After losing a court battle as well as a previous government appeal, the “No Slums in the Sunset” crowd is back with another appeal of an affordable housing project, this time claiming concerns over “soil vapor.”
Long-running animus against a seven-story, 90-unit affordable housing complex has roiled the single-family home neighborhood of the Outer Sunset, and the “Kick out the Chinese, Bring in Gangs” flyers likely played some role in Gordon Mar’s narrow District 4 election loss this past November. (Yet his successor Joel Engardio also supports the project.)
Opponents of the project have tried to get an injunction against it, but a judge shot them down in December 2021. Then opponents appealed the project this year, but the SF Board of Appeals denied their appeal in February.
The contentious, 100% affordable Sunset District 2550 Irving St. project will move forward.
— Mission Local (@MLNow) February 23, 2023
This comes after an environmental appeal was tonight shot down by the Board of Appeals.
From @WillJarrettData, who covered two lengthy meetingshttps://t.co/4C0OMruE3p
Unsurprisingly, those same neighbors are submitting yet another appeal. The Chronicle reports the Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association is appealing the affordable housing project again, this time complaining there are environmental contaminants on the site.
“Clean it up before you build it up,” the appellant Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association’s president Flo Kimmerling told the Chronicle.
The 2550 Irving site was most recently a Police Credit Union, but had once been a dry cleaner called Miracle Cleaners, while another dry cleaner called Albrite Cleaners operated down the street at 2511 Irving Street. The appellants say that there’s leftover carcinogen tetrachloroethylene (PCE) contaminating the site, and are now demanding that the developer Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation perform “soil vapor extraction” before beginning construction on the site.
Mayor London Breed’s office feels they appellants are just grasping at straws. “The production of new affordable housing units at 2550 Irving is critical to addressing the affordable housing shortage,” Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development spokesperson Audrey Abadilla Rivera told the Chronicle. “There is a tremendous need for affordable family housing in the Sunset.”
The Board of Appeals hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, August 16 at 5 p.m.
Related: Judge Tosses NIMBY Legal Motion Against Sunset 100% Affordable Housing Project [SFist]
Image via Pyatok
