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tv   Mayors Press Availability  SFGTV  September 16, 2023 8:30pm-9:01pm PDT

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>> >> >> what say a nice day to build housing in san francisco. good evening, everyone. i'm london breed where we are going to build over 500 units of housing. [cheers and applause] >> man, i don't think i have ever signed a piece of legislation supporting housing that has made me happier than the one i'm about to sign today.
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you know, president peskin, i want to take us back a tad bit because when you came back to the board of supervisors, the work that we did together by providing the opportunity for the board of supervisors to make legislative decisions instead of leaving it in the charter, understanding that it is so important that we do economic feasibility studies to ensure that the decisions that get made around our requirements for housing, don't impact our ability to build. we know a lot of things for housing are not within our control. the cost of materials and the economy and setting interest rates is a whole but there are things here locally that are within our control. i want to take this opportunity to really appreciate so many people who came together with the technical advisory
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committee, who worked day in and day out to ensure that we really dug deep, that we fulfill a process that we made to the people of san francisco. that when we make decisions about inclusionary numbers, if the economy changes in anyway, we will reevaluate those numbers to determine if they should be either raised or lowered, and we will not play politics with the needs to do everything we can to build more housing in san francisco. and today, fulfills such a promise. no, it is not everything we need to do to get to the 80,000 units that san francisco needs to build in order to fulfill our housing commitment for the element, but it's an incredible start. what does this mean? this means we have come together with stakeholders.
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i want to appreciate board president peskin and those in my office for the work and the various tac members did to get us to this point. i even said at this point when anne was in my office, what did you do for president peskin to get him to be so cooperative. i'm not used to this. i don't know what kind of magic she did or worked this committee in the way that she and president peskin did to make this happen, but what i appreciate most is it shows the power of collaboration. it shows what can happen for the greater good of our city when we are willing to come together and to negotiate and to compromise, and to do what is in the best interest of san francisco. so, what does this do? well, this unlocks thousands of units that are now possible because they can get the financing
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necessary to get these projects done. what does this do? it creates a number of various layers of commitments that we are making to not just wait years to make adjustments to inclusionary numbers, but to look at inflation, to have built in mechanisms to be sure that we don't wait around for policies to pass or change but able to move forward now with projects that are being approved and already been approved so we can unlock housing in san francisco, so that we can break ground and build more all over san francisco including downtown. what does that mean? it means we are building housing but we are creating jobs. so i want to really thank all of the various labor organizations from the plumbers to the
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carpenters, to the electricians, all people that are responsible for building housing in san francisco. more housing means more job opportunities and we want to make sure that we are building so much housing that we can barely find the workforce to do it. that is our goal, but more importantly, and i know, go ahead, clap labor. they are excited about that. [ applause ] but more importantly, affordability is a real challenge and we want to be sure that our san franciscans of various areas of labor and our bus drivers and workforce in san francisco and others and to those who are struggling to make ends meet. we want to make sure that we have as much housing as possible to ensure affordablity for
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different layers for jobs that exist all over san francisco. we have a lot of work to get there but this is our very very first step. we know that we have to do so much more. we have to be more aggressive than ever before if we are going to meet our goal. san francisco already has 50,000 units. do you know what that could mean for the city of san francisco? what that could mean for what is happening right now with new technologies that is emerging in every part of san francisco, and not just right now but pier 70 and dog pound and we are the leading company in the world
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here in san francisco and more to come. so we have to make sure that we are building the housing necessary to meet the needs, to meet the demand. that we are doing everything possible in this legislation that i am about to sign today is a significant step in the right direction. so i'm looking forward to breaking ground here in those 500 units as well as other parts of our city. let's get to financing, let's get the job going, let's make magic happen for the city and county of francisco. [ applause ] and before we sign the legislation, i want to take the opportunity because this doesn't just happen because we want it to happen. this happens because people come together and they do the hard work to make it happen. as i said, president of the board of supervisors, aaron peskin, ben rosen field, our
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controller, the director of the planning department, sarah phillips, oewp, and who worked her magic, conrad who was a part of this team as well from the city side. i want to thank all of the members of the tac who came together to fight it out on the inside and merged together on the outside, and i want to thank the consultants and want to thank the developers estrada, matthew, thank you for the work you do. jim morrison, with hines and erickson and fearless developers here. from 530 howard street. en enrique.
