Is SF affordable housing now as easy as 1234 Great Highway?

Affordable-housing advocates and San Francisco officials say they are cautiously optimistic the next major Sunset district housing proposal will avoid the all-to-familiar and all-too-tumultuous roller coaster ride to fruition.

After years of resistance from aggrieved neighbors, an affordable housing project on Irving Street has finally broken ground this summer.

Next up, The City is funding a plan to convert what is now a Motel 6 at 1234 Great Highway into a 216-unit affordable housing complex for seniors.

On the surface, it shares several similarities with the now-under-construction project at 2550 Irving St. That development, which celebrated its long-awaited start of construction in June, will result in 90 units of affordable housing, but only after opposition by a neighborhood group ensnared it in environmental reviews and legal challenges.

The Irving Street and Great Highway developments are designed to bring much-needed affordable housing to the Sunset, which has a preponderance of single-family homes and is, in the eyes of city planners, ripe for increased density.

Both projects are collaborations between The City and nonprofit housing developer Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. Both are along main arteries with access to neighborhood amenities and transit.

And both are seven stories tall in a neighborhood where such buildings are relatively few and far between, taking advantage of state law that allows for extra density for 100% affordable-housing projects.

A formal plan has yet to be submitted to The City, but the sheer scale of the project has already sparked questions from neighborhood residents . However, the project’s backers are optimistic that the review process for 1234 Great Highway will be simpler, less controversial, and a heck of a lot faster than what occurred at 2550 Irving St.

Supervisor Joel Engardio has already fielded such questions, but stressed that “it’s important to point out that there won’t be a wall of seven-story buildings along the coast, this is a real exception because [it is]100% affordable, and those avenues along the coast are not being considered for any upzoning.”

Wait, is that legal?

The path taken by 1234 Great Highway could serve as yet another litmus test of the recent wave of housing legislation and policy changes intended to shed the types of regulatory hurdles that slowed 2550 Irving St.

State legislation sponsored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, Senate Bill 35, represented a sea change in California housing policy when it took effect in 2018. Among other adjustments, it ensured that affordable-housing projects like 2550 Irving would be eligible for streamlined approvals — but it left avenues for neighborhood opponents to appeal.

“SB35 made a project’s planning-level authorizations ‘appeal proof’ but didn’t do the same for the permit to actually put a shovel in the ground,” Planning Department spokesperson Dan Sider explained in an email.

Conceived in 2019, the project at 2550 Irving St. prompted concerns from neighbors who fretted primarily about environmental contamination at the site, but also traffic impacts from the new development and the encroachment of shadows the building would spread to neighboring homes.

Neighbors unsuccessfully appealed the demolition permit on the grounds that the site was contaminated, as well as the building permit on the same basis. They also launched a failed effort to have a court issue an injunction against the construction project.

Ultimately, construction began this year, but not after the series of challenges added $1 million to the nearly $100 million project cost, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Assembly Bill 1114, sponsored by Assemblymember Matt Haney last year, removed the ability appeal a building permit, Sider said.

“We’re literally the only city in the state that allows just anyone to stand up, object, and stop a project even after it has received all its approvals,” Haney explained in a statement following passage of his bill, specifically citing 2550 Irving as an example. “To allow that in a city that has such a desperate need for housing is just insane.”

That means the Great Highway project could face fewer obstacles to construction.

Still, TNDC says it’s committed to working with the neighborhood — to an extent — and has already held two public meetings to introduce neighbors to the project and hear their feedback.

TNDC is taking a different approach to that task than with Irving Street, attempting to make abundantly plain that they plan to build what’s allowed under city and state law, regardless of whether nearby residents want something smaller.

“We could have done a better job of being very clear that this is coming based on state policies and San Francisco being really behind on its [housing] goals, and there’s this tremendous need,” said Shreya Shah, associate director of housing development at TNDC, said when asked what the nonprofit learned from the Irving Street ordeal. “To be fair to us, we did say that a number of times, it just did not land well with a lot of the community members.”

In other words, the nonprofit developer is open to hearing neighbors’ thoughts on whether the building should open to the property’s Great Highway side or the La Playa side but, either way, the building is going to be seven stories and have more than 200 units. Such a development is a commitment TNDC made to The City when it accepted funding for the project, Shah noted.

The Great Highway project does face one hurdle that the Irving Street project did not. The site falls within the coastal zone regulated by the California Coastal Commission, and thus must receive a Coastal Development Permit, but that does not prohibit the building from reaching seven stories.

Of course, the project’s proximity to the beach is considered one of its assets, serving as a bucolic place for its future senior residents, who will also be served by an adult day health-care center in the commercial space on the building’s ground floor.

Affordable housing in SF

Whether on Great Highway or elsewhere, The City needs to make progress on affordable housing.

They come as San Francisco desperately scrambles to meet the goals outlined in its state-mandated Housing Element, a plan that requires it to make way for at least 82,000 homes by 2031.

Of those 81,000 new homes, more than half must be affordable.

Those who work in affordable housing say they hope that, as projects come online, neighbors will grow more receptive to that kind of growth.

The real test, Shah said, will be when 2550 Irving is open and operational.

“The hope for TNDC is that people in the neighborhood will just become more accepting of affordable housing because they will see how well our buildings integrate into the community,” Shah said.

At least one neighborhood group — Outer Sunset Neighbors — say it is supportive of not only the Great Highway project, but housing of all types.

“That corner specifically has a lot of potential and more residents will help local businesses along the Irving commercial corridor a few blocks away,” Phoebe Ford, housing lead for the group, told The Examiner. “As neighbors, we also hope this project will include improvements for pedestrians and bikes connecting Golden Gate Park [via Martin Luther King Jr. Drive]and Great Highway Park.”

With the Great Highway project in the queue, Engardio said the Sunset “is really pulling its weight now” when it comes to developing affordable housing. It’s also the home of the Shirley Chisholm Village, a 135-unit affordable housing complex on 43rd Avenue that will prioritize public-school teachers and began accepting applications earlier this year.

Engardio said he is confident that the Sunset can take on such projects — particularly on corner lots, which are zoned for up to six stories — without losing its essential Sunset-ness.

“Ultimately, we’ll find the right balance, and I think the sunset is doing that balance,” Engardio said.