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Hostile Takeover
Bid of San Francisco's Mission District
By PNN staff
On Wednesday, April, 12th, Mission community organiza-tions, tenants,
and supporters met in front of the former National Guard Mission Armory
holding the dot-com industry and real estate developers accountable to
the interests of communities of color, working-class and middle-income
residents, neighborhood nonprofits, artist groups & local small business.
In the last year, two of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods, the Mission
and South of Market, have suffered incalcula-ble upheaval as a result
of: Ellis Act evictions, condo conversions, live/work loft construction
and the rising rates of small business & light industrial dis-placement
that have accompanied dot-com development.
Fueled by the engine of this new economy, the
"sell-ing" of the Mission district is indicative of city-wide gentrification,
increasing radicalization of the digital divide, and growing income inequalities
in San Francisco.
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With last year's purchase of the BayView Building at 22nd & Mission,
over 40 local businesses and non-profits await a July eviction. The Bryant
Square Pro-ject slated for retrofit & construction this year, will occupy
an entire Mission district block as a site for dot-com companies and commercials
lofts -- making the Mission a major multimedia investment zone.
The City has failed to appropriately make dot-coms re-sponsible for the
displacement they cause. Moreover, in February, Supervisor Leslie Katz
proposed amending the City's Planning code to reclassify dot-coms and
multimedia firms as research and development, not of-fices. This legislative
maneuver would substantially reduce what firms would pay to meet the City's
requirement of building affordable housing and would exempt multimedia
firms from the voter approved growth cap, Proposition M.
We are speaking out in front of the former Armory to protest the displacement
that will likely be caused by the development of this landmark fortress
by Eikon Ltd. Eikon's intention is to develop 250,000 square feet in the
Armory for dot-com firms. Such development will greatly impact the housing
stock and ethnic di-versity of the Mission community. When dot-coms compa-nies
move into low-income communities, their high-paid employees scour the
neighborhood looking to buy or convert available housing, realtors speculate
existing properties and corporate ancillary services follow -- all this
leading to the displacement of tenants, local small business and the loss
of blue-collar jobs.
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