By Thomas K. Pendergast
Plans for 216 new residential units to house low-income senior citizens are moving forward and a team of architects has been selected to design a seven-story building between La Playa Street and Great Highway at Lincoln Way.
The new housing will replace a three-story motel called the Rodeway Inn and Suites near Ocean Beach and next to Golden Gate Park.
The project’s development is led by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) and Self-Help for the Elderly (SHE). The property was purchased with funding from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
“Our mission is to develop community and provide affordable housing and services to people with low income, both in the Tenderloin where we started and throughout San Francisco,” said Jacob Goldstein of the TNDC. “We want to promote equitable access to opportunity and resources for everyone.”
“Our mission is to promote the independence, well-being and dignity of older adults, but we do it in culturally aligned services,” said Anni Chung, SHE’s president and CEO. “We’re in five Bay Area counties now. Besides San Francisco, we’re in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. We serve close to 40,000 seniors a year in these counties.”
The apartments will be reserved for seniors aged 62 years and up. Of these, 87 units will be for seniors with extremely low incomes, supported by the Senior Operating Subsidy program. Another 17 units will be reserved for people with low incomes and 110 will be reserved for those qualifying for permanent supportive housing.
The developers are also considering up to 20 on-site parking spaces.
Project developers will take advantage of state law commonly known as SB-35, plus reforms outlined in the Mayor’s Housing for All Plan.
SB-35 “streamlines” the process for developing new housing if at least certain percentages of the units are very low income, low-income and moderate-income households for at least 30 years and if the project meets specified conditions relating to location and being subject to a discretionary decision other than a Conditional Use Permit.
“Delivering affordable housing funding to projects across our entire city is a key part of our strategy to create more housing in San Francisco,” SF Mayor London Breed said. “We have a lot more work to do to remove barriers to getting housing built faster and advancing more affordable housing, but this is a great step and I want to thank the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development for their work to advance projects like these.”
An adult day health care center will be included on the ground floor, which will provide recreational therapy, nursing care, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and mental health counseling.
“These are frail seniors that need physical therapy, registered nursing, occupational therapy, speech therapy and psychiatric counseling,” Chung said. “And this center will be brand new with the future senior housing on the ground floor.”
They will also provide employment training and related services for older immigrants.
They can provide registered nurses and clinical services for seniors for elderly who have recently been discharged from hospitals and physical therapists to help them rehabilitate.
They also have a lot of digital training classes “because during the COVID we found that our seniors are very isolated and we needed them to have something that they could use to talk to us, talk to each other, talk to their family and also learns some skills on how to cope with the pandemic,” Chung said.
Coming up, the architects will design the building from now until somewhere in the middle of 2026 and construction is set to begin in early 2027.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, they expect construction to last 22 months and the first units to become available in late 2028.
“The west side needs more affordable housing, especially for seniors,” District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio said. “I’m glad this project involves Self-Help for the Elderly, a well-respected nonprofit known for providing a high standard of service that every senior deserves. I am thankful that primary service provider TNDC has a long-term commitment to ensure the needs of every resident of 1234 Great Highway are met. Seniors need to know they are housed in a safe and caring environment.”
The architectural team includes two local firms: Paulett Taggart Architects and Figure.
Architect Jennifer Ly of Figure said the firm is focused on working with non-profits on community-oriented projects and also projects that help amplify the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community voice.
“At 1234 we think that beautifying the sidewalk with greenery is an important value for both the residents and the neighbors. And while the Sunset is known for its colorful, two-story, single-family homes, there are also many three-to-four story duplexes and triplexes along the major arteries, along Lincoln, La Playa and on Irving Street,” Ly said.
“Unsurprisingly, some of the tallest buildings in the Sunset are these seven-story, multifamily that were all built in the 1920s in the Edwardian style. And in some sense, it is in this variety of scales, density and range of styles – from historic to contemporary – that contributes to the vibrance of this neighborhood,” she said. “So, as we consider the design for 1234, we must consider how this housing project will fit into its existing context and how we can minimize its visual impact to the skyline and how the ground floor can improve the neighborhood.”
