tv Government Access Programming SFGTV March 15, 2019 11:00pm-12:00am PDT
11:00 pm
>> hello. i'm originally from san josé, california. i came here because there was an opportunity and it was non-bias and somewhere where i didn't have to be in a gang or constricted unsafe environment where i had been and it was traumatizing left and right and i still deal with complex posttraumatic and san francisco welcomed me with love and ha happy moments i'm able to experience here and a can't stay. i'm currently homeless and a full-time student at mission inn cloud. i work with peer-to-peer counselling and other survivors of trauma and helping them find opportunity where we don't have in the non-rich areas. i would lucky enough to be able to rent a place temporarily in
11:01 pm
the avenues and didn't realize how much we are segregated and how much we are not given the chance to have healthy environments. i want safety. i want to be here with my children one day, if i ever have them and to be able to say it's safe. put me in a place if you don't approve this bill, that puts me me in a place where i don't have to choose to eat or be in a safe place because that's what i go through. i'm not on drugs. i'm part of the community as much as i'm allowed to be but i feel i am an outsider as much as the reason why i moved here. i felt like i was loved. it doesn't feel that way at all. i vote yes and asking you guys to have compassion and remember what community is about.
11:02 pm
we want to be integrated and that's what we're fighting for. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> >> hi, i'm opposed to sb50. i'm a full-time photographer and bartend earned have been a renter in san francisco the past 15 years. the real question is not how long we've been here but how long your future is here. i don't see it possible for vast majority of residents. most my friends and colleagues live constant fear of being evicted. we learn to live without basic necessities to not bother the landlords. we pass rent controlled rooms to
11:03 pm
one another but they're becoming more scarce and when they're not available we have to leave the city so create a way for all who love and create to the diversity of the city to live their lives here. thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is susan marsh. whatever your opinion about the relation between luxury development and displacement it will well known with what can prevent displacement and all those crying out about their real needs for housing is not luxury housing. it is affordable housing at various levels. in particular, in light of the certain obscenely reference to homeless here that have been made here and i've worked on the issue many years, the only thing
11:04 pm
that can help the homeless escape the horrors of homelessness is deeply affordable housing and this bill creates a situation that would create provisions that would strongly incentivize developments with at the most 25% affordability at any level and this is before the potential applicability of the density. this is not a solution to any of that. number two, this is for a variety of reasons, this is also not truly a green bill. in fact, act l.a. has come out against it or severely critiqued it. among other reasons, why? it hasn't been amended to allow developers around transit notes in a way that would aprovide
11:05 pm
less less housing for those who are transit dependent and have to take transit. how is this green? it is not for obvious reasons if you think bit a little bit -- about it a little bit and the political will is often lacking and without bureaucratic cooperation there is no -- there no tenant protections. the provisions of this bill will not protect tenant. >> commissioner: thank you. next speaker, please. >> rick hall, cultural action network, mission based. i'm picturing this chamber after sb50. there'll be no people to comment on anything. there'll be no commissioners to make decisions.
11:06 pm
this chamber when it's used for creating zoning will be one developer at a time coming in, setting his own zoning and leaving. this is a terrible bill. it's a massive wealth transfer from public to private interests. when we upzoned central soma we captured over $2 billion in public benefit. ratio that to the statewide upzoning this bill creates and you'll have some estimate of the hundreds of billions of dollars that this bill gives away. this bill must be opposed. as a social justice worker, i call out the lies of this bill about being a gentler version. it's a massive gentrification bill. all the people go oh, yes, we
11:07 pm
need affordable housing. we do. this bill does not incentivize affordable housing. build more affordable housing. any way, the los angeles democratic party has come out and opposed sb50. i'm told there was widespread -- that was unanimous. i'm told there was widespread unhappiness within the party debate and with weiner's reliance on trickle-down housing economics. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please.
11:08 pm
>> thank you for soliciting comment. i'm opposed to this legislation and hope you will see and have heard all of our voices. >> commissioner: can you please speak into the mic. >> i didn't have prepared remarks. my colleagues and such have given you all the stats. i want to say i find this entire charade of a bill to be vastly insulting. it's hurtful, it endangers a vast number of people. i'm here for the silent majority. seniors and people with disabilities not really taking into consideration.
