Editor:
This is an open letter to District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio.
Dear Joel:
We’ve been watching – your blog posts, your press appearances, your quiet dealings – and it’s time we speak plainly. Your campaign to remake the Sunset in the image of Paris is as tone-deaf as it is misguided.
Let’s begin with what’s already here: The Westerly on Sloat. A nearly empty condo complex with ground-floor retail that’s still vacant. Or the condos above Gus’s Market – incongruous to our neighborhood’s character, and unfit for multigenerational families. What makes single-family homes work is land ownership. A private patch of earth. A home — not a unit in someone else’s investment.
You idolize Paris. So let’s talk about it. Haussmannian buildings may look charming on the outside, but inside? Cramped spaces. Nine-square-meter units. Short-term leases. Gig workers bouncing from city to city. You can’t simply drop that model into the Sunset and expect it to work.
Even with modern perks – in-unit laundry, elevators, open floor plans – these buildings won’t be affordable. They’ll be luxury units with bike racks instead of garages, designed for a lifestyle that doesn’t reflect how families in D4 live. We drive to work, school and medical appointments. These anti-car fantasies ignore the needs of the elderly, the disabled and working-class families.
And let’s not pretend these projects are about community. They’re portfolios for global corporate developers, not homes for longtime residents. These won’t be affordable homes – they’ll be Airbnbs and investments. You’d know that if you actually listened to your constituents.
You think Paris is the model? That’s a city with its own problems – dense, loud, and often cold to newcomers. Maybe centuries of being stacked on top of each other explains the “rude Parisian” stereotype. You want to bring that vibe to the Sunset?
Paris works because it was built for density. Its sidewalks, buildings, and transit have been refined over centuries. Trying to replicate that here would require a scorched-earth approach to our homes and streets. And we won’t stand for that.
Let’s talk disruption. The L-Taraval rail upgrade just wrapped, and it came with noise, street closures, and business losses. That was for sewer improvements we actually needed. Your YIMBY fantasy? That’s not a necessity – it’s vanity at our expense.
Do you really want to plunge District 4 into another drawn-out nightmare? Especially now, with the Upper Great Highway closure already making daily life miserable? You’re piling chaos on top of chaos.
Here’s what we want, Joel: Stop pretending these Parisian-style developments are what we need. Stop working behind closed doors with SF Planning. Stop smiling in photo ops with Lurie while cutting deals we never voted on.
This isn’t Monopoly. This is our neighborhood – our homes, our families, our future. We are real residents with real stakes. And this is the Sunset, not your sandbox.
Respect the Sunset.
Jason Fong
– Concerned Residents of District 4
Categories: letter to the editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
There won’t be a Sunset neighborhood, as we know it, once the gentrification begins with high rise condos on the re-zoned La Playa Street. The residents will be displaced and families will be forced to move as developers take over the outer-Sunset.
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The slogans about Paris are just that – these transplants have never lived there, and they haven’t even lived in our City that long either. It’s all fantasy fluff.
Gentrification was always the entire YIMBY agenda whether they realized it or not.
Engardio in particular welcomes it with his entire being, from removing rent control protections for ADU renters to cutting out low-income housing % requirements for downtown office conversions – he has demonstrated 100% he does not care about the housing crisis or those most affected, the mid-to-lower classes who do the jobs that SF still depends on, whether the yuppies appreciate them or not.
YIMBY tools make promises that never come true. Hold them accountable up front.
Recall Gentrifying Liar Trojan Horse Engardio, elect a Local who actually appreciates the Sunset and its current mix of resident families and workforce.
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Hey! Your comment totally resonated with me — especially the part about Engardio and ADUs. Thought you’d want to see this:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/housing/sf-considers-allowing-adu-sales-to-boost-housing-production/article_4fb7049b-0556-4ba4-8a1c-3ad976f509a4.html
It’s basically confirming that under policies he supports, ADUs could be sold off as separate units, which could totally kill rent control and further gentrify areas like the Sunset. Just more evidence he’s not on the side of working families.
And here’s where it gets personal — I actually have a friend who’s thinking about building an ADU for her daughter. It’s supposed to be a way to keep family close, not profit from real estate. But I worry that if policies like this go through, developers will find ways to sniff these units out and pressure people like her into selling. Who knows how aggressive they’ll get? It’s scary how quickly something that starts with good intentions can be twisted for profit.
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People do not want to be controlled by their politicians. The public wants politicians who work for us. That is the problem we have with Engardio, Wiener and Newsom.
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Describing Paris as “often cold to newcomers” in the middle of your extended rant against the very idea of newcomers in our neighborhood has to be one of the least self-aware sentiments to ever grace these pages.
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Ah, the irony police have arrived! Let me clarify: my critique isn’t about people who are new to the neighborhood — it’s about policies being pushed without community input, by people who often don’t understand or value what long-term residents have built here. There’s a difference between welcoming new neighbors and rolling out the red carpet for developers who treat the Sunset like a blank slate.
As for Paris — yes, I called it ‘cold to newcomers.’ That refers to the cultural rigidity and alienation some experience there, not to San Francisco or Sunset residents. If you’re going to nitpick, at least try to follow the argument instead of cherry-picking lines for snark.
