The Richmond Is Not For Sale
Last December I sent out a message to Richmond neighbors about the mayor and her Planning Department’s plan to upzone the entire City, which would increase the building height limit on our streets. In the Richmond, this means Geary Boulevard could have buildings as tall as 140 feet at some intersections. I asked our community for input on these plans because your voices are important in this process.
I heard from so many of you and from small business owners on Geary Boulevard, Balboa Street and all along Clement Street telling me that their landlords are increasing their rent at an unreasonable rate. Some even told me that their landlords are considering selling their buildings for a windfall profit in this development push and they are concerned that this trend will only increase if this proposal passes.
They weren’t the only ones. Tenants wrote in worrying about possible displacement. Aging homeowners expressed concerns about being priced out. In fact, the vast majority of those who wrote or called had serious concerns about the plans underway in the mayor’s office. Their stories demonstrate the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all planning approach. It may work for developers and speculative investors whose focus is to turn profits, but it certainly isn’t working for our residents and merchants, and it certainly won’t develop the type of affordable housing the Richmond desperately needs.
For the Richmond – named one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world – my message as your district supervisor to speculative investors and profiteers has been clear: We are not for sale.
Instead, our residents demand funding to build more affordable family housing. We want developers to build the housing developments the City has already approved, like the Lucky Penny project and housing at Alexandria Theatre. We want meaningful planning solutions and sufficient resources to build housing that San Franciscans can actually afford, and we want to protect our residents and small businesses against displacement.
Most importantly, we reject being told by the mayor’s office what should be happening in our neighborhood. Instead, we demand recognition of our needs and a response to our asks. This is one of those moments that City Hall is telling us what works for them instead of what works for us. But the Richmond is not, and never will be, for sale.
We are also facing a potential blow with a new law passed earlier this year by Senator Scott Wiener which would single San Francisco out for penalties for not meeting the goal of 82,000 new units by 2031. We know we need to continue to build the affordable housing that San Francisco and the Richmond desperately need, but this law ignores the economic realities of market-driven housing development. The City’s own records show that San Francisco currently has 70,000 housing units approved for development, and more than 60,000 empty units available for rent. Clearly, what we need are resources to actually build the units already approved, and funding to build affordable units, not punitive mandates that take away critical housing funds.
This is why, last month, SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and I jointly sent a letter to City Attorney David Chiu to ask him to review the law and provide advice on our legal options to defend our tenants, small businesses and homeowners against displacement.
The Richmond is not immune to development pressures and displacement, as well as many other problems that the rest of the City faces. I know this because I work to bring resources to our district to keep our streets clean and safe, including increased funding for the Police Department, retired police ambassadors to help patrol our corridors, Public Works staff to clean up hot spots and the expansion of street crisis teams to tackle the mental health crisis not just downtown but also on the west side of our City.
We continue to welcome new small businesses on Geary Boulevard, Balboa and Clement streets even during the pandemic. We facilitate offers of housing vouchers and long-term housing to fire victims so they can continue to live in the Richmond, especially our monolingual residents. We support small businesses with their lease negotiations, grants when they suffer burglaries and vandalism, and we make sure to bring Public Works to their doorsteps when additional clean-up is needed with trash and graffiti. We also improve our access to public transit and provide more parking for our small businesses with Geary BRT. Now, we are fighting against displacement as an entire community.
I’ve been proud to stand with our residents to support these efforts. I know we are making progress because we work together as a community, and we are inclusive in our outreach and process. But right now, there are active forces trying to divide us, and people who have not done the work want to simply buy what we have worked so hard to build together. I will continue to build with the Richmond community so that we can all continue to live and thrive in the coolest neighborhood in the world!
Connie Chan represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She can be reached at 415-554-7410 or chanstaff@sfgov.org.
Categories: City Hall
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
The whole Outer Sunset/Parkside, Golden Gates Heights and the Inner sunset need that also. to NOT let happen at all either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Connie for engaging directly with the community and laying out your vision for the Richmond District.
Unfortunately, we are experiencing significant crime and erosion of our quality of life, resulting from policies (which you have vocally supported) to divert funding away from SFPD and inhibiting effectiveness of our stretched-thin law enforcement resources. Coming out on the wrong side of the landslide Chesa Boudin D.A. and school board recalls, and placing restorative justice members on the SFPD oversight board, put your priorities out of step with the needs of your constituents.