Among other things, it is the ‘visual impact’ that has some local residents concerned with the project.
“It’s like putting a giant in an ant farm. It makes no sense,” said Luis Pine, who lives a couple of blocks away from the site. “There are so many things wrong with it; first, the location, being at a coastal location. What gives the name to the neighborhood is the sun setting and the building, as they are proposing, would block, nine months of the year, the beautiful sunlight that works through the trees on the late afternoon sunlight.
“It would be blocked in the park. Never mind those beautiful walks that you take for nine months of the year.
“On top of that … the huge amount of traffic that it would cause in a neighborhood that’s already struggling with traffic, especially on the weekends,” he said. “And it doesn’t make any sense to put a building with so many people in it in a place where there are scheduled ocean rising issues; a place where there are the sand dunes that are part of the nature of this place, that blows sand every so often all over the place. It just doesn’t make any sense to have a building that big.
“The reason why people like to visit San Francisco is exactly because it doesn’t look like Manhattan.”
Pine said he thinks a building of three-to-four stories tall with setbacks would be more reasonable.
“The great thing about San Francisco is Golden Gate Park and the coastline around it. That’s why everybody comes here,” he elaborated. “You take that out and you start putting just massive buildings, like anyone can do that, right? You go to Dubai and just build up. It makes no sense over here. That’s not what San Francisco’s about. That’s not the direction of cities in the future. That’s not what people want.”
Categories: housing
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
Housing for seniors is important, but so is having some respect for the neighborhood. There is nothing in the Outer Sunset remotely close to seven stories high. This complex would be massive. Take a look at the new building coming up at 45th and Judah to see just how big even six stories is. This project could and should be scaled down to have at least some relation to the surrounding neighborhood and not erect a highrise next to the Park.
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Four stories should be the maximum. This development needs to modified. Seven stories is very wrong for this location. Where is the respect for the Park and the coast?
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SEVEN stories. Ridiculous for the neighborhood no matter the justification.
Recall the “Grow SF” candidates. Fire Breed.
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I second that motion!
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What are these people thinking. This is a LIQUIFACTION ZONE! This will jeopardize the neighbors safety! This will block their sunlight and block their views.
All this whilst there are tons of empty real estate around the City. Building without the consent of the neighbors and using up precious resources in this fragile environmental climate when there are smarter ways to achieve the same results is really irresponsible behavior of the part of these people.
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The recent article about the 1234 Great Highway senior housing project doesn’t accurately define the facility or its function. There will be at least 100 of the units set aside for formerly unhoused homeless people.
TNDC runs a similar facility at the Willie B. Kennedy (WBK) housing center in the Western Addition area. The elderly might be frail and they are mixing two populations of elderly people that have similar and yet distinctly different needs. When I toured the WBK housing center, I was told there weren’t any social workers on site in the evening or on weekends. This makes no sense! If you can’t have adequate staffing for these vulnerable people then maybe you shouldn’t build as large of a building. When someone gets hurt, and they will, the City will get sued for incompetence. The website for this project claims there will be seven social workers. That amounts to just over one person responsible for over 200 elderly people at any given time as there are 168 hours in a week.
I have attended over a dozen meetings on this and similar housing projects. Never in these meetings about 1234 Great Highway did they discuss the mixing of the two populations together, nor is it on the marketing materials they hand out at the meetings. My father is in his 90s. I would be very concerned if he were living in a poorly supervised facility where the receptionist is simply told to call 911 if there is an incident especially when the Sunset District doesn’t have enough officers and typically on-average there is only one patrol car on the streets at a time. The unhoused aren’t even vetted to make sure they get along with other people. I ask one of the leaders at TNDC on my visit, “Do you vet these people or do they come right off the streets where they have been in a traumatic situation? Do they transition from the street to a shelter to an SRO as a way to confirm they can get along with others? Are they required to get drug or mental health treatment if that is advised?” The answer was: That would be illegal based on the state’s “Housing First” mandate.
