Re: Inner Sunset Housing

10/19/14 - posted by W.M.

While I don't really know anything about the history of the 86 unit Kirkham Heights apartment complex, I think it's reasonable to assume it was likely built (at least in part) to meet the housing needs of the UC Medical Center Parnassus Campus students and/or faculty back in 1950. Like most of the Sunset/Richmond districts were developed to meet the housing needs of the "working class" families, this assumption makes sense to me.

But it's a quite different City these days. What appears to be happening is companies that have substantial real estate holdings wish to profit from them as much as they possibly can, and I can see their reasoning for that in one way. After all, they are in business to make money. But with that being said, there still is a very real need for available affordable housing for residents working in The City, and I don't think this (and other) development proposals address this anywhere near enough.

To use their numbers provided in the articles, a 460 unit complex is being proposed to replace the existing 86 unit apartment complex. When completed, 86 of the new units will be grandfathered to the current residents as "rent controlled" apartments. Another 12% (about 38 units) will be offered below market level, but I don't know if that is apartments or condos. But when all is said and done, there will still be about 336 units left to offer at current market levels (or above if the market is still saturated with buyers and renters...the likely scenario).

So from this standpoint, I don't see where the "working class" people benefit much by this complex development to be built. From a historical view, it goes against the original reason for large housing developments of Western San Francisco back in the 30's - 50's. That's my two-cents worth anyway.