right across the street and many of us couldn't have access to the housing. more specifically i remember when they were tearing down the public housing development that i grew up in . my grandmother was stressed i was stressed, we didn't know where we were going to go. it was a frustrating process. at that time my friends, they were leaving and moving to antioch. redevelopment agency was building and building. we were applying and applying but we weren't really getting into those units. i guess in trying to understand what to do as a
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supervisor i look at what's in the housing pool and it's my desire to not only preserve housing in my district, about us to help with the existing affordable housing within my district. in the past and city and the redevelopment agency have not stepped up to the plate to support the rehabilitation of public housing, the rehabilitation of hud units and this is my push as supervisor so people are not living in dilapidated conditions. just the day before yesterday i was one of the public housing developments where there is a huge infestation of rats. where there is construction going on across the street and now there is a real public health issue. public health comes out and public housing? no. it's not just public housing. public housing is an important part of the city's housing stock, as much as i'm
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excited and want us to build new, i don't have hope that my folks who grow up in this city will get access to that. that people who live outside in the concrete everyday in the cold that they are going to get access to these units and that's my frustration. we talk about build more and if we have more, then those focus -- folks will get housing and we build housing with so many parts of san francisco and many of the people are still struggling or leaving the city. i'm trying to understand and i know this is not one size fits all. we can't do one thing to revolve this particular issue, but i want to see something that helps to address the fact that when we build and we build 30 percent versus 70 percent, we have say 100 units available. you all apply, there is going to be thousands of other people
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applying. how many people who are regular san franciscans with kids graduating from college or people sleeping on the streets or focus who -- folks who are homeless, how many are actually getting this housing. i know this measure isn't about that, i just want to make that point because i know many of us on the board of supervisors and probably many of you who grew up in the city think about everyday. so this is not just housing problem in san francisco in a small geographic area of less than a million people in terms of population, this is what it is in terms fof a crisis, yes, a crisis that isn't new. but how are we going to figure out a way to deal with it to help the people that we all want to help, right? i'm a little
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concerned that, development is not as important as the money that comes from that development. the dollars that come from the development is the money i need to pay for housing, to pay for affordable housing in my direct. i'm very concerned that this could potentially slowdown those development dollars. what i'm trying to understand because supervisor kim, we've had conversations about this and i still don't understand that. i still don't understand if there is housing balance what it actually looks like in terms of increasing the dollars necessary to maintain the balance, increasing the dollars necessary to keep it as a certain percent, so i can get the money i need to do the rehabilitation work that i
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need to do. i'm concerned that there could be, you know, an effect that a negative effect that we can't bond and have the necessary dollars to do the work that we've been able to do in my district in particular and we need to look at this from a citywide perspective and no other district has to deal with the agency in a lot of the mistakes in the housing development that we are dealing with. hud owns many of the properties; some of them in co-op and some in violence # -- violation and we need to make sure we don't lose that in our affordable housing stock. i hope that you can talk a little bit more
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about how maintaining this balance won't create a problem for revenue we intent to use to not only build new affordable housing but existing affordable housing units. i just have to say something. i saw some of the comments that came out when introducing this legislation that this was going to halt all development. i have to say if building 0 percent of new housing for 60 percent of our residenting is going to halt development, we are in a lot of trouble. that is a whole lot more trouble than the statement of itself. we have to build. this is not a choice. san franciscans are leaving everyday, families, seniors and folks that make money are leaving san francisco everyday. this legislation makes no attempt to stop development, this is
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not a prohibition on new development. we nearly say that we need to hold ourselves accountable. this is 1 piece of legislation reform. we don't think that legislation alone will build the housing we need. with that said, saying that we want to build fousing affordable housing is great. we have to hold ourselves accountable to it. this issen insuring accountability and this is our commitment and promise. when we don't meet this, we want to be part of the process to talk to the planning commission and the planning commission can review affordability as a factor to approving new development. they might approve it. this just means this is another layer and another factor. we ask the phalanges -- planning commission again to review design an density and how
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residential development contributes to the neighborhood. we are saying now that planning commission should review affordability. how should this contribute to affordability in san francisco. that being said we also want to recognize that there needs to be a package of legislation that comes along with this. we need revenue and revenue has to come from new construction as well as the rehab of existing and also permanent acquisition. frankly new construction is very expensive and as important as it is for the pipeline we need to understand that we need to take the speculative off the market and any revenue that comes in will go to three different pots. permanent acquisition and whether existing housing and affordable housing and finally new construction which comes from our inclusionary housing