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carl from fisherman fiore. thank you so much. and we couldn't do this work without the incredible people whose hands build these units, the carpenters, thank you so much. [ applause ] and the building trades. and of course many of our housing advocates, jay natoli is here. thank you so much to cory from the housing action committee. it is a village. we won't stop, we can't stop now. first step in the right direction. and before we sign this legislation, i would like to introduce supervisor president of the board of supervisors aaron peskin. [ applause ] >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you, mayor breed. the mayor got it just right. this is government working at its best, collaboratively based
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on actual data and i have to say, the meetings that we've had over the period of months were actually very pleasant, they were not contentious, they were informed by experts. all of them i was going to thank, but the mayor has thanked each and every one of them. i will say that the office of economic and workforce development were splendid. i think we named him excel spreadsheet conrad. 22 years ago, san francisco was at the leading edge of creating affordable housing in new market rate development. that legislation was carried by my then colleague supervisor mark, who worked very closely with erickson and we created one of the first on-site inclusionary affordable housing laws in the united states of america that has been copied by cities all
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across the country. but it was never meant to be static. we enjoyed robust times and that ten percent initial number crept up to 15% and eventually 20%. but when times are tough, that number has to be adjusted in a way that allows new housing start to happen. the mayor understood that, the entire board of supervisors are almost the entire board of supervisors understood that and that is what led to this process. mayor breed referred to the fact that unfortunately in a number of time, the number got put in the charter at 12% and nobody could bring it down and we took that charter and we made that promise saying we will revisit this every few years and adjust the inclusionary rate number
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accordingly and we kept our word and that is exactly what happened. now, our job is not done, because as these significant reductions in the requirements for on-site affordablity has gone down, this city has the obligation to build 80,000 units of housing, the majority that need to be affordable and we have to find a way to do those. we have had that conversation and that is part of this conversation and that is what the mayor and i are also collaborating on and realizing the affordable housing bond will be the opportunity to vote on this march, march of 2024, in the amount of $300 million. we mentioned that this week and working to get that passed. with that, it is my pleasure to
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witness this signing. it truly has been a collaboration and i will close by saying it is one of many collaborations. it is the kind of collaboration that we had relative to adaptively reusing vacant buildings in the downtown core that we cleaned up and passed and along with corroboration with supervisor melgar and her work and in the city and county in san francisco. our work is not done. i look forward to more collaborations going forward. thank you, mayor breed. >> good afternoon, my name is michael cohen from strata. thank you all for coming today. it's really fantastic to have you all on this humble parking lot which we are advancing plans to build this incredibly gorgeous 500 units, residential building. i have to say those plans are
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much brighter today because of this legislation. indeed this legislation is the most impactful that has come out in a decade and it's so important because it addresses the single barriers which is affecting housing to do and that is affordablity. and there are things that are outside of this city's control, but by significantly reducing this bill, we will be able to build housing and will not happen over night but over the next years, it will have a huge
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impact. in addition to what it says, this bill says a lot. one, it directly acknowledges that we could not hope to build additional housing without decreasing the rate to market. and shows when the stakes are the highest, leadership in the state and san francisco can come together to work on pragmatic solutions. i have to say the mayor and supervisors and everyone else, it's remarkable because you did something really important, really well, really quickly with no drama. for that, i will say thank you, and god bless. [ applause ] i think rebecca is going to come
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up. >> >> hi, everyone. nice to see you. i am rebecca foster, and i had the honor of being in that inside closed door site on the tac, not really, it was pretty low drama. and i am also the ceo of the housing accelerator fund. those things are really connected. we launched the housing accelerator fund in 2017 as a public-private partnership, really to turbo charge the city and affordable housing developers to be able to preserve more housing more officially and since then, we build millions of dollars for san francisco projects and made over $400 million in investments and supporting those around the
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city. we love this fund. and we have build more units around the city that help residents stay in their long time homes to amazing beautiful buildings like just down on howard street, the new 200 unit building unit on howard that will welcome 200 families next income to affordable housing in san francisco. clearly, i don't need to tell anyone here that getting affordable housing, getting any housing built in san francisco is complicated. it's hard. it takes a lot of grit, and for us, it's full of way too many negotiations with a lot of cattle raising and with spreadsheets, and like on the tac, we spend a lot of time looking at the maps of what it takes to make projects work while trying to balance the
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critical importance of delivering homes faster. this year starting construction, not seven years from starting construction, and getting the systems and policies right so we can massively scale the overall delivery of housing in our city to hit that 82,000 necessary homes for future generations and for people who live here now. >> we all keep up this hard work together because we know how important each and incremental win is to building homes on this parking lot and that is for our neighborhoods. serving on the tac with my great partners and working with the incredible city staff that the mayor mentioned, was really an honor and an extension of all this work. it was an incredibly collaborative crew and i did not go inspecting this collaboration and i don't think anybody did
