San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/2015/06/)
By Lisa Pickoff-White, KQED News Fix
At first it seemed as though Candlestick Park was not really going anywhere. There was the last 49ers game, a Legends of Candlestick Game and, finally, the Paul McCartney concert. But now, with one last section of the windy old monstrosity left standing, it feels very real.
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Beth Willon, KQED News Fix
There is now more than a quarter-million-dollar income gap between top and bottom Bay Area households, a first-time comprehensive study finds. That is 50 percent higher than the national average. Key reasons include high-tech earners in Silicon Valley and the growing decline of middle-income households throughout the Bay Area. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
Can you believe we published our first newspaper five years ago this month? We’re putting finishing touches on Issue No. 17 and are excited to share our findings on how cities around the bay are managing waterfront development in light of consensus projections for sea level rise. (Hint: We didn’t find many long-range plans.)
The report will include context-rich maps in print and video and interactive elements online to give a clear view of how our region is changing and what it could look like in the not-too-distant future. The San Francisco Public Press needs your support to continue producing in-depth investigations that show the real impact of public policy decisions and help all of us in the Bay Area understand our communities better.
By Alex Emslie, KQED News Fix
A poll released Thursday by a business-backed policy organization found more than three-quarters of Bay Area residents support building more low- to middle-income housing, and a growing number of people favor greater density in their neighborhoods if it would create more places to live. In San Francisco, the epicenter of housing concern for the whole Bay Area, finding an affordable place to live ranked higher than worries about California’s extreme drought in the 2015 Bay Area Council Poll. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
Last summer, the prospect of a bond to help fund affordable housing projects in San Francisco seemed remote.
What a difference a year makes.
Early Wednesday morning the Board of Supervisors reached an agreement on a proposal to borrow $310 million to finance affordable housing construction and acquisition. » Read more
By Alex Emslie, KQED News Fix
Some insult could drop off the injury of having a car stolen and then recovered in San Francisco, under a new tow-fee scheme before the city’s Board of Supervisors. The city’s current system allows car-theft victims 20 minutes to get their car from the street where police find it. If they cannot get there, car owners are charged close to $500, according to Paul Rose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. That charge includes a $263 agency towing fee and a $220.75 contractor’s towing fee. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Lydia Chávez, Mission Local
While the Board of Supervisors debates revisions to regulations on short-term rentals, expected next month, Airbnb—the $20 billion behemoth that dominates this industry—is busily marshaling U.S. Census data to defend its business. Its recent 10-page report on its impact on the city’s housing calls accounts of thousands of housing units being removed from the rental market “both baseless and mathematically impossible.”
Read the complete story at Mission Local.
By Rebecca Bowe, KQED News Fix
Although African-Americans represent just 6 percent of San Francisco’s adult population, they are 7 times as likely as whites to be arrested, according to a report scheduled for release Tuesday. The report, produced for a city and county advisory council, revealed wide disparities in arrest, booking and conviction rates. It also found that black adults in San Francisco were 11 times as likely to be booked into county jail and over 10 times as likely to be convicted of a crime. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
Reforms to rent control are finally a topic of hot debate — but not in San Francisco.
Last year Public Press reporter Harry Gibbons wrote about the city’s curious rental laws, which somewhat arbitrarily help some tenants by limiting yearly rent increases but not others, depending on when the building was put up. » Read more
By Eric Simons, Bay Nature
Palou Phelps Natural Area is a 4-acre grassy hill in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, rising out of a children’s playground and mini-park into a toyon-and-wildflower dotted crest with a panoramic city view. Houses flank the natural area, rising along with the hill, and one of those property owners would like to build two additional houses — three stories, roughly 5,000-square feet each — in what are now two undeveloped private back lots bordering the open space area. This is where it gets complicated: There’s no road to those lots. So a developer building houses also has to build a new road across city-owned public land. Read the complete story at Bay Nature.