11:09 pm
i did print out before i came from last week from the other day the state legislative council digest which supposedly will give us a sense of the intent or a short synopsis but it's eyeball popping really. the first thing that was struck in the first line housing development incentive and they struck out equitable communities incentives. u c
11:10 pm
>> we have a right of dignified housing and this removes that for all san franciscans. >> thank you, very much. next speaker, please. >> we have grave concerns about sb50 because it proposes to upzone nearly the entire city without counter veiling protection or vast array of historic buildings or neighborhood. san francisco was not built in a day. the city is what it is because of the beauty of our historic buildings and neighborhoods. sb50 fails to realizes it change the nature of our city and other cities. local jurisdictions must be able to limit to not including any building landmarked or eligible for historic designation. as you know, senator mark
11:11 pm
mcgwire has introduced introduc. we ask you commission a similar hearing to compare how it achieve the goals of sb50 while limiting its impact on historic resources. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is serena garbal a long time member of golden gate association and have lived in san francisco since the '50s but i don't admit it. i speak from the perspective of great age and i speak for those who came before me and those who will come after. those who built the glorious
11:12 pm
victorians and edwardians and we their heirs have a debt to honor and protect what we received in trust to pass on to those that will come after us. a beautiful city built to a scale that permitses backyard gardens, that clean our air while calming our psyches. and buildings that make it possible to share rather than block the views of our bay and bridges. almost every san francisco neighborhood features architecture unique to its history and landscape. once there were battles against the manhattanization and now we must battle from turning it into queens. there are more renters.
11:13 pm
the peninsula that is san francisco will never have enough room for every soul who dreams of residing within its boundaries. income inequality and homelessness have national and international causes and must not and cannot be solved by destroying one's localities beauty and views and architecture. not only would that be a betrayal of trust to those who built this magical place but a dagger to the heart of the tourism in which the city thrives and the sale of every san franciscan's soul. thank you. >> there's nothing to speak in support of you guys are at an
11:14 pm
informational hearing. i'm support of this bill. it's one much the reasons i personally support it and senator wiener and san francisco is a place where one is a member of a family or household there's simply not enough of them. we need more homes for people to live. i am renting out too at my house in the haight-ashbury neighborhood and i have probably 25 people coming over this weekend to check it out because i was in a rent control unit so the price is actually pretty good and it's tough. it's tough tout there for people. -- tough out there for people. and the conferences is left or right or republican and in watching what's happened in the last couple weeks and reading with the navigation center meeting the other day and hearing people continuously talk about it, it's not as much as a left and right battle it's a
11:15 pm
generational battle. i feel i'm at the heart of that every single damn day. 74% of san franciscans support the bill. the majority of people who live in the city think it's a good idea. i know we sent a ton of e-mails and activated people and i know you heard from all those people. they have a difficult time in this somewhat democratic process of a thursday afternoon, can you take off work and ditch an hour to wait in line for 25 minutes to speak to a group of people that will not be voting on anything and we don't know what will happen and they look at us like we're crazy and they care and they vote and they do want to live here. but it's hard. definition of insanity we can't expect to do the same thing and expect a different result. people deserve a dignified living. >> commissioner: thank you, mr. smith.
