Tenants of San Francisco’s Parkmerced apartments are delivering a referendum to the city’s Department of Elections Friday afternoon on a plan to add thousands of apartments and demolish others at the complex.
The San Francisco Tenants Union and other supporters are trying to stop the plan by developers to add about 5,700 apartments and replace about 1,800 others during the next two to three decades at the large complex at 19th and Holloway avenues.
The tenants say the plan would displace them and get rid of rent-controlled housing.
The board of supervisors approved the plan last month by a 6-5 vote after adding some tenant protections into the agreement.
The petition being delivered by a small group of tenants to the Department of Elections at City Hall today would put a referendum on the November ballot to let city voters decide whether they support or oppose the plan as approved by the board, said Ted Gullicksen, director of the tenants union.
The referendum would suspend work on the project until the vote in November, Gullicksen said.
He said the petition has about 19,000 signatures, more than the roughly 14,300 needed to place the measure on the ballot.
“The key issue here is we need to preserve as much rent-controlled housing as we possibly can,” Gullicksen said. “They’re basically demolishing an entire neighborhood.”
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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