Milo Trauss admitted the project at 2588 Mission St. was a “non-starter for some people.” It’s a 10-story, overwhelmingly market-rate building proposed by Hawk Lou, the owner of the site on Mission and 22nd streets where Lou’s previous building burned in 2015. Scores of tenants and businesses were displaced (including Mission Local), and one tenant died.
“Ha,” an audience member laughed in response to project spokesperson Trauss’ non-starter statement. “It is for everyone in this room.”
Indeed, many felt the proposal presented Wednesday evening at Mission Cultural Latino Center for the Arts was the complete opposite of what most in the room desired: A 100-percent affordable building, with retail spaces for businesses that serve a working-class, Latinx community.
“Who were you thinking about with your design?” Susana Rojas, executive director of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, asked the development team, saying the project was not reflective of the Latino community. “It’s our process. It’s not the other way around.”
The city requires a preliminary community meeting for any housing proposal, to inform residents of the plans. Most of the 50 or so attendees Wednesday, however, knew the plans, and did not like what they saw. When they asked to speak to the owner about their criticisms, they were told he was absent.
Instead, Trauss, on Lou’s behalf, had originally planned for the meeting to occur “open-house style,” during which attendees could peruse stations with cardboard posters highlighting designs, and talk to the architects one-on-one. Wednesday’s participants found this, and Lou’s absence, “insulting.”
“A person died … and [the owner] doesn’t even have the respect to come here and face us. Then you’re going to railroad us with some paper cardboard and say that’s a meeting?” asked John Mendoza, the Calle 24 sergeant of arms. “You’ve disrespected us.”
After the crowd implored the development team to hold a group presentation so “everyone could be heard,” lead architect Ian Birchall volunteered to present, lecture-style, and answer questions. As all had predicted, the sensitive context of the project led to a tense, passionate meeting.
One woman said she’d ask what everyone was wondering: How much of the project would be affordable? Birchall’s response of 21 affordable units — out of 160 market-rate units, or 11.6 percent affordable — elicited multiple murmurs and head shakes from the audience. “No, no, no … ” Many spectators view a market-rate project as a catalyst to displacement and gentrification, given that the one- and two-bedroom units on this site would surpass a low-income person’s budget.
Instead, attendees from Latinx and American Indian organizations called for Lou to sell the long-vacant site to the city, so it can be developed into 100-percent affordable housing — a years-long request — especially for the seniors and families who were displaced by the fire.
“How many of you want to sell to the city?” Kevin Ortiz, of the San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club, asked the crowd, an hour into the presentation. A sea of arms shot up in agreement. “Sell it, sell it!” a small group of audience members chanted.
Another sticking point for the crowd was the matter of commercial leases. Community organizing director of HomeRise, Sara Shortt, lives nearby and mourned the former swath of businesses at the Mission Market, which was housed on the ground floor. Others missed buying flowers and cafecitos at 2588 Mission St. for cheap, especially from Latinx proprietors. “That was our mercado. Culturally, ours,” said Roberto Hernandez, the chief executive officer of CANA and a candidate for District 9 supervisor.
Trauss, a managing partner at GCA Strategies, and Birchall said a few aspects of the project could still be influenced by community input, including to determine the use of the 1,400 square foot community space along Bartlett Street. There would be a multipurpose room in the basement, an architect said.
But community members challenged the statement, saying that, for years, project developers knew the community’s demands and failed to uphold them. “How many times have I told you, this project is ugly?” Ortiz asked.
Several commenters brought up the circumstances of the fire, and the trauma it wrought on seniors and the more than 40 low-income tenants affected. One reminded the audience how Mauricio Orellana died, with his headphones on in a closet, at age 38. Tommy Jue, whom Lou had hired as contractor, had allegedly installed faulty fire alarms and was later sued by the District Attorney. Community members on Wednesday alleged Lou and his team are “profiteering” on the “blood” of Orellana.
“To come here and act like we need to get over it, that’s disrespectful,” one woman said.
Despite the outrage, the state has made it harder to allow community input to curtail housing in recent years. Save for eminent domain, it appears Lou may well achieve his project without the risk of city intervention or compromises with locals.
The project is expected to reach the Planning Commission before year’s end, Birchall said. The next time a community meeting happens, locals want Lou there, they said. Birchall closed the proceedings, thanking everyone for their “passion.”
“I wish there was a way we can convince you too that we care about the community,” Birchall said. “That’s a path we need to go down so far.”
I can’t even read these articles all the way through now. It’s ridiculous and — to borrow a term – ‘offensive’ to listen to the same strong-arm tactics used by these groups to stop, block or further stall projects in this neighborhood. As sympathetic as I am to the need for more affordable housing, it’s shameful for these people to represent the voice of the neighborhood as they do. The neighborhood is no more theirs than any other group that lives here (or aspires to) and their extortionist practice has led to little more than empty lots and vacant storefronts all down 24th St.
Exactly, the same type of full court press was applied to a project on Stevenson Street in Soma a couple years back – where the development of residences on the parking lot of a department store was blocked. I am under the impression that TODCO tried an angle where the lot would ultimately have ended up in their hands. Meantime though, new State rules have gone into effect that enable developers to navigate around such tactics, as we see here.
I’m not fan of Lou and believe he and others should have been made more accountable for the situation that lead to the death of one and displacement of many, I’m also not a fan of the borderline extortionary tactics employed by Calle 24. I do hope the recent state action defangs this group who claims to operate in the name of the community, but in reality is just looking out for their own, very narrow, interests. Do the math: 21 affordable units is 21 more units than currently exist. Preferential treatment should be given to those who were displaced by the fire. Let’s move on and build more housing to support everyone who needs a home!
Leaving this lot empty for 8 years because of this nonsense is the only thing driving up displacement. Build anything here pls.
This type of pushback is a big reason why housing is so expensive in San Francisco. These people excel at cutting their nose off to spite their face. I agree with the other commenter that they need to grow up and live in reality.
These professional whiners are children. Someone needs to let them know, they don’t own the property. No one owes them anything. And insisting upon 100% below market housing is a fantasy, unless government subsidies are being offered. It is precisely this socialist-inspired NIBYism that has created the housing crisis and lack of affordable housing. Progressives never learn.
Children. These complainers are children.
We are under a state mandate to build more housing. No developer is ever going to build a “100-percent affordable building” when “affordable” by the Mission Communist Local definition means below market rate. Ever.
Why not demand that they build a free chocolate fountain and no-cost health spa while you’re at it?
Some of these “complainers” are people who lost their homes and someone they knew from the (alleged) negligence of the owner who now wants to profit from the fire.
“We are under a state mandate to build more housing.”
…. with more than 40,000 of those mandated, by law, to be affordable.
“No developer is ever going to build a “100-percent affordable building”.”
Thank you for admitting that the private market cannot house people affordably, and that the mandate that you crow about will not solve the problem. Well done.
You clearly don’t understand how the law works. RHNA are minimums and only used for planning. San Francisco would not be in violation of any law if a million market rate units were constructed with 0 deed-restricted affordable housing. It would also be a lot more affordable than it is today if that happened.
Besides, more market rate development is the only chance at hitting the affordable housing minimums, since the city doesn’t want to spend tax money on building housing.
It is a wonderfully great and celebrated privilege in the City for any collective to have both a sense of stockaded entitlement and to complain about the injustice that always seems to attend the march of time. However, Maria Ressa once suggested that when civil discourse is excused from the room and designedly nuanced but colorably false statements are amplified by a crowd or the media, even in the furtherance of a just and impassioned conviction, the element of disinformation spreads six times faster than the truth. The attendees on both sides at the community meeting may or may not possess an exclusivity claim on the truth, but it’s a fair bet that possession is perceived to be nine tenths of the law.
Very good. I wish I could say I had written this comment.
Candace is trying to gentrify the block.
I’d be a little late to that party. I’ve been in the area long enough to know the gentrification happened long ago.
“Gentrification” is a swear word for some people. What it means is that properties are worth more, and often that brings with it benefits such as better shops, cleaner streets and lower crime. You hate that, but not everyone does.
Do you remember when you could get shot or stabbed on the street for wearing the wrong-color shirt in a Sureño or Norteño neighborhood? I do. It wasn’t better. Though I do miss Leather Tongue Video.
Candace, I love your comment and I also miss that video store.
Change is inevitable and it is just about the only thing we can count on. The Mission has had many different inhabitants. It started out with the Yelamu tribe who were Native Americans and part of the Ohlone people. They were in the area for 2000 years until the Spanish arrived during the 18th century. When the Spanish arrived it was horrible for the Ohlone people. The gold rush brought German, Irish, and Italian immigrants. The Mission District had California’s first baseball stadium. In the 1970’s immigrants from Central America, the Middle East, and South America came to the Mission which didn’t make the German, Irish and Italian immigrants happy. So the Mission has had many different inhabitants and no one owns it and change is inevitable. We need housing and at the end of the day it comes down to a simple supply and demand issue. We need supply because we have major demand. The more supply we have the cheaper housing will become.
