Some of our Supervisors are making a mockery of the
State Environmental Protection Laws they were granted
authority over in 2003, and this project is a prime
example how.
This housing project on the old Kelly Moore site at
Cesar Chavez and Mission is important, because it is
one of the few projects where a developer cooperated
with all the demands of the neighbors and the City,
and is now being challenged by a group (Mission
Anti-displacement Coalition and the Day Labor
Program), who wants the City to turn the project over
to their non-profit team instead, to build all
low-income housing instead of mixed income.
What is before the Board of Supervisors today (Tuesday
July 31, 2007) would set the precedent that replacing
auto-dependant commercial sites with housing along
transit corridors, was somehow bad for the
environment, when this is the “poster project” for
smart growth in an urban center, and has broad support
from actual neighbors.
This kind of back-handed eminent domain is a dangerous
precedent, and is also responsible for the outrageous
cost to build housing in this town. This project does
not meet the threshold to trigger a full EIR, and is
only designed to ensure that government-subsidiz ed
housing projects are the only thing that can be built
in targeted neighborhoods like the Mission.
Crossroads West 