Editor:
The recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio was about more than one person. It reflected a deeper frustration in our neighborhoods and a sense that, too often, decisions are made without real community input. I was not supportive of Supervisor Engardio’s approach when it came to Prop. K, and while the recall is behind us, the question before us is clear: How do we move forward together?
The debate over the Upper Great Highway has shown just how much we need collaboration. I supported the compromise, because it recognized that our community is not one-sided. Many families cherish the open space, while others depend on the highway to get kids to school, to reach jobs and to make medical appointments on time. In the Sunset, where multi-generational households are common, even a small change to transportation can ripple across an entire family’s daily life.
Too often, the City makes decisions that overlook the realities of working families. Working families like parents balancing multiple jobs while raising kids, or folks trying to make it to appointments or care for aging relatives. Working families are the ones who feel the greatest impact when City Hall forgets the day-to-day challenges we face. For policy to succeed, it must be built with working families who depend on these systems most.
That’s why we need processes for real input from the community to create plans together. Residents and neighbors should be at the table from the start, shaping solutions that reflect our diverse needs and lived experiences. We cannot let decisions be driven by exclusive meetings with only a handful of insiders because true collaboration means opening the doors and ensuring that everyday working-class people have a real say in shaping the future of our community.
Instead of building bridges, people outside of the district simply paint our neighborhood as privileged homeowners who scoff at change. In reality, our neighbors are working families, a mix of homeowners and renters, who are facing the same pressures as so many of our eastern neighbors in our City, including but not limited to the costs of housing, childcare, health care and groceries. These are issues that affect all of us regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum. Working-class families feel these pressures every day, and the solutions we create must center their needs if we want our neighborhoods to remain livable for everyone.
Because at the end of the day, we are one neighborhood. This recall election has left some feeling vindicated, and others feeling silenced, but our future depends on focusing on what we have in common. We share the same fog, the same streets and public infrastructure, the same pride in our schools, small businesses, and local sports teams that connect us across generations and backgrounds. District 4 is our neighborhood, bound by our shared commitment to this community.
So, how do we move forward together? The answer is as simple as it is complicated: With a seat at the table for working families. The Sunset, Parkside and Lakeshore – the whole of District 4 – needs leadership that doesn’t just take sides, but brings people together to solve problems as a community. That’s how we’ll begin to heal, and that’s how we’ll continue to build a community that we can all be proud of.
Natalie Gee, Sunset District resident and lifelong San Franciscan.
Categories: letter to the editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
100% Natalie! What I especially hope to see emerge is our own vision of how to manage the housing affordability crisis (limited upzoning that respects neighborhood building heights and architecture), stiff affordability requirements and displacement prevention for rent control units/small businesses, safe street projects where they make sense/demonstrably needed, safer, better cycling infrastructure that does not punish automobile use, eventual Muni Express bus return and more.
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We’re going to get a supervisor chosen by the billionaire mayor hand-picked to vote for the upzoning plan and anything else rich eastside interests want. I’m sure that will turn out great for working families.
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The YIMBY movement did not get Billionaire funding to lower your rents.
Stop. Believing. Liars.
We hold people accountable from now on. Admit mistakes or you’re done.
If Lurie is dumb enough to appoint a rubber stamp over the will of the people, he will go the way of London Breed. I don’t think he is. I think he’s willing to compromise on his loosely-defined grand vision for the West Side; he just needs to show that he’s making progress towards meeting Scott Wiener’s deliberately arbitrary goal of adding 82,000 units, without any actual way of forcing even a single developer to build anything anywhere. It’s a trojan horse law – Wiener wanted the builder’s remedy, (and may get it), but meanwhile he gets the equivalent push to neuter neighborhood character, CEQA, anything else he wants? It’s disgustingly dishonest, as thousands of units sit empty citywide with nothing being done. Hundreds of vacant lots to build on, but they want to displace US instead? Why? Ask yourself, when has a Billionaire ever done anything for your direct benefit? So why believe they’re all about it now, because they call it “YIMBY” and that sounds friendly or kawai or something?
Sleepers, awaken. The shai hulud is coming and it is not your friend.
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What is your solution for making housing more affordable in San Francisco? Or do you not see it as a problem?
If I have the only Mickey Mantle baseball card on the market, I can charge whatever I want for it. But if there are thousands of Mickey Mantle cards on the market, my cards is worth significantly less. The same concept applies to housing. Adding 82,000 units would reduce competition for all vacant units in the city; “the market” would lower rents as there would be more options for renters and landlords would not be able to charge premium rents.
From my point of view, this is not political, it is basic economics.
I suspect the real reason that some San Franciscans are opposed to building more housing is that they fear it would reduce the value of their property. That is probably true, but the NIMBY crowd, in their selfishness, is giving the finger to a couple generations of San Franciscans who have had to leave the City because they cannot afford to live or raise their families here.
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The city should build low income housing, if it’s going to have ANY effect on the price of housing in the City and County. Giving carte blanche to developers to put in market rate units and displace rent controlled existing long term tenants is a complete sellout and has not ever lowered housing prices.
The YIMBY agenda is a lie. They don’t actually care about mitigating gentrification; it’s a scam that they pretend at all on that issue while removing rent control protections from ADU’s and a myriad of other sellouts to private equity speculation developers.
Unless the City itself builds the low income units they are not going to happen, the needle towards affordability is not going to move (in the right direction) and the yuppie condo towers are going to continue to draw exorbitant above market median rents from a transplant class that YIMBY class warriors hope and pray will remove and replace the existing long-term SF residents.
Your Mickey Mantle paradigm is self-delusion. You either want rents and housing prices to go down, or you want to sell out to luxe condo developers and their Private Equity ownership. No more middle of the road both-sidesing the issue, you decide which you’re actually interested in, with your econ101 references.
I’m tired of explaining gentrification to those pretending not to defend it.
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It’s good question? Who can we trust?
Engardio lied, cheated and stole to make life worse for thousands of workers and parents.
Safety is worse, pollution is worse, though it blows east mostly to others, gas consumption is worse and time for everyday life is worse. What about Myrna Melgar, District 7 supervisor? She co sponsored the Prop K takeaway. She has a lot of power over transportation and she used it to make it worse. As a bike rider, my life has been threatened by the extra cars & frustrated drivers on the city streets. As a pedestrian, I have been threatened by bike riders crossing great highway without the control of the stop lights.
What about the other supervisors who supported Prop K while apparently not debating the negative effects. Did they just go along with Engardio & Melgar, like the GOP congress goes along with Trump? Can we trust them to make decisions on West side housing that will make life better?
The one thing I have observed is that high rises don’t seem to work well for low income housing. I remember the Pink Palace, where crime took over, and residents were afraid to complain. Maintenance is a problem, and crime is a problem. In a high rise elevators are necessary and can be hard to maintain in an underfunded, difficult environment.
Who has the knowledge and experience to make high rises work to better a neighborhood? Where has that been done well where we can copy? If it hasn’t been long term good in other places, don’t do it. I suggest careful research and doing change slowly, one building at a time & adjusting for what works and doesn’t work.
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