California legislators have handed San Francisco developers like Sam Moss major wins in recent years by reforming restrictive laws and passing new legislation aimed at hastening housing construction.
These new efforts curtailed bureaucratic hurdles and public review processes in the city, and yet, little housing has been built since, due to the economic downturn. Moss wants to change that, and he’s almost ready to go: Thanks to a 2018 state law, his development firm, Mission Housing Development Corp., won streamlined approval of a nine-story building for formerly homeless adults slated to rise atop a busy BART stop, without a murmur of objection — from bureaucrats, at least.
The permanent supportive housing building at the corner of 16th and Mission streets with 136 studio and one-bedroom apartments and on-site social services, however, has been the target of much disdain. It’s reminiscent of the days when a market-rate project planned at the site was dubbed “Monster in the Mission” by community groups, delayed for years and ultimately killed…