The plan to create Silicon Valley’s younger sibling in a San Francisco neighborhood continues to keep those who worry about affordable housing awake at night.
Mega-developer Forest City’s 5M project, with its nearly two million square feet of offices, co-working space and apartments on four-plus acres, will go before the planning commission and the city’s board of supervisors this year.
Currently, the San Francisco Business Times reports, the developer is facing locals’ concerns that the dozens of nearby single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) “won’t have a future in South of Market’s new upscale playground.”
“It’s a huge concern — the proximity of the SROs to such a huge project,” April Veneracion, an aide to Supervisor Jane Kim, told the Business Times. “People had thought that Sixth Street will never be gentrified, and I don’t think that’s true anymore. So how do we make sure SROs, which are a critical part of our affordable housing stock, will be maintained?”
One website calls for the area to be saved from “Gentrizilla-5M.”
John Elberling, who leads a tenants’ right group, told the Business Times that “he doesn’t oppose the project, but is trying to extract enough public benefits to balance the profits that landowner Hearst Corp. would get from the new development.” A rep from Forest City told the paper the company is making affordable housing part of the overall project.
Marielle Mondon is an editor and freelance journalist in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia City Paper, Wild Magazine, and PolicyMic. She previously reported on communities in Northern Manhattan while earning an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.
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