Gentrification leads to abysmal and predictable infusion of high end businesses that are unoriginal. We need alternatives . The Mission used to be more full of palces thagt were chaeper and had niche business models. I think San Francisco has rsisted paving over paradise and putting a new gift shop/gym/ceramicsstudio…thx
Gentrification is a human right…
“Despite the outrage, the state has made it harder to allow community input to curtail housing in recent years. Save for eminent domain, it appears Lou may well achieve his project without the risk of city intervention or compromises with locals.”
Music to my ears. Sick of all of these entitled busybodies making our housing crisis worse every day, and so grateful the state is coming in to set things right.
“Community input” is just another way of saying “Only listen to the people privileged enough to still be here, and ignore all of the people who you displaced with your anti-housing obstinance”. It’s anti-democratic and it’s time we start ignoring them and following state housing law.
I am all for development but this dude had a dangerous fire trap in which a man died. When the fire didn’t destroy the building he let it rot in the rain. Now he wants to profit from that? This isn’t about building housing, it’s about doing what’s right. The city should sieze the property through eminent domain and develop the property in a way that’s fair to those who lost their homes and their businesses.
I’d be concerned that this guy would be allowed to build a 160 unit building when it’s been shown he hired cheap contractors to work on his fire system and there was a ton of negligence found on his properties during the lawsuit. Too bad he can’t be banned from building and forced to sell to someone else.
When these “community” groups say they want to “preserve culture” what they really mean is they want to grab as much power over residents of the Mission as they can.
They want to funnel taxpayer money into their own pockets by getting the city to pay their nonprofits for all kinds of BS “community work”.
The red flag is when they say “community”. What they mean is “spanish-speakers who agree with our socialist ideas”. As if they speak for the entire Mission. How prideful and egotistical to think you can speak for all Mexicans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran people.
Anyone can walk down 24th street right now and see how the approaches of Calle24 and the offensive-named “LatinX” club are working. The Mission has fallen into disrepair. It is dirty. There is no housing being built. No one wants to open a business here. It’s dead after dark. There is so much trash that Manny has to employ an army of volunteers to clean it all up, and it’s back to trash-filled the very next day.
I’m sorry but these groups have had their shot, and they have failed. It’s time for a new approach in the Mission.
Bingo!
Longtime, Latino, (not latinx), resident here. I say this time and time, again: “I was to think I was liberal, and then I moved to San Francisco.”
They’re not socialists, they’re contras, they’re not community groups, they’re city funded nonprofits running an extortion racket for their own agencies’ economic benefit.
The only base of support they have is their symbiotic relationship with electeds where electeds fund the nonprofit and the nonprofit engineers political work for electeds’ campaigns.
Looks like this was a pretty ridiculous affair. Picking one out of the hat: It would behoove the San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club to have worked with the City to find the interest in the acquisition of the property by the City. Or did they simply show up at the meeting and throw it out there? If that’s the case, if I where Lou, I’d file this (and the rest of the meeting) under miscellaneous, and move on.
Ideally Lou would sell but there is nothing wrong with this plan. There are plenty of vacant commercial spaces on Mission. The arrogant response from Hernandez… he’s lost my vote. Very disappointing. Roberto, if you’re reading there are many wonderful spots to buy flowers and enjoy a cafecito in the neighborhood. Go support these businesses.
Does anyone take Calle 24 seriously? More blight, more funding from the city to “better the neighborhood.”
I don’t understand why these rag tag bunch of Latinos decide that they own a neighborhood. Are we saying that racial groups have priority over geographic parts of the city? Only white people can decide what gets built in Pac Heights?
Reduce the percent of affordable housing for every one of these meetings designed to delay they have to hold.
Next (eventual) article headline: “Mission Community Leaders Decry Lack of Support for Mission Opportunities; ‘Why Are We Left Behind?’ “
I think the building next to it is nine stories, so the proposed building isn’t much taller. And while I agree that more affordable units would be much better for the community, if the developers replaced the same number of units as the previous building had…would that be enough?
The city should take the lot and turn it into a park. Mission street is the longest street in the City, and has ZERO greenspace along its entire length. This is a perfect spot for a park, considering it’s right next to a weekly farmer’s market, directly next door to one school, and less than two blocks away from ANOTHER elementary school.
Latinx ??
WTF, cant use Latino/Latina ?
They should be building more than 10 stories here, more like 20 or 30.
This bad actor owner, (did anyone read article? The fire 2015 from cheap electrical work contracted by owner?The loss of affordable family housing? Children moved out of local schools away from friends and caretakers? A death!) All displaced residents and businesses should be offered similiar apartments at same rent controlled price! And this owner of 17 other probably substandard dangerous buildings (this should be investigated) can afford to subsidize the whole building at 100% VERY affordable – the least he can do for whats needed in the community and SF. This is not nimby – its about affordable housing for the glaring need!