11:16 pm
next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is sonya traus. i live in soma with my son and husband in a one-bedroom condos that we rent and we pay $3,100 a month for it and we're there indefinitely. there's three of us. when there's four of us we'll probably still be there. i'm for sb50 and i'm a renter. there's a lot of homeowners here today say they're speaking for renters. they don't speak for me. homeowners should speak for themselves and not other people. currently, what sb50 does is it enables a person to take a $2 million single-family home and turn it into six condos. so the people here against sb50 are defending $2 million homes. inscomplik
11:17 pm
inexplicably it's shown opponents and they thank it advances their argument. if in the cheapest neighborhoods in san francisco you have to pay $1 million for a single-family home it means single-family homes are luxury housing. if you are here defending single-family homes you're defending luxury housing. condo on the same piece of planned will be more affordable and allow more people to live on the land. that's what we want. we want people to come here and stay here. thank you very much. oh, i do agree with that the way they exclude tenant-protected is vague. so what i did was i wrote some language and sent it to scott weiner's office to make it more
11:18 pm
feasible and you can make it an official part of your opinion. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. one thing i've been hearing consistently is the desire for more affordable housing. seems to be a theme. the thing i haven't heard is that the planning commission's report explicitly says sb50 will result in more affordable housing in san francisco. ha ha wait, what? it says it will result in more affordable housing in san francisco. it seems it should be part of the conversation. the other thing that should be part of the conversation, i'm not here to change hearts and minds i know people are
11:19 pm
entreched on the issue but part of the issue should be is we have had conference of -- conversations about density equity and said some parts aren't doing their part and wealthy suburbs aren't doing their part. this bill, whether or not you like it or not, incentivizes more housing on the west side of san francisco and more housing in rich suburbs down the peninsula. so once again part of the conversation. we've heard that come up again and again. so it's another thing we should talk about. i think cory brought up 74% of san franciscans in a recent poll said they support sb50 and i think we need to at least consider what that means in the face of a hearing like this where it seems like 80% of people oppose it? i think it does speak to the democratic process we have in
11:20 pm
11:22 pm
11:23 pm
and i've read scott wiener's -- it's still not fully defined. i'm on the board of the community association. i'm not acting on behalf of them, because we haven't fully understood the impact. so if you're going to vote on this, i don't see how can vote on it. because it only came out december 3rd. you only did your report on the 14th. that went out to the public. and how can you decide to vote on something that is going to have a massive impact on san francisco only given in the last week? i don't see how you can vote on this. one way or another. so i need to give as much neighborhood outreach to my neighborhood about this and i need more information from you as to the social impacts this bill has. this has pretty drastic social
11:24 pm
impacts. if am a sensitive, in the bill, it states that the sensitive communities, those will not exist when the developer goes in there and gives a whole load of money to somebody. they're going to leave. there won't be a 5-year program, because the program is going to be soft once they give money. i would like this see more -- to see more from your commission and hopefully, it's not going to be a redevelopment. there is one thing that happened in this room here. everybody wants affordable housing. the second thing is that -- [bell ringing] people are against this bill. there is more people against the bill than for the bill. why? because it's not the answer. a bill out of the state that is for l.a. and for san francisco is not the answer for san francisco. how can you -- >> thank you, ma'am, your time
11:25 pm
is up. >> president melgar: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> speaker: my name is eduardo. i live in san francisco for a number of years. and i want to say there is one thing everyone in this room agrees and that is that housing costs are off the charts and this is unsustainable. what we disagree is how the fix the problem. i am for sb50 because i believe you cannot fix a supply and demand problem by making it difficult to build the housing supply. affordability comes from higher supply. this bill is what we need. thank you. >> any remaining public comment? going once, twice. any remaining public comment? seeing none, public comment is
11:26 pm
closed. commissioners? >> i didn't want to push the button. but nobody else did. >> commissioner richards: i have seven pages of notes. i'm going to break up my comments because i don't want to take the next two hours. let me start off by doing a little bit of my -- where my head is on this. the person who said that we created donald trump is absolutely offensive to me. i have to say that and go on record. we, the coastal cities, that are taking all the wealth created donald trump. after the great -- after the dot com bust in 2001, there were
11:27 pm
counties that got their share of the wealth. after the great recession of 2008 and 09, there were only 25 cities that got all the growth and wealth. that's in the "new york times". so we as a city in this winner-take-all growth machine have treated donald trump. -- created donald trump. i go around the u.s. they resent us for this. why don't we share some of the wealth? why do you need to locate another goddamn campus in men lowe park where it's really expensive? this is the kind of comments i hear from trump supporters. so we in san francisco, by allowing the growth machine to keep going, are creating the donald trump supporters in the roast of the u.s. -- rest of the u.s., i'm convinced of that. talk to a congressman who shares this opinion, has been around the u.s., been to west virginia and wrote "l.a. times" op-ed pieces on it. he said this is not sustainable
11:28 pm
as nation to have all the wealth go to the coasts. we have to share the wealth and we need to start doing it now. densification is part of the solution. absolutely. we can't move forward without densification. we sit up here, talk about density and no sham units. no sham units when we peel away all the bills that are coming, a b68, 69, 330. what the hell is the point of creating a 5,000 square foot house that nobody is ever going to rent? if i have that kind of money to buy a house in the valley, i'm not going to put up with the vagaries of having to rent, collect the money. so let's get real about the kind of units we're creating and whether they'll be rented out. i'm concerned about climate change. absolutely.