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because this is san francisco. we just spent our time deep in the weeds and really focusing on the imperative of kick starting the delivery of more housing as soon as possible with all kinds of head wind line the mayor mentioned and that we have the ability to build the affordable housing that the city desperately needs. thank you for serving on the tac and i'm super excited for this legislation and the affordable bond that supervisor peskin mentioned. mayor london breed: thank you, rebecca, to everyone joining us today. now it is time to sign the legislation to make it official. [ applause ]
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>> >> all right. are you ready to sign this legislation? >> yes. [cheers and applause] >> i have not seen you smile in a long time. it is official. [cheers and applause] >> all right. >> we'll take a picture here. >>
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>> my son and i was living in my car. we was in and out of shelters in san francisco for almost about 3.5 years. i would take my son to school. we would use a public rest room just for him to brush his teeth and do a quick little wipe-off so it seemed he could take a shower every day. it was a very stressful time that i wish for no one. my name is mario, and i have lived in san francisco for almost 42 years. born here in hayes valley. i applied for the san francisco affordable housing lottery three times. my son and i were having to have a great -- happened to
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have a great lottery number because of the neighborhood preference. i moved into my home in 2014. the neighborhood preference goal was what really allowed me to stay in san francisco. my favorite thing is the view. on a clear day, i'm able to see city hall, and on a really clear day, i can see salesforce tower. we just have a wonderful neighborhood that we enjoy living in. being back in the neighborhood that i grew up in, it's a wonderful, wonderful experience. now, we can hopefully reach our goals, not only single mothers, but single fathers, as well, who are living that. live your dream, live your life,
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>> there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. it is a unique part of the city. >> we are off in a corner of the city against the san francisco county line 101 on one side. vis station valley is still one of the last blue color neighborhoods in san francisco. a lot of working class families out here. it is unusual. not a lot of apartment buildings. a lot of single family homes. >> great business corridor.
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so much traffic coming through here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home. >> a lot of customers are from the neighborhood. they are painters or mechanics. they are like blue color workers, a lot of them. >> the community is lovely. multi-racial and hopefully we can look out for each other. >> there is a variety of businesses on the block. you think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. library, bank of america with a parking lot. the market where you can grab anything. amazing food choices, nail salons. basically everything you need is here. >> a lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. people running them are family. when you come here and you have
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an uncle and nephew and go across the street and have the guy and his dad. lisa and her daughter in the dog parlor and pam. it is very cool. >> is small businesses make the neighborhood unique. >> new businesses coming. in mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. the corridor has changed and is continuing to change. we hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. >> this is what is needed. first, stay home. unless it is absoluteliness scary. social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus.
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cancel all nonessential gather everythings. >> when the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. a few nail salons couldn't operate. they shut down. restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. they haven't totally brought back indoor seating. >> it is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. >> when the pandemic first hit it got really slow. we had to change our hours. we never had to close, which is a blessing. thank god. we stayed open the whole time. >> we were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down. >> during covid we would go outside and look on both sides of the street. it looked like old western town. nobody on the street. no cars.
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>> it was a hard eight or nine months. when they opened up half the people couldn't afford a haircut. >> during that time we kept saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. people would come to make sure they were okay. >> we checked on each other and patronized each other. i would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. >> this is a generous and kind community. people would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. it was amazing to watch. we saw a perfect picture of community. we are all in this together. >> since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. we will emerge better as a city
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because we are still here and we stand in solidarity with one another. >> when we opened up august 1st. i will not say it was all good. we are still struggling due to covid. it affected a lot of people. >> we are still in the pandemic right now. things are opening up a little bit. it is great to have space to come together. i did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. it felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. >> my business is picking up. the city is opening up. we have mask requirements. i check temperatures. i ask for vaccination card and/or recent test. the older folks they want to feel safe here. >> i feel like there is a sense of unity happening. >> what got us through the pandemic was our customers.
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their dogs needed groomed, we have to cut their nails so they don't over grow. >> this is only going to push us forward. i sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. >> we are trying to see if we can help all small businesses around here. there is a cannabis club lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. my business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. >> in hit us hard. i see a bright future to get the storefronts full. >> once people come here i think they really like it. >> if you are from san francisco visit visitation valley to see how this side of the city is the same but different.
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>> the meeting will come to order welcome to the september 13 other 2023 meeting of budget and financials i'm supervisor cone chan chair and i'm joined by rafael mandelman and short low by supervisor safai. our cleeshg is brent jalipa. i would like to thank kaleena mendoza from sfgovtv for broadcast thanksgiving meeting. >> yes, a reminder for those to make sure to silence cell phones and electronics not to interrupt our