View Single Post
  #22  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2019, 6:32 PM
Pedestrian's Avatar
Pedestrian Pedestrian is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 24,177
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Once again, gentrification is the changing of a neighborhood from a lower socio-economic-status to a higher socio-economic status. It is entirely unrelated to densification, except insofar as in most parts of the country (barring very high-cost areas along the coasts) vacant lots in rock-bottom neighborhoods don't get infill without some sort of subsidies.

If you look at virtually any city's zoning map, you will invariably see that the poorest residential neighborhoods tend to have much, much more permissive zoning than the middle class to wealthy ones.
Absolutely NOT true in San Francisco.

Take the Tenderloin, the most contentious bit of land at one point (the fight there is now largely over and the policies to prevent it gentrifying solid) because of its central location adjacent to the city's premier shopping and tourist zone around Union Square:

Quote:
There are actually specific policy reasons the Tenderloin has remained relatively affordable and hasn't gentrified to the same degree as the rest of the city.

Nonprofit land acquisition

"There was an aggressive nonprofit acquisition of land when land was still cheap," Shaw said.

Today, nonprofits have held onto much of that property, and many of them run affordable housing programs — preserving that land at below-market rates.

Zoning policies to prevent high-rise building

Back when the Tenderloin residents organized in the early 1980s, one of the things they focused on was preventing luxury condos from coming in.

"In 1985, we rezoned the neighborhood to prevent any building over 13 stories, so someone could not pick up a piece of land and build a 35-story luxury condominium in the Tenderloin because the zoning prohibits it," Shaw said. Non-residential uses above the second floor are also specifically regulated.

These limits make it unappealing for developers
who have to weigh the costs of building with the potential for profit. While higher density could also lead to more affordable housing, residents considered the risk of luxury development to be more likely.

Protections for those SROs

The city also made it very hard to get rid of SROs and their tenants (by, among other things, banning conversion of monthly rental SROs to nightly rental tourist hotels). The Tenderloin and nearby Chinatown have the most SROs of all the neighborhoods in San Francisco.

"So we now have all of this housing stock, which again is protected for low income," Shaw said. "The gentry don't want to move into a room without a kitchen or private bath, so SROs are pretty immune to gentrification."

Historic protections

Much of the neighborhood is a historic district, and many of the buildings are protected. Many also predate the passage of the city's rent-control ordinance, which comes with a number of its own protections.

"Their goal was to protect the neighborhood from the speculative real estate market," said Jeff Buckley, the mayor's senior adviser on housing policy. All of those policies add up and have made 25 to 29 percent of the housing units in the Tenderloin permanently affordable, he said.
https://www.kqed.org/news/11665527/w...-san-francisco

These days, other neighborhoods, especially the Mission District, are attempting to follow a similar course.
Reply With Quote