We knew this was coming, right?

Despite San Francisco’s ongoing housing shortage, a group of Mission District demonstrators, landlords, and homeowners kicked off a campaign to oppose the construction of new homes at 1515 South Van Ness. Bernalwood recently told you about 1515 South Van Ness; it’s a privately funded project by Lennar Corporation that would create 157 units of mixed-income housing on the site of the former McMillan Electric building, which was in turn the site of the former Lesher-Muirhead Oldsmobile.

MissionLocal was on hand to document the theatrics:

“Today we’re calling on Lennar to gift this site to the city for 100 percent affordable housing,” said Erick Arguello, a member of the merchants association Calle 24 and a principal opponent of the project. Arguello said the market-rate building would fuel gentrification and displacement in the neighborhood. He pointed specifically to higher rents for commercial Mission businesses, saying a new clientele would bring upscale shops to a historically lower-income, culturally Latino district. “When you get more luxury housing, you get people with a lot more money moving into the neighborhood, which creates a different demand for products,” he said. The project at 1515 South Van Ness Ave. would bring 138 market-rate units and 19 below-market-rate units — fulfilling the city requirement that 12 percent of units on the site be affordable — to the Mission District, as well as six ground-floor retail shops. The complex would raze and replace the McMillan Electrical building and abut a planned 96-unit fully affordable senior complex to be built by the Mission Economic Development Agency — a point of contention at a February community meeting where audience members wanted a merger of the two sites. On Thursday, some 25 people gathered at the project site and vowed to fight the project to its death. Roberto Hernandez, founder of Our Mission No Eviction, said the project was out of place in the Mission District.

MissionLocal adds that D9 Supervisor David Campos helped postpone the hearing for 1515 South Van Ness in the Planning Commission; an indication he supports the strategy Roberto Hernandez calls “delay, delay, delay until we kill it.”

If you’d like to voice support for 1515 South Van Ness, you are strongly encouraged to send an email to Doug.vu@sfgov.org at the San Francisco Planning Department.