Let me clarify, since you seem to be drawing some pretty shaky conclusions. My letter never once said that the Sunset isn’t welcoming to newcomers. That’s a misread. In fact, we love new neighbors — especially families who want to plant roots here and become part of the community.
What we don’t welcome is unchecked development led by corporate interests who see our neighborhood not as a home, but as a portfolio. There’s a world of difference between people and developers, and pretending they’re the same is a false comparison.
Now, about Paris — I’ll admit, I’ve never lived there. But I’ve heard firsthand from expats that it can be a hard city to settle into. It’s dense, heavily bureaucratic, and not exactly known for being easy on outsiders. That’s the context for my comment — not some sideways jab at neighbors who’ve moved to the Sunset. The only thing ‘unwelcoming’ here is the way some folks twist words just to score a cheap point.
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Well clarified, I believe.
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Mr. Engardio is doing the bidding of Mr. Gavin Newson who is doing the bidding of big construction interests that helped him get elected and are probably promising him the White House. Paris is a poor example (could Joel really think that the ocean is a river like the Seine?) because our city has nothing to do with that culture. The Victorian buildings and the Victorian pleasure gardens that inspired G.G.Park are from London, England. Paris’ idea of a city park is traditionally little more than a space for pickpockets and sex workers.
We in the outer Sunset think of this area as one of outstanding natural beauty and want to keep the houses low-rise (up to 3-stories only out here) for the same reason that the Seacliff district does: to let the sunlight in, to be able to see areas of sky and of the ocean, to not be surrounded by the weight of big buildings (that belong mid- and downtown where it’s also less profitable for the big builders).
These big interests, like construction or Wall Street investment in 2000, go to public offices and empty our coffers (debts that we’re still paying for) on the promise of great investment returns. Wall Street investors promised the city would be able to guarantee pension funds for years and years to come, big builder companies guarantee lots of affordable housing, as if they could turn a ‘supply and demand’ economic system on its head out of pure desire.
We will not swallow their lies. We demand transparency.
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Apparently Joel has had a thing for Paris for a while now:
Glad I’m not the only one who sees this.
https://richmondsunsetnews.com/2023/07/21/letter-to-the-editor-engardios-parisian-blind-spot/
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per SFist, Engardio supporter Chris Larsen and his SF-based crypto platform Ripple Labs donated a stunning $4.9 million to the Trump inauguration. Gross. Sick.
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Great Writing.
On point.
The ppls characters are determined by the urban fabric.
Listen to those ppl.
Native SF, embedded in 7 Generations SF Natives if you add us up & daughter of an SF native city planner. I’ve lived in both Paris and the Sunset.
Nellie.
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Quick clarification for readers:
I want to make clear that my open letter was never meant to insult Paris or its people. Paris is a stunning city with a rich history and vibrant culture. My point was about urban design — how certain physical environments, over time, can subtly influence social behavior (for better or worse), just like Europeans sometimes say Americans are “loud” (which of course isn’t true of everyone!).
I respect French culture deeply and apologize if anything came across as unfair. My real concern is simply that copying another city’s design — without understanding how it evolved over thousands of years — won’t automatically work here in the Sunset. Thanks for reading and for letting me share my perspective.
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I want to quickly add some historical context:
The “Haussmannian” model that Engardio seems to admire wasn’t just about beautifying Paris. It was a political project that displaced tens of thousands of working-class people. Narrow streets were destroyed and replaced with wide boulevards to prevent uprisings and make it easier for soldiers to control the city. Wealthy residents lived on the grand second floors, while poorer residents were pushed up to cramped servant quarters, or forced out of central Paris altogether.
So Haussmannian architecture became a symbol of class division, not social equity. It’s important to understand this history — because what looks beautiful on the outside often hides deep social injustice underneath. We don’t want that for the Sunset.
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One more thing I want to add:
Some Engardio supporters might roll their eyes and say, “Relax, no one’s bulldozing your house!”
And sure, technically — there are no bulldozers right now.
But displacement doesn’t always happen with a wrecking ball. Sometimes it’s slower and crueler.
A friend of mine told me her commute has now tripled because of Engardio’s policies. She’s been late to work almost every day this week. She’s terrified she might lose her job.
This is how it happens:
You make life harder for working families.
You make it harder to hold a job.
You make it harder to stay.
And when enough families finally give up and leave, guess what’s left behind? Vacant homes — ready for the next wave of buyers and developers.
It’s not paranoia. It’s the playbook.
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Clarification Regarding Haussmannian Architecture
In Joel Engardio’s blog post (https://engardio.com/blog/paris), he includes a photo comparison. The building shown on the left — a bustling Parisian street scene with Café de Flore — is an example of classic Haussmannian architecture.
Although Engardio does not explicitly mention the term “Haussmannian” in his text, the visual reference he chose strongly evokes this style.
Haussmann’s redesign of Paris is famous today for its beauty, but historically it also resulted in the displacement of many working-class residents. That historical context is important to keep in mind when considering similar “urban renewal” ideas being pushed today in the Sunset.
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