And our board is up for re-election. We serve two-year terms. David Pennebaker is chairing our Nominations Committee and wants to hear from any member who is interested in serving on the board. He’s also seeking volunteers to help with the election which will be conducted online this year. More details from David by Labor Day.
To get involved, please email us at info@doloresheights.org.
We’ve missed seeing you!! When the March 2020 Shelter in Place orders banned group gatherings, DHIC cancelled our Spring Fling. We fully expected to see you at our street party in early October. However, the June – July surge in SF COVID-19 cases is forcing us to pivot yet again. Stay tuned for a special bulletin later in August about our fall party and our annual membership drive.
As reported in prior DHIC articles, San Francisco and California face a significant affordable housing shortage — housing for our teachers, municipal support workers, first responders, service workers, etc. However, a group of legislators are sponsoring bills (SB 902, SB 1085, SB 1120, and AB 3107) that give large incentives such as building height and density bonuses to construct market rate and luxury residences. These bills have lower or no requirements for affordable housing units or subsidies. Moreover, these bills limit the rights of residents to contest the negative impacts those excessive building bonuses will have on San Francisco including in our Dolores Heights neighborhood. These bills are now in the second house — to be voted on by August 13th. If you haven’t already acted, take five minutes now to submit your position via the official Cal Legislature Position Letter Portal. Numbers count! “How-to” and detailed directions are below.
The key bills that we’ve been highlighting for the past two months are listed below. Click here to read more details about each of these bills.
And we support SB 1299. During this time of COVID-19 with its record retail business closings and high unemployment, this bill uses our valuable state resources to solve two problems. It supports converting closed big box retail and commercial shopping centers into workforce housing developments. You can register your support for this bill using the same Portal.
Take Action Today!
If you haven’t already, please take 5 minutes to register your position on all of these bills at one location: the Cal Legislature Position Letter Portal.
Create Account at Cal Legislature Portal:
Log in to the Portal and submit Your Stance
These positions are tallied daily. It’s important that you register your position on bills. The legislators keep track of the tallies, and the comments are less important.
Liz Clark captured these images of the huge Black Lives Matter demonstration that happened last month in Dolores Park. This is an historic time for our city and our nation!
The Pink Triangle on the slope of Twin Peaks as seen from Dolores Heights. This year we celebrated Pride Month with pink lights because 50th Annual Pride activities were cancelled and replaced with online events.
(Photo by David Dea)
A community effort has led to around 20 murals decorating the facades of boarded up businesses along the Castro’s central corridors: Castro, Market, and 18th streets.
The project is being led by the Castro Merchants, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District (CQCD), Paint the Void, an organization that has sprung up to create murals on closed businesses around the Bay Area, and the Castro Art Project.
Thanks to Liz Clark for these photos of the artwork and artists around our neighborhood. Keep your eyes open as you walk or bike our streets!
Despite San Francisco’s continued overachievement of market rate housing production (pacing to 246% of the 2022 goal) and ignoring San Francisco’s inclusionary and affordable housing programs which are the most far-reaching in California, our state legislators continue sponsoring bills that override San Francisco’s local planning programs and land use decisions.
Three bills would tilt the balance to developers vs. affordable housing: SB 902, SB 1085, and AB 3107. Please take five minutes to register your opposition. (Directions for using online CalLeg Position Portal at end of this article.) On the other hand, SB 1299 does use incentives to create fully affordable housing. Please read below for details.
Senate Bill 902 (Sponsor: Wiener): Misleadingly sold as “a lighter touch on SB 50” (defeated in January, 2020), it allows local governments to zone for up to ten units of housing on a lot that’s in “jobs-rich”, “transit-rich” or an “urban infill area.” Based on SF Planning’s 2019 analysis of these areas, nearly all of San Francisco’s residential parcels would be eligible for up to ten-unit upzoning. It also enables developers to submit directly to the Board of Supervisors…regardless of existing area plans or existing zoning and without environmental review. The bill explicitly overrides any local voter restrictions against such upzoning, effectively abolishing California’s 100-year tradition of voter-initiated propositions. (For example, it would have prohibited the 2013 voter initiative, “No Wall on the Waterfront” that rejected a 135 foot high development at 8 Washington Street.)
