San Francisco Supervisor David Campos introduced an emergency ordinance on Tuesday to temporarily halt market-rate housing development in the city’s Mission District in an effort to stop displacement of residents in the neighborhood.
The interim emergency ordinance would “establish a moratorium on all market-rate housing in the Mission for the next 45 days,” Campos said, eliciting cheers from the crowd gathered at City Hall for the Board of Supervisors’ meeting.
Campos, who represents the Mission District, said the moratorium would allow the city a chance to “update zoning controls in the Mission, create new polices to stem displacement, identify revenue sources for affordable housing and develop a plan to build thousands of units of affordable housing.”
Supervisors Eric Mar, Jane Kim, John Avalos and Norman Yee are co-sponsors of the ordinance.
Campos said many Mission District residents see their community as “under siege” by developers.
More than 1,600 low to moderate income households have left the Mission District since the new millennium and rent-controlled units are disappearing at a rate of around 80 units per year, he said.
The Latino population, in particular, has declined by more than 8,000 since 2000, he said, with Latinos now making up only 40 percent of the neighborhood’s population, as compared to 52 percent in 2000.
Campos said over the last decade only one affordable housing development has been completed in the Mission District, in 2009. He noted that according to planning department figures, only 7 percent of the roughly 1,300 residential units being approved for construction in the neighborhood are expected to be below market rate.
Developers are paying fees instead of building affordable units, which means that despite so much residential construction, working class residents as well as seniors are being displaced and “the prices keep going up,” Campos said.
Following Campos’ introduction, the crowd cheered “Si, se puede!” which translates from Spanish as “Yes, we can!”
Hannah Albarazi, Bay City News
