Mayor London Breed is ordering a supersize increase in the number of units to the affordable housing complex going into what used to be the Burger King and Walgreens buildings at 16th and Mission, at the once-derided “Monster in the Mission” site.
For a seven-year span starting in 2013, the most notorious housing war in the Mission District was a proposed 10-story, 380-unit fancy apartment complex that opponents successfully tarred as the “Monster in the Mission.” And that insult campaign worked, after developer Maximus Real Estate Partners gave up the ghost on the “Monster” and put the property up for sale shortly before the pandemic hit.
Nearly two years later, an unlikely alliance between Mayor London Breed and District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed a 100% affordable housing complex at the site. Those hopes were contingent on a deal with another developer, Crescent Heights, which was inclined to gift the city that property to satisfy their affordable housing requirements for their Van Ness and Market streets project above a former Honda dealership. Crescent Heights and the city consummated that deal in February 2022 (though a plan to put 70 temporary tiny home cabins on the parcel’s parking lot was scuttled earlier this year).
Still, exciting things in affordable housing are still set to happen at this 1979 Mission Street property. The Chronicle reports the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development is adding more than 100 units to the affordable housing project in their current Request for Qualifications (RFQ).
“100% affordable projects can access local and state density bonus programs that market rate developments cannot,” that department’s spokesperson Anne Stanley told the Chronicle. “The selected development team for 1979 Mission will be asked to maximize density and unit count using all available tools.”
Per the Chronicle, the previous plan had called for 330 units. The new plan calls for “more than 450 units in at least two buildings.” So the new affordable version will be even larger, in terms of units, at least, than was the original “Monster in the Mission” project.
In terms of what they mean by “affordable,” the Chron notes that a family of four would qualify to live there if earning between $43,000-$150,000 a year in today’s dollars.
The mayor’s office is still soliciting RFQs, so there is no developer chosen, no renderings are yet available, and we have no timeline on breaking ground or completion. But the very lengthy and detailed RFQ requirement document lays out that the necessity of “units serving formerly homeless households” and “ground floor commercial use” at the site.
Image: Google Street View
