San Francisco housing targets courtyards and streetscapes

One-bedroom apartments in San Francisco command rents averaging $1,731 a month, and nearly a quarter of the city’s renters pay more than half their income for housing, according to a local real estate source, RentalGuide.com. Consequently the city is trying to get more housing built for people of modest means — much of it employing new urban ideas about engaging the street and mixing a variety of uses. One of the most striking recent examples is North Beach Place, a 341-unit HOPE VI project that opened on Bay Street in the city’s northeast quarter. Where a crime-ridden concrete public housing project fell to the wreckers, North Beach Place went up, consisting of two city blocks bisected by the Taylor Street cable car route. The new development lines residential side streets with four stories of apartments, many of them with individual entrances on the sidewalks. Retail activities occupy ground-floor space on Taylor and on the busy Bay Street thoroughfare. Because the location is so desirable — it lies between Fisherman’s Wharf and the historically Italian North Beach neighborhood — the specialty food purveyor Trader Joe’s, a coffee shop, and other businesses moved into the complex’s 17,000 square feet of retail space. The project, designed by Paul Barnhart Associates, also includes 322 mostly underground parking spaces, a break room and rest rooms for cable car operators, a computer learning center, a childcare center, a community room, and 3,000 square feet of space where residents can start their own businesses. The San Francisco Housing Authority insisted on having no interior corridors — trouble spots for crime and vandalism. Instead, most units along the perimeter are designed like stacked townhouses, creating a traditional San Francisco urban fabric. Two-story units 12.5 feet wide sit on top of two-story base units 25 feet wide. In addition to entrances along the sidewalks, many units have entrances on a shared courtyard constructed one floor above street level, on top of a parking garage. “Each unit has its own stoop, its own door,” emphasizes Juan Monsanto, manager of planning and program development in the Authority’s Housing Development and Modernization Department. protected courtyards Additional rows of apartments rise from the interior of the courtyard, near courtyard play areas for children. Time will tell whether the livability of the courtyard units will suffer from proximity to the occasionally noisy play areas. To enter the courtyard from the street, visitors pass through a security gate and go one flight up by stair or elevator. A $23 million HUD grant, $38 million in federal credits, and $27 million in state credits from California helped to finance the $108 million development. A consortium of San Francisco- and Oakland-based developers, including Bridge Housing Corp., the John Stewart Company, and Em Johnson Interest Inc., orchestrated the project; contractors were Nibbi Brothers in a joint venture with Cahill Contractors and Baines & Robertson. Unlike many HOPE VI projects, North Beach Place was designed without market-rate and for-sale units, partly because market-rate housing exists nearby but also because the city saw a desperate need to help people unable to afford market rents. The project has 229 apartments for very low-income residents and 112 tax-credit units for working families. Unlike the vast majority of HOPE VI projects nationwide, North Beach Place produced as many public housing units as had previously existed and added subsidized housing, creating a greater density than before. “Across the country, only about 5 percent of residents return” when a HOPE VI project opens on land previously occupied by a dilapidated public housing project, Monsanto says. Because of the Authority’s policy, he says, “an average of 65 percent return to sites in San Francisco.” The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is also pursuing a mixed-use, mixed-income strategy in Mission Bay, a 303-acre expanse of rail yards being converted to housing, offices, a University of California-San Francisco research campus, and other uses. The Agency is trying to make new buildings in Mission Bay, south of downtown, relate to pedestrian activity. “Parking garages are surrounded by units,” Amy J. Neches, senior project manager for the Agency, said during a tour sponsored by the American Planning Association. “Everything comes to the street to create sidewalks and urban grids. The public realm is primary.” affordability throughout Sixteen acres of tax-increment-subsidized affordable housing are being scattered throughout Mission Bay. The project’s first completed affordable building, Rich Sorro Commons, contains 100 units in various shapes and sizes, made up of four stories of wood frame construction over a concrete podium. Its density exceeds 90 units an acre, says Linda Sobuta, a principal at SMWM, which designed the building for Mission Housing Development Corp. and wrote design guidelines for the area. Rich Sorro Commons is U-shaped — its open end facing a mid-block pedestrian lane and letting afternoon sunshine penetrate the courtyard. “We left part of the courtyard at grade so trees in the daycare play area can grow to ample size,” Sobuta points out. Part of the courtyard on top of a concrete podium contains a planter with soil about 4.5 feet deep, to support ample greenery. Living areas have floor-to-ceiling glass to bring in plenty of light. “Some units are specifically designed for those who provide daycare in their homes,” adds Karen B. Alschuler, principal and director of planning and urban design for SMWM. They get an extra bedroom, a large closet, and a window off the garden. Incubator business spaces in Mission Bay and at North Beach Place are positioned along the street, to avoid bringing too much traffic into the interior of the complex. Facing a major street, “we wanted active uses on the ground floor as much as possible — childcare, a Japanese restaurant, retail,” Sobuta explains. The styling is clean and fairly simple; some fault Mission Bay for having large buildings that do not offer as much visual complexity and detail as old parts of the city. Eleven hundred housing units have been completed, and another 1,000 are to break ground during the next year. When Mission Bay is completed, which may take 20 years, it will contains 6,000 dwellings, most of them market-rate, served by light rail and other public transportation. It will boast 51 acres of new parks, paid for by assessments on the development. Alschuler believes Mission Bay proves that livable housing can be designed at high densities in an urban setting. “It’s about 100 dwelling units per acre,” she exults. “You walk around, and you would never know it.” u