Market rate homes nixed from Hunters View project
By: John Upton
October 8, 2009
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Rebuilding boom: San Francisco Housing Authority sites also slated to be rebuilt under Hope SF include the Potrero Hill housing projects. (Examiner file photo)
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SAN FRANCISCO — The most radical element of a massive public housing reconstruction effort slated to start this year will be dumped due to the real estate slump.
Under Hope SF — a city-led program that will draw on federal, state and local funds — market rate homes will be part of rebuilt public housing projects. Those homes will be sold and rented to help pay for reconstructing public housing units.
Reconstruction of all 267 dilapidated units at the Hunters View public housing site will be Hope SF’s pilot project.
However, market rate homes won’t be part of the first of three planned phases of the project because of the weak real estate market.
Residents in homes affected by the first rebuilding phase are being moved to nearby Hunters View units that are currently vacant.
Predemolition work is scheduled to begin within three months.
Nearly 150 families live at Hunters View, said Mayor’s Office of Housing Director Doug Shoemaker.
“No one’s getting sent off-site,” he said. “There won’t be a wholesale demolition of the site.”
Under the revised Phase 1 plans, 80 public housing units and 26 rental apartments for tenants earning less than half the average San Franciscan’s income will be built, Redevelopment Agency documents show.
“Phase 1 was initially going to be comprised of the rental and homeownership component,” said Sally Oerth, a development specialist for the agency. “We’re going to put the homeownership on hold because this is obviously not the best time.”
Completing the Phase 1 project will take two years, she said.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development recently approved a $30 million grant to help fund infrastructure work throughout Hunters View, according to Oerth.
To help kick-start construction, Redevelopment Agency commissioners this week approved a $2.25 million loan to The City, which couldn’t meet its commitment to provide $3 million to the project this year because of a budget crisis.
