The San Francisco Department of Elections announced yesterday that proponents of a referendum on Bayview-Hunters Point Redevelopment had submitted over 33,000 signatures. This is over 50% more than the 20,800 required, and gives the campaign sufficient breathing room when the random sampling for signature validity occurs Friday. The petition count comes as the San Francisco 49ers and the Lennar Corp. have announced further plans for the Bayview-Hunters Point community—plans that have never been subject to a public hearing or community meeting, that have seemingly bypassed District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, and that run directly counter to the public participation process set forth in the Redevelopment Plan.
Backers of the Bayview-Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan have to be chagrined over the continued media leaks by the San Francisco 49ers over their plans for the community. After convincing a Board of Supervisors majority that the Redevelopment Agency could best ensure community control over decision-making in Bayview, the neighborhood’s future is being decided by wealthy corporations well out of public view.
Some of these backers must be privately pleased that there is a strong likelihood that a referendum on Bayview Redevelopment will likely qualify for the November 2007 ballot. The referendum will force the 49ers and Lennar to come clean on their plans, and allow voters and supervisors to understand the relationship between this private land grab and the proposed Redevelopment Plan.
When the media reports that the 49ers, Lennar Corp., and Forest City Enterprises are developing plans for a 12,000 seat arena, a 68,000 seat stadium, a shopping center and 6000 housing units in Bayview-Hunters Point, does this not trigger questions about what role, if any, the public has had in deciding the future of this neighborhood? The Mayor’s Office apparently knows what is going on, but what about the Supervisors, particularly Sophie Maxwell, who represents Bayview?
It looks by all appearances that the city’s largest African-American neighborhood is being carved up by some of the nation’s largest development corporations without so much as a community meeting. In a city that loves public input as much as San Francisco, the vast scope of this backroom dealing is simply amazing.
Some major questions quickly emerge.
If this project moves forward, would the increased tax revenue from Lennar’s proposed housing go to the city’s general fund, the 49ers, or, if the referendum had not moved forward, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency?
Who will decide what type of housing gets built and for what income levels. Lennar? The Redevelopment Agency? The Board of Supervisors? The question of income level is critical because it will determine whether the housing is furthering or slowing gentrification. And the lower the income levels for new housing, the more likely that current African-Americans in the neighborhood will qualify.
Why would environmentally-conscious San Francisco, whose Mayor wants everything to be Green, support building an arena that will only be accessible by car? The longterm negative environmental impacts of this arena will exceed all of the proposed benefits from future “green buildings” erected in San Francisco
Is the game plan of Lennar etc to put together a plan and then make separate deals with specific constituencies to win support for the inevitable ballot measure on the project? In Brooklyn, Forest City has proposed a mammoth project involving an arena, office towers and housing, and won support from ACORN by agreeing to make 50% of the over 2500 new apartments affordable. Would Bayview groups agree to a similar deal in exchange for supporting the entire project?
The 49ers-Lennar-Forest City plan undermines the central argument for Bayview Redevelopment: that the private sector needs government assistance to invest in the neighborhood. It would appear that most of the promised community benefits from Redevelopment could instead be garnered from the stadium-arena-shopping center-housing deal—and this would avoid diverting over 33% of tax revenue to the Redevelopment Agency bureaucracy.
Or Supervisor Maxwell, her fellow Supes, and the Mayor could seek out a better deal from private interests. How did Lennar and Forest City suddenly get exclusive control of choice parcels in Bayview-Hunters Point? Shouldn’t the city develop an economic development plan and then put it out to bid, as it has done for developing Piers 27-31?
Once again, a low-income predominately minority neighborhood is first learning about plans for their community in the newspaper. This is precisely what opponents of Redevelopment feared for the neighborhood, and explains the strong support for the referendum.
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