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policy. i don't think this will stop any development, but i do believe that the planning commission should be reviewing afford anlt. the -- affordability. the last thing i will say that sometimes we get pit against one another because there are limited dollars. i think it's so important that we unite to make sure we are covering all the income categories and also affordable housing that we want to preserve in the city of san francisco. i hope to work with your offices and supervisor to ensure that we are not in conflict and we are fighting for a larger piece of the pie and not fighting for the crumbs of the pie. that's not going to work for san francisco. that's not going to make this a better city for our residents. i just want to thank all the folks that came out today. it's been amazing to hear from so many of you
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and hearing the personal stories in and of itself is not just a statistic. we want to see this in san francisco. i want to thank a lot of folks involved in the drafting for your legislation, south of market community action network and the soma civic advisory committee. which you >>president david costco and so many advocates. i want to recognize that this legislation came out as one of the top three legislation out of the tennants convention out of the tenderloin elementary school over 700 tennants came out in the pouring rain to
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fight for this legislation. this is just a piece of this conversation. this is a dialogue about how we are going to create stabilization along with creating tools that hold us accountable to those that we supposedly believe in. i wanted to thank everyone for their work on this and thank you chair yee for chairing a very long rules committee. >> i'm getting used to it. you know when i was asked to sign as a cosponsor, never did i think that this particular initiative was the answer to every problem that we have on housing. i always felt like this was part of a solution. it was a part of statement, a value that we want to, i want to support to say that we
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need more affordable housing and that also there has been speakers that have come up and noted that we need funding. was it mr. valentino. that we really need to get behind on measure in the future to help pay for some of the cost that supervisor breed is talking about. it's one of these issues where you put out a remark for a statement and there is push pack to say well, if you do that, it's going to have an effect and the effect is we are not going to build anymore in san francisco. it's one of these things of where is the scientific proof of that. in
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san francisco, in my life, because of the value of what you get for new building if these condos being sold in other areas of california, the cost of building them cannot be that expensive if they are selling $150,000 for two bedrooms. the cost of building it cannot be that high. so people when they said they can't pencil out the amount of money that they need to make from this, and when they are selling $2 million condos, it's hard for me to believe it. i would like to see the math on that. i believe if the developer that doesn't want to , if $2 million profit is not enough, then somebody else
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will come in. i'm sure that while i will just make a million dollar profit. i'm behind this because i know this is only part of a solution. i want to continue this discussion for the other pieces that we need to deal with affordable housing and i have already expressed my interest that the subset of affordable housing for me doesn't include everybody but what i would like to focus on is how do we keep our families in san francisco. with that, supervisor breed? >>supervisor london breed: i wanted to add, one concern that i have too that i was hoping we get addressed because we do have lottery system. you don't have to be a san franciscans. you can be anywhere and apply for the affordable housing pool. that's just the reality. i can't say supervisor yee's
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daughter would be able to move back to san francisco because we introduced this legislation. that is where i'm the most frustrated is, okay, yes. it's great, housing balance, housing initiative, build more, the building more is not putting folks in affordable housing. that's where i think we need to figure out better legislation in order to address that particular issue. i mean, one of the things that i brought up in the past and looked into the legalities of is a right to return. people that lived and grew up and went to high school in san francisco and really families were forced out of san francisco who now live in antioch and va vallejo and the bay area because they can't afford to live in san francisco. that is a frustration of mine because
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we have for many years even when we had development in this city, we build large numbers of affordable housing and i guess, where are the guarantees that the folks sleeping on the streets, where are the guarantees the folks graduating from college and where i can look at my community any eye where i can't help them find a place. where are the guarantees when there aren't any. at the end of the day, we are not going to change anything significantly enough to make a difference in what's happening with our homeless population in san francisco and what's happening with the ability to tell the next generation that they too can stay in san francisco and afford to live
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here. i just wanted to put that out there because i'm concerned about that which is why i'm looking into preservation. some of the units, public housing units, there is vacate -- vacant units from 5-8 years. the best opportunity to ensure that those who live in the san francisco neighborhood have access to real affordable housing. i'm not saying this is again, the only solution or either or or what have you. i just want to make a point that this is why preservation of existing affordable housing units is important for me because there should be an opportunity for someone to buy into the co-op. i try to buy in it. how do we help those that are part of san francisco get access to this. this is an
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important part of what i want to see happen and again, i want to express the importance of preservation which is my focusian as supervisor. >> i would like to work with your office to create some legislations around some of the points that you are making. supervisor kim? >> thank you. i will just say a couple of things. we've never built enough affordable housing that's why our lottery list is heartbreakingly long. i can't tell you how many lines i have observed and seen so many housing application and seen a thousand people lining up for 40 slots, 80 slots. if we don't build any affordable housing at all,
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