Senate Bill 1085 (Sponsor: Nancy Skinner): This bill waters down the 2018 State Density Bonus (SDB) law’s incentives to add affordable units to housing projects. Currently, the SBD provides projects of five or more units with additional height and other concessions or allowances in return for including much-needed affordable housing in the proposed project. SB 1085 would give density incentives to any project of TWO or more units — without requiring any affordable housing units. It also waters down the SDB by allowing projects to include only moderate income housing — instead of all levels of affordable housing. The State Density Bonus has successfully enabled more affordable housing in projects in San Francisco. Why gut this program when it’s working? SF Supervisors agreed; on June 16th they unanimously passed a resolution opposing SB 1085.
Assembly Bill 3107 (Sponsors: Richard Bloom & Philip Y. Ting): Upzones big chunks of San Francisco to Manhattan-size 10, 20, 30 or even 40 stories. Allows commercial parcels to be used for housing development if 20% of the units are affordable. This bill allows greatly increased height, density and floor area ratios. Any housing project meeting the affordability criteria can be as tall as any other commercial or residential building within one half mile of the project’s parcel. For example, the newly-built 40-floor 1550 Mission Street project could set the height limit for parcels in Hayes Valley or Upper Market. Or the Cathedral Hill Towers’ (1220 Gough St.) 27-floor high-rise could be used for heights as far away as Hayes, Fillmore, Clay, and Leavenworth Streets (1/2 mile radius.) Pick your local high-rise landmark to see the impact on your neighborhood on this map.
Please act now…take five minutes to tell our legislators that you oppose these bills using the same Portal. Create an account with your email & a password. Then enter the bill’s letter & number (e.g., AB 3107), hit “Search”, then click on the button for “Oppose”. Optional: enter your comments or language from this article. Click “Submit” then click “Return to Note Submission Page” to the landing page where you enter the next bill’s House (AB or SB) and bill number and hit “Search” again. These positions are tallied daily.
We will keep you posted on key bills as the legislative process continues. PDFs of the bills (as of June 28, 2020) are in this folder.
And we support SB 1299. You can register your support for it using the same Portal.
SB 1299 (Sponsor: Anthony J. Portantino): During this time of COVID-19 with its record retail business closings and high unemployment, this bill uses our valuable state resources to solve two problems. It supports converting closed big box retail and commercial shopping centers into workforce housing developments. Retail real estate is undergoing a massive transformation. These stores will not reopen; they need to be repurposed. Building more housing that is affordable to those earning BELOW MEDIAN income is a key need. SB 1299 would provide local governments with grants to replace lost sales tax revenue if they rezone big-box or shopping center parcels to allow affordable housing developments.
RescueSF was formed by several groups of neighborhood leaders and residents because our voices are missing from the dialog on homelessness. Neighbors are de facto hosts to tents on the sidewalks of our neighborhoods and our City. And yet our City leaders are not addressing our concerns. Allowing street sleeping and mentally ill individuals wandering in our communities is not safe, not healthy, and not compassionate. RescueSF’s leaders are organizing a grassroots coalition of neighborhood groups across the City to speak out for effective solutions to homelessness. The organization supported Safe Sleeping Villages (including a temporary site at Everett Middle School) as one alternative to street sleeping. Now RescueSF is identifying key issues to address using the power of our voices and our numbers. Check out the RescueSF website and register to receive key updates and announcements.
You can help by attending RescueSF’s weekly speakers series (via Zoom on Wednesdays at 12 noon.) The series is intended to educate residents about the causes and solutions of homelessness. Featured speakers included Dr. Margot Kushel, UCSF expert on homelessness, Kevin Fagan, SF Chronicle reporter who’s reported extensively on street homelessness, and David Faigman, dean of Hastings Law School that sued the City to stop the unsafe street sleeping in the Tenderloin. Find out about the July line-up of expert speakers and register to attend these webinairs here.
DHIC Board voted to join this coalition to add our voices and support to a grassroots coalition organizing for effective solutions to homelessness. If you’d like to get involved, please write to info@doloresheights.org or to Carolyn Kenady, DHIC Chair.