I also ask, please tell me you at least separate these populations to reduce the likelihood of an incident by keeping the formerly unhoused on a specific floor. Nope, they are mixed in all together per the state’s funding mandates. This is yet another example of our government being idealistic versus being realistic and pragmatic and wanting what is best for every person who will be in this facility. Also, the Sunset currently has very little unhoused supportive services. If there were an incident, it could easily take close to an hour to get someone out to the beach area from downtown to assist if needed. Another example of the City implementing programs without thoroughly considering the consequences and for not being very open to community input. At the meetings, it was all about disseminating the information they want to release with very little desire to listen.
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Given the push some people are making to permanently close the Great Highway (with no solution to the traffic that utilizes it), is adding a seven (SEVEN!?) story building that will take a couple of years to construct on an already chaotic intersection of Great Highway/Lincoln/LowerGreat Highway/La Playa really that great of an idea? Is there a secret plan to build a tunnel under GGP to extend Sunset Blvd to Fulton that I’m not aware of?
I’m cool with adding housing for seniors. I’m even okay with it being at that site, assuming two things: it’s capped at four stories to keep in line with the neighborhood, not add too much congestion to an already busy area; and someone actually addresses traffic flow between Outer Sunset/points south and Outer Richmond. It’s like the the city and SFMTA don’t employ civil engineers.
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Would be very interesting to report the project’s justification for this timeline — what could cause the architectural work to take two full years? Is this normal for a project of this size? Permit streamlining got a lot of words in this article, but it sounds like there are even bigger problems with delivery of housing for people who are homeless today.
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Further information on this project can be found on the project website:
https://www.1234greathighway.com/faq-en
Subjects listed on the site that might be of special interest are the following:
Who will be living in the new affordable housing?
The proposed development is intended to provide affordable housing for seniors. The current proposal restricts rent levels for households earning between 15%-60% AMI. This equates to $15,150 to $60,500 per year for a single-person household in San Francisco in 2023. These levels are determined by the HUD Metro Fair Market Rent Area (HMFA)’s Unadjusted Area Median Income levels.
Will there be housing for seniors with extremely low incomes?
Roughly 50% of the units are set aside for seniors with prior experience of homelessness. The remainder of units are for seniors earning up to 60% AMI ($60,500) and several of them will be supported by San Francisco’s Senior Operating Subsidy program.
Is this project entirely for seniors, or will it include non-senior households?
The proposed project is 100% affordable senior housing. In order to qualify, at least one senior (age 62 and above) must be part of the household and the entire household income is used for income qualification purposes.
Will on-site supportive services be provided to residents?
TNDC and SHE will deliver a comprehensive wrap-around model of support services through a 1:20 ratio of social workers who will provide individualized services to seniors. Staffing will include 7 social workers, 1 Healthy Aging Coordinator and a part-time Food Security Programming Coordinator. Support services will be available Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 7 pm, with flexibility for making appointments outside of the regular hours and on-call at all other times to respond to emergencies. Seniors will also have equitable access to support services from staff who can provide services in a language that is most appropriate to meet their needs.
The building will also have 24/7 desk-clerks in the secured lobby. There will be an Adult Day Health Care Center at the site on the ground floor. This center and the services provided will aim to support tenants’ economic stability through benefits counseling and their economic mobility through employment training and support.
Who will ensure that the building will remain safe for the residents and neighbors?
TNDC and SHE will jointly own, manage and provide services to the future residents of 1234 Great Highway. The building will employ 24-hour staff coverage including staff such as front desk clerks, assistant managers and general managers, who monitor the building and entries. Security cameras will be installed in all common areas and cover all exit and entrance doors and other common spaces. The building will be secured with key fobs and alarms.
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