11:29 pm
you know, we are efficient in the city using water, probably most efficient in the state, i think our carbon footprint has gone up because we have people that own autos and use uber and lyft, like myself. i'll stand up here and say that first. if we populate with people who going to use cars and still use über and lyft, what kind of reduction of carbon footprint do we have? i think senator wiener has put things this place he acknowledges were lacking in 827. i want to say that i applaud that. someone mentioned sb4. i read it. it's a lot easier read. it's a lot easier to digest. i would like this look at that because these are the two bills prominent in terms of densification and impact to the
11:30 pm
city. comment. the cost of compact, protect, preserve and produce. i made a comment last week, if the legislators in sacramento really wanted to do reform, they would pass the reform. senator wiener, the last line of his interview said we have to deal with ellis act reform. creating exceptions in production bills for tenants to try to discourage people buying units that were occupied by tenants and having them wait seven years, there is a partial weight to this. it does. but without tenant protections and maybe expanding hawkins, even though it fell miserably at the polls because the campaign run was so awful, i don't think it's anything that one of our
11:31 pm
legislators should hide behind. that would show true leadership. we have an affordability crisis in the city. we all agree with it. the question was asked if san francisco voters, do you support transit by your development? and 74% said yes, as a concept, it's great. it was done with the chamber of commerce. it was the survey. i got the pamphlet on it and read all of it. interestingly enough, i said this before in this room, i had a nice interaction with a person over in west portal who worked at the tech company i used to work at. when we shook hands at the shrimp cocktail table, she found out i was on the planning commission and she said, we need more housing, more housing by transit. i told you this before, i said, where do you live? she said across the street. we were two blocks from the big tube. i said, do you realize there is
11:32 pm
a bill sb50, i'm going to buy your lot, the lot next to you and the five lots and ask for concessions, incentives and waivers. then i'm going to drop this on your block. how do you feel? oh, no, not on my block! so the concept of housing near transit and then the reality of what it looks like are two different things. going on record as saying that. moving onto the hearing after i got all that off my chest. this is an informational hearing. i really hope that we'll have another informational hearing on this and sb4. i know that the staff is working on analyzing some other of the potential laws and i know it's a lot of work, but i'll be honest with you, when somebody said that these life-changing bills don't get analyzed until the responsible party, the attorney general, after they're enacted,
11:33 pm
that's pretty screwed up. isn't that screwed up? i'm exasperated. we have a hearing here in san francisco, that to my knowledge is the only hearing where we have impact analysis and we're able to walk through it. that goes to what was said about the democratic process. i distrust the process in sacramento. this is not the way to ring huge changes in our daily lives. it's just not. it needs to change. in the report, it says mayor breed supports -- i'll read it -- mayor london breed has voiced support for sb50 telling a local news station, "san francisco runs the entire bay area needs to create more housing if we're going to address out-of-control housing costs. the mayor has stated she will work with senator wiener to
11:34 pm
create more housing opportunities near transit while maintaining strong renter protections and demolition restrictions. we're focusing on empty lots and underutilized. this bill is not that. this is the bill that affects many more parcels. probably the 30,000 that the ahpb originally affected. i'd like this understand. we did this for aphb. number of parcels. how many are built before 1979? really understand and we parsed it up with aphb and we have a lot of this somewhere. we could continue the analysis i think we might need with what we did over here. but what mayor breed supports on record is not what we're reviewing here today. i really want the board -- i would like for us, through the chair, the president, who is not here, but the officers to be
11:35 pm
able to identify things we like about the bill, and things we're concerned about, as well as sb4 and i understand chair peskin has expressed a desire to hold a public hearing and take a vote at the board of supervisors. i would hope that we could send recommendations to the board on what we like and what we think should be changed on this. i think the carpet bombing of bills we've seen since the governors legislation in 2016 is actually creating a mess. honestly, there is no parity or standards. bills conflict with each other. bills say they're not -- we have demolition controls, but if you put the housing accountability act in play, which we covered here, demolition controls mean absolutely nothing. so i have a deep distrust of this process that our assembly
11:36 pm
