Ed Lee seeks to speed construction of affordable housing

All the recent sturm und drang over affordable housing in San Francisco seems to be having some positive effects.

Mayor Ed Lee gave relevant city agencies an executive directive to significantly speed up permits for projects that include affordable housing - the more affordable housing included, the speedier the permit, the mayor commanded. "We need a willingness to accelerate the process," said Lee, citing the 40,000-odd affordable housing units in the pipeline.

He's also formed a working group of department heads to come up with other ideas by February to speed the process. One he is particularly hot on is throwing unused city-owned land into the mix. On that one he'll get a high-five from local developers, who pushed the same idea at a meeting with the San Francisco urban policy group SPUR last week.

"Like others, it's an idea that's been out there for a long time," said SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf. "We just need to mobilize the will to implement ideas that in the past were seen as too difficult, too expensive or too controversial."

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"A very attractive project": On Wednesday, Lee attended the groundbreaking of a 409-unit rental apartment project called 299 Fremont, near the Transbay Transit Center.

Like the majority of new developments in San Francisco, this one is billed as a "luxury high-rise complex" with the usual accoutrements, primarily aimed at "young professionals." But there are a couple of differences. The $200 million complex, a major element in the city's Transbay Transit District master plan, includes 147 below-market-rate units to be built by the San Francisco branch of Mercy Housing, the national affordable housing nonprofit, with an investment of $23 million.

Lee took notice of that. "The project will contribute ... much-needed affordable housing in a growing and diverse neighborhood in San Francisco where residents will have convenient access to their workplace, parks and public transportation."

It also marks the first entry into the San Francisco market for Golub & Co., a global real estate firm headquartered in Chicago, which was chosen to develop the city-owned site.

"It's a very attractive project," said Amy Price, chief operating officer of Bentall Kennedy, a real estate advisory firm (part-owned by the California Public Employees' Retirement System) that is involved in the financing.

Citing the health of the San Francisco economy and the project's proximity to the transbay center, Price added: "It's not just develop and sell. It will be long term, vibrant and thriving. And partnering with Mercy Housing on affordable housing is part of the attraction."

Deserving, hardworking residents: Amcal Multi-Housing, which specializes in affordable housing, announced Thursday it's partnering with Lennar Urban to build 60 below-market-rate apartments at the Hunters Point Shipyard-Candlestick Point development.

"We think it is important to deliver the first affordable homes at the same time that we are building market-rate homes," said Kofi Bonner, president of Lennar Urban, San Francisco.

"San Francisco's hardworking residents deserve well-designed affordable housing near jobs and transit, and our team is able to collaborate with the city to make it a reality," said Percival Vaz, CEO of Amcal, headquartered in Agoura Hills (Los Angeles County).

Hey, it must be Christmas!

It's not all about tech: Blue-collar industry got a boost last week with a push to make it easier for small manufacturers to spread their wings in San Francisco. Legislation was introduced by San Francisco Supervisors Malia Cohen and David Campos, along with the mayor, to ease zoning and other restrictions, especially in the southeast part of the city where small manufacturing is booming.

The legislation would remove the need for "conditional use" approvals that can delay new enterprises in the area covered by the city's Eastern Neighborhood Plan. It also allows the sharing of designated retail space to encourage new development on vacant or underused land, and requires that a portion of new office developments include space for light industry.

The legislation came out of a working group comprised of Cohen, who represents the area, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the City Planning Department, and SFMade, a 3-year-old nonprofit trade association representing small manufacturers.

"Unlike other cities, manufacturing is growing in San Francisco, and it's organic," Cohen said. "Small firms are manufacturing a wide variety of products, including chocolate, and jobs are being created, jobs that provide a living wage."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing employment grew by 5.3 percent in San Francisco last year,higher than the nation as a whole. Recent entrants include United Cold Storage of South San Francisco, which is moving into a 60,000-square-foot warehouse in the Bayview district, and, as reported by my colleague Kathleen Pender on Thursday, Glassybaby, a Seattle manufacturer of glass votives, which is leasing a 4,000-square-foot glass-blowing studio in the Presidio.

Cohen is relieved more attention is being paid to manufacturing now. "Tech was taking all the air out of the room," she said.