[BTinSF]

Island housing

Calling for more housing affordability in the Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Redevelopment Plan

By Michael Leonard

As the Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Redevelopment Plan heads for a pair of public hearings that will shape the project's environmental impact report, Sup. Chris Daly, whose District 6 includes the island, is calling for more housing affordability.

The Mayor's Office of Base Reuse and Real Estate Development is pushing the project along with private partner Treasure Island Community Development (which includes politically connected entities such as Lennar Corp. and Darius Anderson's Kenwood Investments).

The project now calls for 5,500 to 6,000 housing units, 30 percent of them to be offered below market rates, including 400 available to "formerly homeless San Franciscans."

But Daly introduced a resolution Jan. 15 calling for half the units to be offered below market rates. "What [the resolution] comes out of is a growing sense that we need to do more for affordable housing, especially when there are significant public resources involved," Daly told the Guardian in a phone interview.

Jack Sylvan, project manager for the city, noted that the Board of Supervisors approved the project's term sheet 10-1 in 2006, with Daly among those in favor. "It's changing the rules in the middle of the game," Sylan told us. Plus, he doubts the developer could meet that affordability goal and still have the project pencil out: "It's not a choice between 30 percent and 50 percent. It's a choice between 30 percent and zero."

Daly's resolution heads to the board's Land Use and Economic Development Committee in the next few weeks. The first Planning Department meeting is on Feb. 11, 6 p.m., at the Bayside Conference Room, Port of San Francisco, Pier 1. The second is on Feb. 13, 6 p.m., at the Ship Shape Bldg., bldg. 497, Avenue M and 11th Ave., Treasure Island. These will focus solely on the drafting of the EIR, but the affordable-housing aspect will continue to be part of the larger discussion.

Source: http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=5614