San Francisco's Central Planners Hold Up Real Estate Development on 50 Pending Projects

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Ron Mallia wants to build eight apartments and condominiums on an empty parking lot next to his Mission District auto shop and rent some of the apartments to his mechanics.

His project seems like the kind that would be endorsed by the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, but the group has fought Mallia, insisting that his project not go forward until the city evaluates how new development on the city's east side will affect industrial land, jobs and housing.

The fight is one of many recent battles being waged by the coalition, a handful of community organizations focused on immigrants' rights, development and social services that was formed a decade ago to resist gentrification during the dot-com boom. Supervisor Chris Daly, a former tenant activist, takes credit for helping found the group, which has a reputation for staging street protests and illegally occupying private property.

More recently, it has used environmental laws to stall more than 50 market-rate housing projects before narrowly losing a bid this month to block a condominium project on Cesar Chavez Street that will replace a shuttered paint store.

But some longtime Mission residents and business owners question whether the group is going too far, blocking developments that would add middle-income and affordable housing to the neighborhood, in addition to cleaning it up and making it safer.

"They don't want any development at all in the Mission because any development makes the area better. ... They don't want that because they believe that by improving the area, the cost of housing might go up," said Mallia, who has owned gas stations and car repair shops in the Mission for 25 years.

In April, facing pressure from the coalition, the city Planning Commission approved Mallia's project but with the condition that he pay more than $150,000 in fees that will help fund city services.

Although Mallia believed he was getting a raw deal - similar projects have not had to pay such fees, he said - he did not want his project to stall while he paid taxes on the vacant lot.

Mallia's property, at 736 Valencia St., is among 2,200 acres in four South of Market neighborhoods - the Mission, Potrero Hill/Showplace Square, East SoMa and Central Waterfront - that the city is evaluating for possible rezoning. The Planning Department began examining the area in 2002, having seen that the neighborhoods had lost a big chunk of industrial space to live-work lofts and were being eyed by condominium developers.

More than 50 pending projects were halted in April 2006, when the Anti-Displacement Coalition persuaded the Board of Supervisors to force developers to examine how the projects would affect not just the environment but also the supply of industrial land and blue-collar jobs - and whether the projects were consistent with the city's policies encouraging more affordable housing.

Property rights in San Francisco?