Dear community and allies:
SoMa faces some of the greatest development pressure in all of San Francisco. As new condos are developed and office buildings go up nearby, prices continue to skyrocket. The SoMa community knows the history of displacement too well.
Since 2005, neighborhood residents from different backgrounds and interests united on a neighborhood vision of how our community should grow without displacing the existing residents with a strong preference for affordable housing. Our unified community vision materialized the West SoMa Plan. The Planning Commission PASSED the West SoMa Plan unanimously.
BUT on Monday, Feb. 25th – in a matter of minutes, Supervisor Wiener and Supervisor Chiu have amended the West SoMa Plan to take funding away from our affordable housing vision and goals!!!
CALL TO ACTION:
1) JOIN US AT CITY HALL!!!
Speak out against Supervisor Wiener’s amendment that Supervisor Chiu has supported.
Bring affordable housing to Western SoMa!
Monday, March 4th @ 1:30pm
CityHall, Committee Room 263
2) EMAIL, FAX and CALL BLAST Supervisor Chiu and Supervisor Wiener (sample letter and/or call below)
Supervisor Chiu
(415) 554-7450 – voice
(415) 554-7454 – fax
email: David.Chiu@sfgov.org
Please cc: Legislative aide Judson True
email: Judson.True@sfgov.org
Supervisor Scott Wiener
(415) 554-6968 – voice
email: Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org
OUR PROPOSAL – Our existing West SoMa Plan has a higher tier of affordable housing fees for major projects. Developers have the choice of paying more money to affordable housing if they want to build higher. If we give them higher buildings, isn’t it fair for them to give more affordable housing back to the community?
Supervisor Wiener and Chiu’s PROPOSAL – is more concerned about transportation. His recent amendment could take away millions of $$$$ that would go to affordable housing. He doesn’t want developers to pay higher affordable housing requirements because it will take away from having more impact fees that can be use for transportation.
We’re concerned about transportation too – but not if it means that our own residents will continue to be forced out of the City and will not be benefitting from the transportation plan Supervisor Scott Wiener wants.
A more logical solution is having a HIGHER Affordable Housing Fee and HIGHER Impact Fee versus taking away from affordable housing!
Please come out and speak up in support of MORE affordable housing and let us NOT let Supervisor Wiener pin us against our different City needs of affordable housing, better jobs and affordable transportation.
We expect better solutions than be dvided! We want HIGHER Affordable Housing Fee and HIGHER Impact Fee versus taking away from affordable housing!
For more info, please contact Angelica Cabande at acabande@somcan.org
soma leadership council 
I thought that if folks live in a rent controlled unit that the rent can only increase by cpi or if landlord passes on certain cost related to improvements? Does this mean that someone wants to change that? Or that controls are needed upon vacancy of a unit?
Also I thought there was lots of money ($millions in fact) from Chis Daly community stabilization fund that could be earmarked for these and other causes. What ever happened to those funds?
The stabilization fund is not enough to cover the housing crisis that SoMa and the City is dealing with. Also, the stabilization fund has not received its full money yet from the Rincon Hill developer. The developer has yet to finish building all of his project.
Please understand though we won some community benefits in the past it doesn’t mean its enough to save South of Market from displacement and we are just in the second phase of the massive developments we are experiencing in SoMa. There are more to come in the neighborhood and we need to ensure we protect the existing residents and businesses in the area from this growth.