Developer To SF: Let's Make A Deal On Affordable Housing

"The developer seeking approval from San Francisco voters to redevelop large swaths of the Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point has struck a deal with a powerful labor group to sweeten the promise of affordable housing and jobs for residents of Bayview-Hunters Point.

Under its deal with the San Francisco Labor Council and other groups, Lennar Corp. vowed to make 32 percent of the 10,000 new homes it builds affordable. The company also agreed to make more of the units big enough for families and to set aside $35.5 million over the next several years to fund homeownership and job training programs for neighborhood residents. The deal will be announced at a news conference today.

In exchange, Lennar gets the labor council's important endorsement for Proposition G on the June 3 ballot. That measure asks for the public's support of the redevelopment project."

"Prop. G would give the Miami-based developer the go-ahead to begin its 721-acre redevelopment plan that includes 10,000 new units of housing, shops, parks, industrial and commercial space, a rebuilt public housing project and a new 49ers stadium if the team stays in the city.

Before the new deal was worked out, Lennar had said that up to 25 percent of the new units would be affordable.

Some housing advocates argue that isn't enough and worked to put Proposition F on the June ballot. That measure would require that half the units be affordable to people earning 30 to 80 percent of the city's median income, or $64,267 for a family of four. Lennar executives have called the measure "a poison pill" for their project.

The labor council, along with two politically progressive organizing groups that also participated in the negotiations with Lennar - the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the San Francisco Organizing Project - will endorse Prop. G and lobby against Prop. F."