folks are going through. because it's a confusing mess. it's a ball of spaghetti, a hair ball, and it's up to us to figure it out before we get it enacted. there is no public process. i think senator wiener should hold a public hearing on this across the state and get input from all kinds of communities, developers, bankers, real estate agents, all the way down to a homeless person who wants to express their need for affordable housing. i think if the state wants to create a state planning code, which it looks like it's trying to do with this house of cards, all these bills, then do it thoughtfully. you know, if state wins the huntington beach lawsuit and charter cities are not exempt from statewide concern, let's wipe all the bills out and create something that makes sense. this is like you continue to
11:37 pm
patch your roof and patch it and patch it and it keeps leaking somewhere. let's rip the roof off and start over. question i have, we had up-zoning here in san francisco in eastern neighborhoods markets, we did a plan eir. why is there no eir here? we have no idea of the impact of this bill nor any idea environmentally what it's going to do. if indeed this is going to reduce the carbon footprint, let's get it out on the table so we have facts here. if it's going to require additional water usage or diversion from some other source, let's get it out there and talk about the things that with going to cost, but the benefits we're truly going to get. i think environmental analysis is needed. we have pipeline. we have 70,000 units yet to be
11:38 pm
built. we know that costs are an issue on a lot of the 70,000. some are going to be rolled out over 10-20 years, so they're not shovel-ready. but i drove down tara bell street and looked at all those squat buildings with no residential above it and i wondered why doesn't anybody want to develop those? there has to be a reason. are we going to -- we need people to do this stuff. i think one of the questions is, with this bill, what will the zone capacity actually end up being? i know they came up with a tripling of the number of units in palo alto. i don't know why we can't do that with the program and the numbers we already put forward
11:39 pm
on the potential numbers of units. i think we owe it to the citizens of the city to understand what that is going to look like. are we going to be city of 2 million. 2.5? i think that needs to get out. moving on, what do we give away versus what with eget in this -- we get in this? we heard about 10 units and under. i guess when we did the affordable housing, we did financial analysis and showed what is existing -- if the existing conditions -- there is no incentive to build. it was like they broke even or lost a little bit of money. but we analyzed different scenarios and came up with 20-something percent return on the projects. these are the kind of things, i believe, if you pump these up with nine units, take the density bonus, if you can come
11:40 pm
up with a real interesting amount of giveaway, to that and i think what we need to do then after you look at the inclusionary -- because if we're truly creating a big wealth transfer for a person to build nine units, maybe we need an inclusionary below nine units. i own a house, it's a single-family house on a 25 by 100 lot. and it's worth $3 million. if this is going to be give me a $6 million windfall, well shouldn't i give something back to the city? it makes sense. not only market rate, but you know, value recaptured here. i don't know what that is. one of the the interesting things is, what this looks like is a repackaging of sb35, but there is additional incentives on it. sb35 streamlining, required 50%
11:41 pm
affordable. here we are giving more away and we're actually asking for less. i'd like to see the economics of why we're only asking for 15-25%. if in sb35 we asked for 50 and gave less, what changed? that law is only two years old? i think that's a big one. if we're getting 15-25% and the study says we need to produce 3 to 3.7, this bill is only making the situation worse, because we're creating the need for bmr units, more than we're creating. how do we fill the gap? one speaker said, maybe we have funding to fill the gap or create additional incentives to produce more than 3.7, at least in san francisco.
11:42 pm
we can produce 50%. i'm all for incentives that drive to the conclusion we want. i just bring that up. housing accountability act is going to be invoked here. let's face it. we've had several projects up here. we know the deal. we've been threatened even with taking a bedroom, three bedrooms off three units very recently. they were going to invoke the housing accountability act and say we're making the project unfeasible. i want to understand what makes a project infeasible. what is the developer's fair return? none of this is defined. if there was a standard process that said, if you take the bedroom off, if you invoke the density bonus, what is the unit worth with the bedroom gone?
11:43 pm
versus the fair return of developer? i think this stuff needs to be defined. if it seems like it's nebulous and the developer seems to have an advantage on calling the shots on what is profitable and what is not. i think there needs to be an established process. i'm going to stop now. i have more, but i'll let other commissioners speak. >> commissioner hillis: thank you, all, for testifying. those who came and those who sent e-mails to us. it's been an interesting process. i'm sure all over the bay area, people are having similar hearings like this. i've been following in palo alto, this one, this issue of neighborhood character comes up and how do we preserve neighborhood character, even in the communities that are not similar to ours. even neighborhoods here in san francisco that are not similar.
