"Affordable housing. Livable city."
That was Aaron Peskin's slogan for his first Supervisorial campaign in 2000. Since he was first elected to the job, Supervisor Peskin has consistently claimed to be an ally of affordable housing. But his legislative record muddies the waters.
Peskin’s latest power-play, attempting to derail affordable housing at 88 Broadway to make way for a homeless Navigation Center shows it's important to look at what he does, not what he says. It’s yet another milestone in the Supervisor’s history of supporting affordable housing in order to prevent it from being built.
The affordable housing project at 88 Broadway may end up another San Francisco story of what-could-have-been. It went through a long approval process, including neighborhood requests that the project include middle income and senior housing, as well as units reserved specifically for the formerly homeless.
While District 3 does indeed needs a Navigation Center, and there has been significant pressure on all Supervisors to approve one in their districts, placing one at the 88 Broadway site will likely quash more permanent housing project already planned for the site. The only alternative site Peskin proposed for the shelter is a shed at Pier 23, which experts say is unworkable for a number of reasons.
According to Cynthia Parker, President and CEO of Bridge Housing, the primary contractor, “We’ve heard about plans for a Navigation Center, but the developer team has not been approached by Supervisor Peskin directly. Our development will provide a total of 178 much-needed apartments for families and seniors; 20% (35 units) will be permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless people. We’re working with the city to expedite construction, and pending approvals and financing, we’re hoping to break ground in late 2018.”
As Rachel Swan recently reported in the Chronicle, Peskin’s motivations look an awful lot like retaliation against an affordable housing developer guilty of nothing other than not being among his favored coterie of contractors, while gifting himself the political bonus of making it look like his district is willing to share the burden of tackling the homeless problem.
It wouldn’t be the first time Peskin has played politics at the expense of affordable housing. Much of what he proposes, while claiming to support affordable housing, often ends up delaying or reducing it.
Some of his past proposals were conveniently infeasible, such as his perennial suggestion to build affordable housing above the Sansome Street fire station. The idea has been put forth repeatedly since 1975, and Peskin himself has suggested it multiple times. That's probably because he knows it's politically impossible, especially given the prerogatives of the Firefighters’ Union: back in 2005, they put a policy statement on the ballot requiring the Fire Department to keep all existing firehouses open, flying in the face of a review from the Controller. The measure passed with 58% of the vote, and while non-binding, remains an effective deterrent to any legislator considering going against the will of the union on the issue.
Most of what Peskin propounds, however, seems aimed at reducing or obstructing other proposals for affordable units.
In 2005, then Board President Peskin presided over the defunding of Mission Housing Development Corporation, aiding and abetting a political vendetta carried by his ally, Supervisor Chris Daly. The move prevented any affordable housing being built in the Mission District for over a decade, contributing to that neighborhood's ongoing affordability crisis.
In 2015, Peskin led the charge to reject a sale of a city-owned property at 30 Van Ness for development as apartments, claiming that the deal did not include enough affordable housing. The original plan could've provided up to 33% affordable with the right combination of subsidies. The property was put on the market again and sold to another developer for $10 million less, with no appreciable increase in the affordable component.
Last year, Peskin, along with Supervisor Jane Kim, put Proposition C on the ballot, which raised the inclusionary housing requirement for new projects to 25%. Passed by voters, it ended up killing the housing pipeline, until modified by the Board in a deal which took months to put together. Then he floated another ballot measure, Proposition M, which would've grabbed control of the Mayor's Office of Housing, putting it under a commission filled with political appointees. That effort failed.
Then again, Peskin has consistently advertised himself as a pro-tenant politician, even though he has been consistently supported by landlords and property moguls. He himself is a landlord. As always with Aaron Peskin and housing, it’s “Watch What I Do, Not What I Say.”
Meanwhile, the status of the 88 Broadway project remains up in the air.
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