The transformation of a swath of San Francisco that began 10 years ago when voters agreed that the quake-damaged Central Freeway should never be rebuilt could get a boost under a Newsom administration plan to sell land to support housing construction.
The Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development committee took testimony Monday on the administration’s plan to auction seven parcels and sell through competitive bid four other properties along Octavia Boulevard where the Central Freeway once stood.
A committee vote was postponed until April 27 so the land-sale legislation can be amended to give the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development more leeway on the minimum price at which the seven parcels to be auctioned could be sold.
Earlier sales by the city of Central Freeway real estate raised $23 million to fund the redesign and beautification of Octavia, once a street shrouded in the grim shadow of the elevated expressway but re-imagined and re-engineered as part roadway part park.
Altogether, the city received from the state control over eight acres of Central Freeway right-of-way running between Market and Turk streets and across the blocks bounded by Franklin and Laguna streets.
A land-use plan for the area adopted by the city last year calls for construction of 700 to 1,000 units of housing, half of which are to be subsidized and sold or rented at below-market rates to low- and middle-income residents.
The Newsom administration estimates it could raise at least $35 million through the sale of 11 Central Freeway parcels to for-profit developers.
Though much of the money is required under state law to be spent on transportation projects, the administration estimates that $13.2 million would be left over to support affordable housing development on other Central Freeway parcels sold earlier to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.
Appraisals on the seven properties to be sold at auction–generally located at northeast corner of Fulton and Gough streets; the northwest corner of Grove and Gough streets; the north side of Hayes Street between Gough and Octavia; Octavia between Fell and Linden streets; Octavia between Lily and Oak streets; Octavia between Page and Lily street; and Octavia between Page and Rose streets–were completed in January 2008 and collectively totaled about $25.1 million.
The legislation before the Board of Supervisors is being amended to set the minimum at which those seven parcels could be sold at auction as 80 percent of appraised value.
The mayor’s office is in negotiation with would-be buyers on the four other parcels it offered through a competitive bidding process.