11:44 pm
i certainly like the character of my neighborhoods, but i think one thing that is defining the character of most bay area communities, they're becoming less and less affordable. you know, this missing middle is happening everywhere. housing prices are going up astronomically. and those of us, you know, who moved here can't afford to live here anymore. if we were to move here today, we worry about our children. we heard that. being able to live here. we worry about our neighbors, friends and colleagues who can no longer afford to live here and moved out of the city or the bay area. because it's a regional issue. i applaud senator wiener for taking this on and putting something forward that is drastic and affects the entire bay area community, because i think we need to do something big. we have a huge housing crisis. we have a huge affordability crisis. we hear it week in, week out.
11:45 pm
we do not have a huge single-family home crisis. we don't hear that. but we do they're that it's expensive to live here, we can't find housing. it showed kind of how woe fully inadequate we're building housing in the region. in the 50s, 60s, 70s, the bay area grew by 300,000 plus units, almost 400,000 a year. this last decade, one of the lowest on record. we only built 180,000. the lowest was the decade before and the decade before that. so we're building too few units of housing. we're building too few units of affordable housing, yes, too few units of housing throughout the bay area and we've got to do something. is it the only solution? no. we've got a preserve.
11:46 pm
as commissioner richard said, housing, i'm supportive of rent control. we should tax people more. eliminate the ellis act. nobody mentioned prop 13 and the willingness to give up the prop 13 tax benefits to pay for affordable housing or a parcel tax, but that's what it's going to mean to build affordable housing. currently, you can't build affordable housing in rh-1, rh-2, so the affordable housing is going into the areas already up-zoned. people said sb50 is dramatic. it isn't. it's the housing we had on the books 30 years ago. i live in the north of pan handle, western addition, if you want to envision a neighborhood post sb50, it would look similar to castro, where we have a mixed bag of housing types.
11:47 pm
i live next to a 10-unit building. on the other side, two-unit. there is single-family home across the street. that is with zoning that used to be greater than it was today. rh 3 currently. so, i'm supportive of sb50. do we have questions? yes, there are definitely questions to answer and i hope the questions get answered as we go forward. applaud supervisor wiener for the changes he made to expand the geography. doesn't necessarily expand it in san francisco, but it expands it in areas of the region where it wasn't getting into, so down the peninsula. in more suburban areas of the east bay. so i applaud that. and i think that is a huge positive step. it also doesn't apply to
11:48 pm
buildings that have been under rent control or under rental. people have asked, how do we figure that out? we're smart enough to figure out that you can ask the developer or the property owner to prove it. people have taxes. they've claimed rental income, or they haven't. or a deduction. so i don't think we should throw this out, but make sure that we understand who is renting units and how we protect those units that are rented. those the are questions i have. jobs rich to make sure this is expanded beyond what 827 was. the protection for units that have been rented. how our inclusionary percentage works? the state density, should it work in conjunction with sb50? but i applaud this measure. it's the kind of drastic measure
11:49 pm
11:50 pm
out and shared your stories on all sides. i think we're all so heated because we're living every single day the experience of the pressure of living in san francisco. the pressure of living in san francisco is really trying to figure out together what we want our future to be. you know, as a renter, every single day when i go home, i think it could be my last day in my apartment. it will just take one notice for my landlord for my ability to live in the city to go away. in fact, as many people have said today, i have lost so many friends, both fourth generation san franciscans and folks who just came a couple of years ago. elderly and millennial due to the housing crisis we have. and we do have a housing crisis and we have that at all levels.
11:51 pm
i think, as has been said, nobody can deny that what we're doing right now isn't working. i think san francisco has done much better than many of our neighbors. and we should be, you know, applauded for that. and we haven't done enough. so i actually find sb50 pretty intriguing. i do -- i am excited about some of the amendments that have been made, although i do have serious concerns and questions. i want to echo that i think san francisco and cities like us can't continue to shoulder the burden. and connecting development to good jobs and good education is really important. i thought that it was really interesting, the idea of exempting rental units that have been rented for seven years.
