Surplus property ordinance may soon bear fruit
The City has surplus property as well as an ordinance on how it can be used to benefit the city.
An article in today’s Examiner looks at how this property can either be used to create housing or sold to fund housing.
Matt Franklin, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing said “he might soon turn his attention from surplus property to city property that is underutilized at places such as libraries and schools. For instance, he said one idea he’s had is building a parking lot beneath the Department of Motor Vehicles building on Fell Street in the Panhandle, so more housing could be built around it.”
Two properties are currently being considered for sale. “One of the properties is at Broadway and Sansome, while the second one is at Grove and Van Ness. There is a $3 million outstanding debt on the Broadway property that needs to be resolved before it can be sold. Franklin said The City will soon turn over an additional 15 to 25 properties, so the Mayor’s Office of Housing can begin evaluating them for building.”
Unfortunately, there are hurdles to selling many of the city-owned properties. “It’s been slow going for the surplus property ordinance, which was widely hailed as a creative way to deal with The City’s homeless problem when it was passed in 2002, because of a number of snags including developers not knowing property was available for sale and objections from neighbors. Perhaps the biggest hurdle has been the lots themselves, which are often oddly shaped, too small or too steep to build on.”
All in all, however, the fact that we’re finally getting down to discussions on how best to use what we have is good news. There are very few vacant parcels in San Francisco, and if there’s a way to build housing on them, let’s take a hard look at how to make that happen.
