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Aug 31, 2015/ 0 Comments / in Ballot initiative, Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, Planning Department, Policy, Regulatory Committee / by
A First Look at Mission Action Plan 2020

Claudia Flores visited us from the Planning Department last Friday to share the latest on the Mission Action Plan 2020 (MAP2020) with the SF Housing Action Coalition’s Regulatory Committee. The Mission neighborhood has been losing low- to moderate-income households faster than the SF average, and the Latino population has dropped from 50% to 38.5% of the Mission’s population over the past 13 years. To stem this tide and address the challenge of preserving the neighborhood’s diversity, Ms. Flores has been working for the past seven months with a small group of Mission stakeholders to draft the MAP2020.

Mission Action Plan 2020’s stated goal is to help retain low- and moderate-income residents; community-serving small businesses (including light industrial uses, called PDR) and nonprofits in order to preserve the socioeconomic diversity of the Mission neighborhood.

MAP2020’s Areas of Focus:
– Tenant Protections
– Existing Housing Preservation
– New Housing Production
– Neighborhood Housing Access
– Small business, PDR and nonprofits Retention
– Jobs programs

Solutions underway or being considered:
– Mayor’s Neighborhood Preference Program for BMRs and affordable housing
– Small sites acquisition, such as 490 South Van Ness
– Displacement and relocation funding for nonprofits
– Free technical assistance for PDR businesses
– Housing Bond funding in regular capital planning cycle
– Calle 24 commercial interim zoning controls (a separate, but parallel process)
– Building the four proposed 100% affordable sites in the Mission (260-300 units)
– Affordable Housing Density Bonus Program specifically for the Mission

So far, nothing in the draft plan considers upzoning Mission Street which was once on the table as part of the 2008 Eastern Neighborhood Area Plan, then inexplicably forgotten. As of now, the MAP2020 relies mainly on the local density bonus program and the four affordable sites already in MOH’s portfolio to reach their goals of 1500 – 3000 new affordable homes. However, if there’s a moratorium on building new market-rate housing in the Mission for 18-30 months, new market-rate housing could not start up again until May 2018, leaving only 1.5 years to build hundreds of affordable homes, a completely unrealistic goal.

A financial institution member at the Reg Com meeting pointed out that without having a realistic funding plan tied to the MAP2020, it will be useless and hypothetical. The SFHAC couldn’t agree more. All housing, whether affordable or market-rate, needs funding to make it possible. And right now, the largest single source of funding for affordable housing comes from market-rate production. The federal sources of funding are shrinking, the state pots of money are woefully lean, and without allowing market-rate developers to build BMRs or pay millions in fees to the Mayor’s Office of Housing, there’s no reliable funding source to subsidize affordable housing. The Housing Bond by itself is unable to achieve the affordability goals for the Mission on its own.

The Planning Department plans to deliver a draft of the MAP2020 this winter with two more community meetings planned this autumn. In response to the Planning Department’s call for comments to the Plan, the SFHAC started a small working group to compile our recommendations which we will present at our next Regulatory Committee meeting on Friday, September 11th.

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Housing Action Coalition

The Housing Action Coalition is a member-supported nonprofit that advocates for building more housing at all levels of affordability to help alleviate the Bay Area's housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crises.

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