Joanne Abernathy, Ernest Jackson, Joseph Smooke
San Francisco voters are ready to vote their values and declare that we're ready to change the way that development is done in our city in order to meet the needs of our neighborhoods.
The danger in San Francisco right now is not just that we have a housing crisis - we have an affordable housing crisis, and if we don't turn it around, everything that we love about San Francisco will fade into the past. Proposition F is economically feasible, and our city leadership needs to prioritize it.
Proposition F says that our communities are more than markets for speculation. Our communities are our homes.
To preserve our communities, we have to change how and for whom our neighborhoods are being developed. We can change development in San Francisco, and it begins at the neighborhood level.
Since 1990, we've lost more than 45 percent of our African American population. Families are leaving San Francisco because of the lack of affordable housing. For one of the last remaining African American neighborhoods in San Francisco, Proposition F is a viable solution to stem the tide of displacement.
Some 70 percent of Bayview residents earn below 80 percent of area median income. In the Bayview, 1 in 6 survives on less than $10,000 a year. Proposition F requires that Lennar's plan benefit us by offering 50 percent of the proposed 10,000 housing units at levels that we can afford. Proposition F looks at specific incomes in our neighborhood to ensure that working families that contribute to our city have access to new homes, and that the families forced to leave San Francisco have the opportunity and incentive to stay.
Proposition G is not a community-developed initiative - far from it. It is Lennar's ballot initiative - an out-of-state, multibillion-dollar developer. Lennar has been the only funding support for Proposition G, making this the most expensive initiative campaign in San Francisco history by spending $3 million so far. Lennar is planning for profits; Proposition F is planning for the future.
The city establishment represents a logic that's been proven wrong: build for now, don't worry about the future. Treating our neighborhoods as commodities to be bought and sold hurts our economy and us.
South of Market condo buyers sued Lennar for faulty construction; they paid nearly $1 million for homes that began falling apart soon after the sale. They promised us 1,200 rental units in Parcel A in Hunters Point; what we got instead was 1,200 luxury condominiums. They promised us a $30 million legacy fund for the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard development; now it's down to $14 million. Values and integrity, not Lennar's profit margin, must drive neighborhood planning. That's why we need Proposition F.
Community planning means guarantees, and planning for the future with integrity and honesty. Community planning means community control.
We have a choice and a responsibility to ourselves, our children and generations to come to ensure that families will be able to live, work and raise their children in this city that we call home.
Vote yes on Proposition F and No on 98. If you are inclined to vote for Proposition G, then you must vote yes on Proposition F as well, because it's the only way that we are guaranteed its promises.
Joanne Abernathy is a Bayview Hunters Point resident and POWER leader. Bishop Ernest Jackson is the pastor of Grace Tabernacle Community Church. Joseph Smooke is the executive director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and an affordable housing developer.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/29/EDMM1105N8.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle
See the "open forum" at sfgate. (It's kinda' two against one, but, you know...)http://www.sfgate.com -Change begins in the neighborhood; vote yes on F
http://www.sfgate.com - What the Bayview community wants
http://www.sfgate.com - Labor and business urge yes on G, no on F
1 comment:
More like 3 against one.
See the Chronicle's editorial.
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