If it wasn’t for rent control, he might leave been able to afford better upgrades.
The death of the tenant is the fault of anyone that votes for Marxist laws.
Landlord could have prevented this if he hired an actual contractor. He was not forced to cut corners. He chose to. Marxism has anything to do with this how?
I hope this architect can design an appropriate looking building–one that acknowledges the human scale expressed in older architecture. For example, a 10 story building on Mission Street that was built in the 1920s did not look out of place despite being surrounded by 3 story buildings. It’s because it was proportioned and detailed to appeal to the human eye. Why not design such a humane building now? I leave the economics of market rate vs BMR to the geniuses.
Can we bring back the best food court in the city with the fresh fish and chicken on one side the the beef and other meats on the other? And the wonderful fresh produce and specialty items? That is what I miss the most. And re-house everyone who lost their homes due to the fire.
Let the extortion racket commence!
San Francisco needs to LEGISLATE affordability into the Planning Code instead of privatizing advocacy into city funded nonprofits that stand to benefit economically if the extortion is successful.
The owner and builder has a responsibility to restore what was lost by the fire caused by landlord neglegence. At minimum, it should be below market retail space equivalent to what was lost and 40+ units for very low income people. Plus it can’t be more of this ugly cookie cutter crap being put up around this neighborhood. The previous building was an architectural beauty.
I welcome those posting their displeasure at the brown people of this community attempting to use their little shreds of political influence to seek social justice. I’m glad that you’re reading Mission Local (you are subscribers, of course) and assume you read a paragraph or two of this article before enlightening your fellow readers.
But did you read on to today’s next post?
“SF developer Sia Tahbazof, two other execs charged by feds with bribery“
If so, please try to connect the dots between your entitled and condescending comments on how capitalism works —when it’s crystal clear how the system actually works.
The developers, the city politicians & administrators, the financiers: Their pay-to-play system works just great for them. Never mind in the inconvenience of a federal indictment once a decade or so, that’s what lawyers are for.
But apparently it’s the community organizers in the Mission that are the culprits for SF housing cost. Really nailed it, didn’t you?
Lou should be cooling his heels in prison, not rapaciously profiting from the neglect of his former building that led to displacement and the loss of life. That said, no project — let alone this one — should move forward in this this city unless it meets the needs of the city. We have THOUSANDS of vacant market rate units. We don’t need more of those. What we’re lacking is affordable housing. And lest the YIMBYs start whining, how exactly do you think businesses like restaurants and retail will ever find the workers they need if those workers cannot afford to live here? Expecting to people to commute in for those and other jobs on the lower pay scale is as ridiculous as it is offensive. And every one of those jobs is necessary. We have spent YEARS building a glut of housing for the investor class to leave so often empty. It’s time for that to stop and making that line in the sand for a criminal landlord is a fine place to start.
What a snarky and evil comment. People have every right to make demands on developers who will make millions and impact the community. Obviously there’s lot of negotiating space between 11% affordable and 100%. Also the nature of the commercial spaces is a matter of community interest. Again, obvious. Candace, if you don’t like Mission Local, why do you read it?
Evil? Overreact much?
I read Mission Local partly to keep up with local news, and partly to keep up with whatever silliness local progressives are pushing these days.
Re your comment about negotiating space: I take it you have never done any negotiating professionally. No developer is going to build 100% non-market-rate housing. Period. That’s not how capitalism works.
If you hate capitalism, North Korea is hiring.
I agree with all your comments.
I am a renter. There never has been, and never will be a time I can own my own home in SF. If I were to lose the apartment where I’ve lived for a long time, I’d don’t know what I’d do. I’d probably be on the street or have to leave for parts unknown. But even so, it seems to me that ANY housing built, even if only some of it is “affordable” (a relative concept; I couldn’t afford to buy even what passes for “affordable” now) is a good thing. The more housing built, the more there is to go around. Supply and demand. At some point the economics of that would start to kick in. Unless you’re a Marxist, of course, in which case you don’t live in the real world anyway.
Private developers can’t solve the housing affordability crisis by definition because they exist to profit off the construction of housing. It’s already not profitable to build affordable housing, which is why we have such a deficit of affordable housing. When it becomes less profitable to build market-rate housing, development stops. Construction of market-rate housing has already slowed down due to market forces– there’s tons of vacant market-rate/luxury units already.
The only way to increase the supply of housing that working people can afford is MASSIVE public investment in affordable housing construction.
100% affordable isn’t going to happen, not even close. Community groups such as these are to blame for housing crisis we are in. “Community interest” to gatekeep future Latin residents if this project doesnt get built ?