The Mayor’s Office of Housing has come under attack for failing to construct enough inclusionary affordable housing units and for not doing enough financially to help folks facing foreclosures.
Map of SF foreclosures, as of December 2007.
The charges come as D 11 Sup. Geraldo Sandoval and D 6 Sup. Chris Daly seek to amend off-site inclusionary affordable housing requirements.
The amendments would allow that twenty-five percent off off-site units may be built outside the currently required one-mile radius from a developer’s market rate project.
They would also provide that off-site units cannot be located in industrially-zoned areas, or within one-quarter of a mile of developments containing 200 or more publicly-owned and operated affordable housing developments.
“The fact that not one affordable housing development has been promoted by the Mayor’s Office of Housing or the non-profit sector, in District 11 tells me that something is wrong,” said Sandoval, whose district includes the Outer Mission and the Excelsior and is home to the highest foreclosure rate in the City.
Sandoval noted that when he proposed an emergency fund last year to fight foreclosures, MOH opposed the idea.
“That program went nowhere,” Sandoval observed.
“And every time I have tried to get a non-profit housing developer into District 11, they do not and have not got any help from the Mayor’s Office of Housing,” he added.
Noting that the proposed amendment also amounts to a small program (Twenty-five percent of a 25 percent mandate is a small subset,) Sandoval said, “I can’t understand why the Mayor’s Office of Housing is so eager to oppose it. This is about fairness.”
MOH’s Doug Shoemaker countered that the amendments are “a solution in search of a problem.”
Shoemaker reminded the Board why the supervisors updated inclusionary affordable housing legislation a few years ago to make sure that offsite units were built within a one- mile of developers’ market rate sites.
“It was because affordable units were being built where no one wanted it, under freeways, the far end of city, and remote from retail, services and transportation,” Shoemaker recalled.
“Our main concern,” he said, “is that development will end up being built under the cloverleaf of 101 and 280. Developers seek lowest land prices. They are rational. They seek cost savings.”
Sup. Maxwell sided with Shoemaker, noting that the legislation that Daly and Sandoval seek to amend was put together less than 18 months ago.
“The poorest people need to be where the infrastructure and schools are,” Maxwell said.
Sup. Tom Ammiano also opposed the amendments.
“It takes away a lot of the choices we have,” he said
But Sup. Bevan Dufty supported Daly and Sandoval’s efforts, noting that he’s been seeking more affordable housing in his district in the last years, with almost no success.
“To me this is not a mandate that 25 percent [of these affordable units] has to be a mile away.” Dufty said.
Claiming that if developers proposed inaccessible offsite units, the Board would not support it, Dufty added, “But a little bit of flexibility isn’t a bad thing.”
“This is such a modest proposal. I can’t believe we’re denying it,” Sandoval lashed out.
Sandoval observed that thanks to the MOH opposition to the Board’s proposed $2 million revolving foreclosure fund, all the City has, on the foreclosure front, is a task force and a comprehensive report.
“That’s not the same thing as helping people, “ he said. “If this passes, we might be able to.”
MOH contends it’s been busy trying to put infrastructure in place, so it can help people access the federal foreclosure package that President Bush just signed into law.
Nationwide foreclosure rate “heat” map.
In the end, the Board kicked Sandoval and Daly’s amendments back to committee.
“Perhaps some massaging is in order,” Daly acknowledged.