This might be the real reason Joel Engardio is facing recall in the S.F.'s Sunset District

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

It was the affordable rent, by San Francisco standards, that lured James Parke to the Sunset District in the late 1980s.
'When we moved here, it was the cheap seats,' Parke, 74, a retiree, told me recently. 'There were tattoo parlors and massage parlors and all kinds of crap out here.'
Parke grew to love the sleepy neighborhood and, after a few years of renting, bought a home in the Outer Sunset, where he and his wife still live today.
Like Parke, families seeking to buy relatively affordable single-family homes and a quieter lifestyle have flocked to the Sunset for decades — first, large numbers of Irish and Italian immigrants, then Asian Americans, primarily Chinese, who are now about half of the district's residents.
These days, things are neither affordable nor particularly sleepy. The neighborhood is changing.
Like the rest of San Francisco, housing prices have skyrocketed in the Sunset. Some of the seedy shops Parke remembers have been replaced by yoga studios, cafes with pour-over coffee and cocktail lounges.
And Supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents the Sunset, is facing a recall vote in September, primarily for championing Proposition K, which closed the Great Highway for an oceanfront park that is attracting thousands of outsiders to the neighborhood.
Mayor Daniel Lurie's recently released rezoning plan would allow taller housing throughout the neighborhood and could further upend the suburban feel of the Sunset.
All of this worries Parke, who doesn't want the Outer Sunset to transform from 'a family place into some kind of a Miami Beach on the West Coast.'
'If we keep building up and up in the Sunset, well, there goes that quality of life that we worked so hard for,' Parke said.
There are no plans for Miami Beach-style skyscrapers in the Sunset. But Parke is not alone in his perception and false assumptions about what could happen.
This is important because while the recall fight over the closure of the Great Highway to cars is ostensibly about traffic, it's hard not to think broader anxiety over what the future holds for the Sunset is also in play.
'I think it's just a lack of voice and lack of agency that folks have' over decisions in the neighborhood, said Lily Wong, director of the Sunset Chinese Cultural District, when I asked her about feedback she's heard from the community. (Full disclosure: My wife, Ramie Dare, serves on the board of Wah Mei School, the fiscal sponsor for the cultural district.)
Arguably, that sentiment helped tank the reelection of former Supervisor Gordon Mar, who lost a close race to Engardio three years ago. During the campaign, Mar was anonymously branded a 'communist pedophile' in part for helping to push through the Sunset's first affordable housing project in decades.
Engardio campaigned for office on a vision for San Francisco to be more like Paris ― buildings with housing and shops of six stories or so on corner lots and high-traffic corridors everywhere in the city, including the Sunset.
It's an idyllic vision, but 'taller' and 'denser' are fighting words in San Francisco, and not everyone shares Engardio's or Lurie's ideas for housing.
The six-story and eight-story buildings that the rezoning plan calls for would 'feel very out of character' for the Sunset — even on transit corridors — said Albert Chow, president of People of Parkside Sunset, an association representing about 100 businesses on Taraval Street, when I asked him what he thought of the mayor's proposal.
Chow said he prefers smaller projects and worries new development could disrupt 'why people like the neighborhood' — the predominance of single-family homes.
'I like to say that San Francisco is the most progressive city that hates change,' Engardio told me recently when we discussed the future of the Sunset. He said he supports the mayor's rezoning.
'There will always be people opposed to new things or new housing. I think the mayor's housing plan is very pragmatic and reasonable because it's focusing housing on areas where it makes the most sense.'
What's pragmatic to Engardio, however, isn't jiving these days with many of his constituents like Chow, an outspoken supporter of the recall who opposed Prop K.
I'm an Outer Sunset resident who supported Prop K. In the long run, I believe Sunset Dunes park will benefit the Sunset and the city. And so will rezoning to allow more homes. There's been almost no new housing in Sunset and other western neighborhoods since the 1960s.
Anytime denser housing can be built near major commercial and public transportation routes, it makes sense for everyone; it puts people into homes, creates economic activity and ideally gets some drivers out of their cars.
Denser housing in Sunset is going to be a tough sell. But even Chow concedes the neighborhood has to 'take our share of the burden' for building housing in the city.
'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,' he said, borrowing a quote from Spock of 'Star Trek.'
Rezoning could be the first step in a decades-long process. Change is coming. Spock's Vulcan philosophy is something good to keep in mind during this transformation.
The Sunset should never become Miami Beach. But it can't stay frozen in time, either, if the city is going to 'live long and prosper.'
Harry Mok is an assistant editor, editorial board member and columnist for the Opinion section.