Yes, you belatedly supported last year’s emergency police funding measure, after voicing objections (including to me when we met in your office last year) over the magnitude of our city’s budget shortfall. Since that time, the budget shortfall has increased exponentially with ongoing street crime/drug use and dealing, homeless encampments (including in residential and commercial thoroughfares in our district) and small businesses that have shuttered after multiple break-ins.
All of these have contributed to a decreased tax base and flight of businesses and residents, who remain frustrated by poor management of city resources and ideological governance that cannot effectively address basic safety and quality of life issues that impact all of us. Including unhoused and/or addicted individuals who choose to live unsafely on our streets despite available services and shelter beds, and current policies that make SF a magnet for such individuals.
Rather than obstructing necessary and state-mandated development, would it not make sense to find a way to support sensible development to add density and increase our tax base to make necessary spending viable? And withdrawing opposition to streamlined construction, in the face of SF’s impossible bureaucracy? Yes, we are the city of $1.7M bathrooms that can’t be built, a Whole Foods waiting years to open in an empty Best Buy at Geary & Masonic, and daily egregious reports of home and store break-ins on our Next Door feeds.
In your role as Finance Chair on our BOS, I would hope considerations of this sort might have been included in your priorities. Alas, we instead get opposition to (and demands on) Mayor Breed’s efforts to steer our city through these challenges with moderate and common sense policies including Proposition F to help direct addicted individuals receiving public assistance into treatment.
Divisive slogans like “no more war on the poor” and “Richmond is not for sale” are not cool, particularly when chaos and gridlock, exacerbated by progressive policy priorities, continue. D1 residents will have our say where we go from here in this year’s election.
LikeLike
Connie Chan did not create, and she is not responsible for, the conditions created by the pandemic. London Breed’s self-serving politics and illegal homeless sweeps have not helped matters. Your call “to support sensible development to add density ” is code for giving a green light to real estate speculators and developers to tear down buildings and displace residents. As Connie points out, 70,000 residential building permits are currently approved and not being built. It’s laughable that you think “no more war on the poor” and “The Richmond is not for sale” are divisive slogans when it is the so-called moderates doing all the mud-slinging and name-calling and labeling everything and everyone in sight. I’m sorry, but the Richmond is not for sale.
LikeLike
Thanks David for illustrating the kinds of overheated rhetoric common to SF’s progressive political community.
The statistic of 70,000 vacant units includes housing inventory that is under construction, is anticipated for move in/out, is a short-term rental, and/or is only occupied part time.
It is not a laughing matter that a prominent Connie Chan campaign surrogate was caught ripping down Marjan for BOS campaign signs over the weekend. We can do better than divisive messaging and tone, and seeking to silence opposing views.
Rather than taking a derisive tone and pointing the finger elsewhere, could you engage in substance on the positions Connie advances and how we may anticipate them leading us to a safer Richmond, with better quality of life for working families?
LikeLike
The entire show of disrespect towards Connie is unnecessary. Connie is not responsible for crime in D1. Connie is not responsible for the yawning budget deficit..to criticize Connie for using a bit of political rhetoric on occasion is silly. She’s a politician after all. Remember?
LikeLike
With all due respect Lee, I have met with and discussed extensively with Connie public safety issues in our neighborhood. My experience over a months-long discussion was that Connie would not engage or provide straight answers, and consistently sought to deflect responsibility elsewhere. We are raising young kids in the Richmond and do not want public drug use/dealing, much less from a homeless encampment next door to our local library and schools – with inhabitants that routinely harassed others in our community.
Marjan Philhour listened, cared, and helped organize concerned community members to address this issue in alignment with our stretched-thin SFPD resources and other city agencies. Connie showed up for the photo op after all the work was done, and continues to oppose policies that would improve safety and quality of life and restore health to our local economy and tax base.
These are the choices on the ballot this year – and I encourage community members to study the issues and vote for the change they wish to see, including by voting for the moderate slate on the DCCC, to replace progressive ideologues who opposed the Chesa Boudin and school board recalls.
LikeLike
Thank you, Connie, for all that you do for the Richmond District!
LikeLike