[simms3_redux]

^^^Well and there goes a chunk of affordable housing that everyone is *demanding*. Wish these cases would be made more public - case in point:

"Public, you have this waterfront market rate condo tower that is proposed for this site and the developers are asking for an 80-100 ft height increase. Go ahead and tell us what you would have the developers do to change the design, etc.

...

Oh by the way if you allow the developers to have their height increase and build more units, we can then get this big affordable housing development built in the Tenderloin."


If only more of these developments were phrased this way. It is NOT on the onus of private sector developers backed by teachers' pensions (among others) and private sector money sources to willfully lose money by building only affordable housing. It really isn't their responsibility to house certain groups of people at all so long as when they do build housing they don't take part in any discrimination that violates state or federal statutes.

Only then can the people really decide what is more important to them - sticking their nose in a design, limiting heights and bulk, preventing new development at all, etc, or ensuring more funding goes to affordable housing by allowing more market rate housing.

I really don't think people in this city are currently aware or able to put 2 + 2 together because it's not their job to understand the way development proformas work, and I honestly believe that people think real estate developers are public sector employees who should t profit off of taxpayer expense and who should build for the poor. They think this because the ballot process has made it so that everyone dips their toes into murky water they'll never be able to understand.

Easiest to change, I don't think people realize that most affordable housing these days comes from the development of market rate housing.