11:52 pm
ellis act evictions that have happened in the last 15 years. the sensitive communities provision, i have a lot of questions and concerns and issues with it, but i think it's positive first step. and then you know, i think -- i know some language has been stricken, but the idea of inclusionary housing being included on site within parcels that are being built is important, because the city does need to have integration of housing at all income levels. so of course, my concerns. who defines sensitive communities? this has been brought up by so many today. that should be a community process. the devil is in the details, right? whether a five-year process is enough and where the resources are going to come from for that to be a truly community-led
11:53 pm
process. i think what we've heard today, our tenant protections aren't strong enough and we don't have the tools to make sure this doesn't have sweeping negative impact. for any legislators that are supporting sb50, i think there is a call immediately to start working on a rental registry. so that we can know where people are living, where people are renting and so we can have tools in place to truly protect them. i would also absolutely support some sort of vacancy tax that people don't sit on properties once we know what the properties are and what the activity is in them. i also agree, if we're not going to densify, then we absolutely need to use our taxes to pay for affordable housing. i also agree statewide
11:54 pm
protections need to go to protect all, not just san francisco. i was a little disappointed to see that this didn't incentivize density in the ways i hoped it would. and kind of tied inclusionary and densification together. so i'd like to see that be part of it. i think ultimately, we can't continue to talk about affordable housing when we have neighborhoods where it's impossible to build apartment buildings let alone affordable housing. i think this encourages us to have a more real conversation about the drastic changes that have to happen in the city if we are going to live our values and make sure that we have enough housing so that everyone can have an affordable place to live. >> thank you, commissioner koppel.
11:55 pm
>> commissioner koppel: thank you to everyone who came out today and sent in written comments. this is definitely an improvement from 827. there still is work to be done. i want to see the protections strengthened. a lot of you weren't here for the later hours of the thursday hearings and we see that tenants are being evicted due to renovations, alterations. and if these state laws are going to continue to control us, we're going to have even less control in protecting those innocent tenants. i'd like to see that addressed. i would like to see more worker protections. i'm going to reference a bill that actually went through and was implemented in san francisco already by chiu. it seems that labor is excluded
11:56 pm
from the conversations and they're often blamed later on for holding things up or killing bills when they weren't even invited to the table in the first place. ab73 has those protections in there. there is prevailing wage language, skill and training language. it's just the right thing do for this middle class. the middle class sees 20% displacement on a yearly basis. not just after one year, but com pile that 20% each year and the middle class is literally disappearing. the least we can do is build the housing. if we're not going to stay here, can we at least build it? i don't think that's too much to ask. i'd also like to see a use it or lose it clause in here. we don't just need to approve housing, we have to get it built. we have a specific person here in charge of housing delivery.
11:57 pm
and i think that would be a good tool for him to have to actually get the housing built, not just approved. >> president melgar: thank you. commissioner moore. >> commissioner moore: at this moment, i cannot be in support of sb50. there are many reasons. one is that the bill itself is in flux. there are changes coming in. we still do not have full understanding of what is intended or what is going to be changed. what strikes me first from the department's discussion is i look for a more clear definition of what means high-quality transit. i need a clearer definition what means job rich areas. if you want to apply those adjectives statewide, you need nuances that is a baseline that uses it equitably, otherwise you'll have apples and oranges and sliding scale of inequity.
11:58 pm
this is transit focused, but does not have plans for infrastructure or funding needed to accommodate growth. if we're looking at san francisco's transit for example, while many years ago it was leading the nation in transit, i think we've fallen so far behind, that it's basically hardly adequate to accommodate comfortable transportation as daily needs and deficiencies clearly show. so overlaying growth and expansion over the city seems to be ill defined, particularly it lacks insight on what is really going on here. there is not even a clear consulting with the city upon where the sensitive communities are and who they are.
11:59 pm
we're struggling with it every day. the build is far too generic who let us have our own voice in speaking to that subject matter. there is no protection for the -- there is no protection for historic buildings. no clear understanding of protection for historic districts. even if the mcguire bill would elevate that, i think it requires us to look at bills which layer goals together and bring something forward, which is not just fighting between bills, but comprehensive look at how we best guide the state of california into the future without throwing certain cities under the train. i would say that there is an intent of demolishing existing
12:00 am
housing and destruction of long established neighborhoods. i would call that process using some other speakers' words, nondemocratic. it's taking control and it is not based on public process. i am afraid to admit that i believe that this potentially is an modifying of the city and it may be indeed the end of the civic construct that we call city. it is regulation from the topdown with no ability to participate. no ability to shape our own future. unfortunately, i would have to agree with person speaking to the sun setting of chinatown where he identified, i would go as far as saying, the way we know san francisco, it may be
65 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on