New developments in San Francisco and Orange County have further exposed the false promises of Redevelopment Agencies. In San Francisco, the Chronicle reported that the Lennar Corporation would not build any of the around 400 rental housing units it promised as part of its 1600-unit Naval Shipyard development. In Orange County, the Los Angeles Times reported that winners of an affordable housing lottery are being required by Lennar to pay a down payment of nearly 50% of the purchase price---and now cannot afford the below-market properties. Lennar blames state Redevelopment Law, which requires that occupants not spend more than 35% of their incomes on monthly housing payments. So much for claims that low-income families would benefit from the Agency’s “affordable homes.” The ink is barely dry on City Attorney Herrera’s ruling removing the referendum on Bayview Redevelopment from the ballot, and the broken promises have already begun.

Some supporters of Bayview-Hunters Point Redevelopment really believed Agency Director Marsha Rosen’s argument that the Agency would promote, rather than limit, economic diversity. Now with the Lennar Corp. unilaterally deciding it does not want to build its promised 400 rental units at Bayview, the Agency’s agenda in Bayview is already unfolding.

I have a simple question for those who really believed the Agency was an essential “bulwark” against Bayview gentrification: would the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to allow Lennar to escape its rental housing commitment, as the Agency Commission did?

Would supervisors Maxwell, Peskin and McGoldrick, all of whom voted to make Bayview a Redevelopment Area, allow one of the nation’s richest housing developers to renounce its commitment to build rental housing at the Shipyard? Based on their past votes on housing issues, I think not.

But all three Supervisors gave up their ability to influence Lennar’s plans when they ceded control of Bayview-Hunters Point to the Redevelopment Agency.

The denial of democratic processes is the essential function of Redevelopment. The Board of Supervisors has created a system where they cannot be blamed for Lennar’s elimination of a staggering 400 rental units, because the Supervisors lacked the power to change Lennar’s plans.

Two decades from now, few will recall that it was the Supervisors who gave the Redevelopment Agency control of San Francisco’s largest remaining African-American neighborhood. After all, when we talk about the massive displacement in the Fillmore or in SOMA, the Agency gets the blame. Not the politicians who gave the Agency control.

There were two particularly disturbing aspects to October 17’s Agency Commission hearing where Lennar’s elimination of rental housing was approved.

First, few in the community even knew that the Agency was deciding on Lennar’s revised plans. John Eller, head organizer of the community group ACORN, said he had heard nothing about the hearing, despite having a large base of members active in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

Bayview residents were kept in the dark about the meeting for the obvious reason that their attendance was not desired. It’s a heckuva lot easier to eliminate rental housing for the benefit of a billion-dollar corporate developer if no angry residents are in the room.

Second, Lennar appears to have persuaded Agency staff, the Commission, and members of the neighborhood’s Project Area Committee that there is no market for rental housing. The Chronicle quoted Michael Cohen, head of military base re-use projects for Mayor Newsom, saying that “the community” supported Lennar’s move because it “did not want to wait for market conditions on rental units to change.”

It’s a little scary that there is someone in Cohen’s job who thinks San Francisco’s rental market is depressed. For goodness sake, do Cohen and others with this view never speak to a real live landlord? These folks are happy as can be about the rental situation, and the smartest and savviest landlord of all, Angelo Sangiacomo, is so bullish on the city’s rental housing market that he will soon start construction of 1900 units!

A story in today's Los Angeles Times describes "soaring rents" rents across California, with the largest increases in the San Francisco Bay Area. Perhaps someone can e-mail the story to Cohen and the SF Redevelopment Agency.

The Lennar Corp is the Redevelopment Agency’s version of Haliburton. It has the political connections to get its projects approved, and to get them changed if more profits will result. And just as Haliburton deals with government overseers who do not care how much taxpayer money is misspent, Lennar avoids political problems by dealing with Redevelopment Agencies who allow them to change building plans as needed to maximize profits.

In Orange County, Lennar’s Redevelopment Agency-backed “affordable homes” require buyers to pay down payments that are nearly 50% of the purchase price. According to the Times, the reason is that state law requirement that purchasers of “affordable homes” created by the Agency cannot pay more than 35% of their incomes for housing.

Lennar marketed the homes saying, “3% down payment required.” But Lennar Vice-President Richard Knowland said the “advertising was not inaccurate because some buyers need only a 3% down payment.” While agreeing to review future marketing materials, the Lennar VP insisted that “anyone who does any kind of research will find out exactly what is needed” to buy a home.

Well, the folks at Legal Aid of Orange County did some research and concluded that the down payment requirement “makes a joke out of an affordable project.” Another housing expert said “it seems it would be impossible to get a very low-income resident into these homes.”

And here’s the kicker to the “joke” that Lennar and Redevelopment Agencies are playing in minority communities across California: the units that are effectively off-limits to low-income working people meet the legal definition of “affordable housing.”

Keep these facts in mind when you hear these Agencies brag about all the “affordable” homes they produce to allegedly offset their upscale developments.

Send feedback to rshaw@beyondchron.org