Lower Broadway turning residential, part 2

OFFICIAL BCNA NEWS

To read Part 1 of this series, click here.

For some 30 years the Embarcadero Freeway–elevated and double-decked–bestrode the northeast waterfront. Four-lane lower Broadway was notable as the eastern entrance to North Beach, Telegraph Hill and beyond.

When the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred in October 1989, it wasn’t the worst one the city had ever experienced, but the Freeway did sustain damage enough to require demolition. That took place in 1991 and paved the way for greatly increased development of the historic waterfront in the 1990s, and is still under way in this century.

The need for affordable housing grew as San Francisco did. It was the non-profit CCDC–Chinatown Community Development Center–that foresaw the freed pieces of former Freeway land as good places for building affordable housing.

CCDC’s first major project on Broadway, approved by the Mayor’s Office of Housing, was the Broadway Family Housing between Front and Battery Streets. Up to 35 per cent was stipulated to be for low-income families.

The Spring 2008 BCNA News reported: “A startling statistic illustrates the desperate need for lower income housing in San Francisco. When CCDC announced it would conduct a lottery for the coveted 81 living units in the new complex on Broadway, 8500 applications flooded in.”

CCDC’s block-wide emplacement of 75 units of affordable housing runs from Battery to Sansome Street on the south side of Broadway and is expected to be completed in January 2015. The new 65′ high structure, built on a 9-foot grade of the street, just recently emerged from its black construction shroud.

CCDC met and worked with community groups in planning both residential projects.

Meanwhile, in November 2011 the Port of San Francisco unveiled its own proposal for affordable housing on Seawall Lot 322-1 at Broadway, Front and Vallejo Streets. The particulars of the Port’s major plan are not yet known. SWL 322-1 has a 65-foot limit.

When the Port’s project has been funded, designed, approved and constructed, there will be three affordable housing projects in three blocks of lower Broadway.

The sites for CCDC’s two housing projects were not encumbered and went ahead without noticeable opposition. However, there were impediments to the Port’s proposal, and Port staff have been busy overcoming these Port property problems. Port-inspired legislation has been helpful in this effort.

(It also should be noted that SWL 322-1 was part of an earlier large hotel project involving SWL 324, which the then young BCNA and other organizations did not support because it was too high, among other matters. It was not approved.)

A consideration for the Port in the decision to develop the seawall lot for housing was stated as “consultation with the California State Lands Commission regarding the potential for state legislation to lift the public trust use restrictions from SWL 322-1.”

Another primary Port goal, involving the cost, was an amendment to the City’s Jobs-Housing Linkage Program legislation that would authorize the Port and Mayor’s Office of Housing “to agree to alternative methods of meeting JHLP obligations for private development on Port lands.”

An amendment would “authorize the Port to provide land for affordable housing in exchange for credits against JHLP fees owed at other Port development locations, such as at Pier 70.”

The Port’s important project for developing the 3 million square feet of space at Pier 70 for commercial use would require the Port “to contribute millions of dollars in JHLP funding to the Citywide Affordable Housing Fund” and “providing land for affordable housing on below market rates is another way to meet this obligation.”

AB 2649, carried by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, was signed into law by the Governor in September 2012. This allows the Port to lease SWL 322-1 for non-trust purposes, as well as at below-market rates, and obtaining JHLP fee credits for use at Pier 70.

The Port’s complicated proposal has been on the agenda of several meetings of the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group (NEWAG), most recently being July 2, where the formation of a working group was among the topics discussed.

The Working Group will be allowed to provide input on the objectives of the RFP (Request for Proposals). Later, it will be allowed to review the design and provide input before the project goes to the Planning Commission “for land use entitlements,” according to Teresa Yanga, Director of Housing Development for the Mayor’s Office of Housing.