SF supervisor moves to preserve housing options at Bayview community center

An artist's rendering of the new Southeast Community Center in front of 1550 Evans Ave., on Mon. March 19, 2018, in San Francisco, Ca. An artist's rendering of the new Southeast Community Center in front of 1550 Evans Ave., on Mon. March 19, 2018, in San Francisco, Ca. Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close SF supervisor moves to preserve housing options at Bayview community center 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Board of Supervisors President Malia Cohen introduced legislation Tuesday that she hopes will preserve the option of building below-market-rate housing to accompany a long-planned community center at 1550 Evans Ave. in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

This summer, city officials said they had abandoned plans to develop around 250 units of affordable housing alongside the proposed community center after a bruising clash with some Bayview community members over the future of the site, which is owned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

But Cohen’s bill, which would rezone the roughly 5-acre parcel to accommodate the future development of below-market-rate units, leaves the door open to discussions about housing — with ample community input, she said.

The site has long been scheduled to become the home of a new Southeast Community Facility, an important neighborhood hub providing educational, job-placement, child care and social services programs. After years of community meetings, the site was selected to replace the outmoded community facility at 1800 Oakdale Ave., less than a mile away.

But in February, the release of emails between senior members of several city departments and a private developer indicated that officials had spent months working on a separate proposal for the site — one that included an affordable housing development.

News that the city had been quietly developing an alternative plan for the site without seeking input from the community shocked some Bayview residents, many of whom had worked with the SFPUC for years to develop a plan for the new facility. The emails also came as a surprise to SFPUC officials, who say they were largely cut out of the parallel deliberations about the site.

Officials from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and the Planning Department insisted they intended to bring a fully formed plan to Bayview residents for their consideration, but the release of the emails quickly galvanized local opposition to any proposal drafted without community input.

Cohen, who represents District 10, the southeast portion of the city that includes Bayview-Hunters Point, will be termed out of office in January. But she said she authored the bill out of concern that, in the midst of a citywide housing shortage, discussions about adding a housing component to the community center had been foreclosed upon too quickly.

“Let’s leave future opportunities open to us as a city, but still allow the proposed community facility to move forward,” Cohen said Tuesday, emphasizing that the bill would “in no way slow or derail the process to build” the new facility.

The site at 1550 Evans needed to be rezoned anyway so the construction of the new community facility could begin. The property is currently being used as surplus office space for the SFPUC. Cohen’s bill does not specify what levels of income would grant access to housing units on the site, only that they be below-market-rate.

But in a statement sent by a spokesman, SFPUC General Manager Harlan Kelly made clear that the agency does not anticipate building housing at the site.

“The SFPUC’s plans for this property do not include housing. Bayview residents have made their collective voice clear — they want a community center, and that’s exactly what the SFPUC plans to build. We are fully committed to providing this valuable resource to the community.”

Steve Good, who chairs the Southeast Community Facility Commission, the body that oversees the center, has been sharply critical of the city’s housing plan at the site. While he hadn’t yet seen the legislation, he referred to the feedback solicited from roughly 5,000 Bayview residents about the future community center. Around 70 percent of respondents, he said, opposed putting housing at the site.

“That seems clear to me about the direction the community wants to go in,” Good said. “That feels like a mandate.”

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa