From the Curbed inbox:
What's up with the other parcel across Hickory Street from the new Avalon Bay project on the Hayes Valley Farm? Is anything planned for that yet? Our reader is referring to the large lot known as Parcel O. Along with the now-developed Parcel P, Parcel O hosted the Hayes Valley Farm for a few years while the city figured out what to do with all the extra parcels on hand after the removal of the Central Freeway. Parcel P's transformation into an Avalon Bay apartment building is well under way, but Parcel O is still sitting vacant and lonely.
While nothing is really happening yet, there are plans for the site's future. The parcel is owned by the city, and was originally under the jurisdiction of the Redevelopment Agency—which flagged it as a site for affordable housing back in 2002. Parcel O was supposed to become 100 units of family-size rental housing with for households of up to 50 percent of the area median income. Since the Redevelopment Agency dissolved, the property is now overseen by the Mayor's Office of Housing. The plan remains to build affordable housing, though the number has dropped to 80 units, and they're now identified as "very-low-income housing."
Each year the city earmarks funding for the project, interestingly with a footnote saying "part of Replacement Housing Obligation." This is a state-approved move to use tax money "for the exclusive purpose of fulfilling a replacement housing obligation triggered by the Former Redevelopment Agency's destruction of affordable housing units prior to 1976." So basically all those redevelopment projects in the 1960s have forced the city's hand to rebuild affordable housing elsewhere.
So far there haven't been any requests for proposals or movement on actually making a project at Parcel O a reality, but since the site's within the Market-Octavia Plan area, there are some parameters the design has to meet. It's zoned residential with small retail permitted only on corner lots, height limits vary from 40 to 50 feet, and there's a boatload of design guidelines. We'll keep you posted as things develop (whenever that may be).
· Previous Coverage of Parcel P [Curbed SF]
· Previous Coverage of Central Freeway Parcels [Curbed SF]
· Previous Coverage of the Redevelopment Agency [Curbed SF]
· Resolution No. 51-2013 [Office of the City Administrator]
· Market-Octavia Plan (PDF) [SF Planning]
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