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Community rallies to stop the return of the Beast on Bryant Street

by Josh Wolf

A developer who attempted to placate the Mission community by dedicating land for affordable housing instead of building a smattering of affordable units has once again found himself at odds with housing and neighborhood activists.

On Wednesday, March 16, the Nick Podell Company hosted a community meeting to present a new version of a proposed development that he plans to build on Bryant between 18th and 19th Streets in the Mission. Employees of the company handed out brightly-colored copies of a flyer promoting the project to the dozens of people who crowded the room to learn about Podell’s latest attempt to build a massive new development deep in the Mission.

As Podell clicked through a series of slides to show off the new project, his presentation was punctuated by outbursts from the community. Despite the fact that the audience was clearly opposed to his proposal, Podell and his team soldiered on through the performance before taking questions.

Questioner after questioner pummeled Podell and his plan. When Podell claimed that the project would be the least profitable one in his whole career, the crowd erupted in shock and disbelief.

Lisa Vincenti, a community activist, asked Podell to disclose how much money he stood to make on the development, and his response of 5.8 percent triggered a repeating chorus demanding he open up his books to back up that claim.

I asked Podell, if he would be willing to make his financial data available to help ease the growing distrust of the community.

“No,” he said. “Because I’ve heard no understanding of how production works. The answer is no. We’re not opening the books.”
“I personally believe in supply and demand, and I think that the problem is a lack of supply,” said Podell.

In March 2013, The Nick Podell Company purchased a large industrial building, which had become an arts colony in 1996 under the name CELLspace. Podell then partnered with Junius Real Estate Partners, a division of J.P. Morgan that made headlines last year when it announced a development in Bel-Air with homes starting at $115 million, to build nearly 300 apartments on the land.

Podell submitted a proposal in December 2013 to build 227 luxury apartments along with 47 units set aside for residents who could not afford market rate housing. In preparation to demolish the building he pushed out dozens of artists, an auto repair shop, the locally-owned Tortilla Flats Cafe, and other businesses on the site.

As the tech boom accelerated, the demand for housing in San Francisco — particularly in the Mission District — grew louder. Simultaneously, thousands of Latino and other long-time Mission residents found themselves forced out to make way for newcomers who were willing to pay top dollar. With no other way to stay in the city, the need for affordable housing grew even more dire, and the community started organizing against the numerous luxury developments that threatened to further aggravate the crisis.

Community members organized to demand more affordable housing and worked to stop luxury condos and apartments from moving forward. Podell’s proposal became known as the Beast on Bryant. Meanwhile, the project slowly wormed its way through the planning department, but he decided to pull it at the last minute last August when it became clear it lacked enough votes on the Planning Commission to move forward. Now Podell is scheduled to return to the Commission in May, but based on the community’s reaction at his own meeting, he faces a steep uphill battle to get it approved.

Under the new proposal Podell wouldn’t build any below market-rate housing, but he would donate a third of the land to the city to build affordable housing. Altogether, when — and if — both buildings were completed there would be 129 units of affordable housing and 186 units available at market rate prices.

The project would also include 11,000 sq. ft. of what’s known as PDR space, which stands for production, distribution, and repair. About two-thirds of that space, would be in the affordable housing building, with the remaining third in the other.
Historically, the neighborhood surrounding the property was a center for light-industrial manufacturing; later on, as industry left the city, it was this PDR-zoned property that became a viable home for the arts due to its comparatively-low costs to lease. The current building has about 50,000 sq. ft. of PDR space, so the proposal represents a loss of about 40,00 sq. ft.

That loss is of grave concern to some people in the community. The Cultural Action Network first formed around stopping the Beast on Bryant, but the organization has become involved in other fights to protect arts space around the city. That organization, which I have been working with for the past several months, has a policy to fight for every foot of PDR space lost to development to be replaced in all new projects. The city has also prioritized protecting PDR space, but its constant battle to juggle priorities has allowed developers to carve away much of it to make way for housing.

Since February, a group of community members brought together by the Cultural Action Network have been meeting to discuss the latest proposal and to plan their response. Podell’s decision to donate a third of the land for affordable housing, may have quelled some of the opposition but it’s clear that many people still see the project as the Beast on Bryant and are working to stop the project once again.

In addition to examining where the development could be vulnerable to members of the Planning Commission, the community is also working to develop their own model for what they would like to see on the site. I’ve been actively involved in facilitating that project and so far it appears that there is strong support for keeping the entire floor dedicated to serving the arts and local community, and a greater percentage of affordable housing.

The plan is that by presenting a viable community-driven alternative to the site, while organizing against the existing proposal, that the Planning Commission will yield to the community and empower the people of San Francisco to have a voice that actually resonates in planning the future of the city.

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