By Cassi Feldman

Ready or not, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is about to start building housing itself.

Rather than let a nonprofit renovate the Plaza, a run-down residential hotel on Howard Street, the Redevelopment Commission voted 4-3 on Feb. 12 to have the agency develop the property directly instead. This new policy, under which the SFRA oversees all aspects of financing, design, and contracting, was first proposed by Mayor Willie Brown in his Oct. 22 "State of the City" address as a way to increase the number of affordable housing units.

But critics say it was actually a political maneuver meant to appease for-profit developers. And now he's taken it a step further by trying to silence the opposition.

Plaza tenants and community members, who have spent years waiting for badly needed repairs, say they don't want an experimental new policy to be enacted at their expense. Week after week they have appeared at Redevelopment Commission meetings to urge members to move forward with a proposal from Tenants and Owners Development Corporation, a South of Market nonprofit with 30 years of experience.

Backed by three out of seven commissioners, TODCO supporters thought they also had the support of SFRA executive director Marcia Rosen, who has argued forcefully in favor of working with the nonprofit since she was appointed last year (see "Marcia in the Middle," 12/12/01).

Though Rosen has never publicly opposed the idea of the SFRA's acting as a developer, a memo she sent out Jan. 22 states that the Plaza does not meet any of the agency's seven criteria for taking on a project itself. The SFRA could not do it cheaper, bigger, faster, or better than TODCO, the memo argues. "Staff has not identified any public benefit that the Agency could meet or obtain by directly developing this site," it states.

But at the commission meeting last week Rosen flip-flopped and recommended that the SRFA do the project anyway. "Mayor Brown initiated the idea of the agency taking an active role in the development of affordable housing," Rosen said. "He wants the agency to embark on this as soon as possible."

According to sources inside city hall, her change of heart was mandated by the mayor. Brown reportedly contacted Rosen and his new commission appointee, Chantel Walker, and demanded that they switch their positions. Brown was unavailable for comment, and his press secretary could neither confirm nor deny the accusation.

If it's true, critics say, the mayor may have overstepped his bounds. "It makes the commission process a sham if these decisions are made in back rooms," commissioner Mark Dunlop told the Bay Guardian.

As soon as Walker cast the deciding vote in favor of direct development, half of the audience walked out of the meeting. The next day Sup. Chris Daly filed a motion that would allow the Board of Supervisors to take over the agency.

"It's no surprise we have a housing crisis," Daly said, "when 115 units of affordable housing is being used as a political football."

Dunlop agrees. He told the San Francisco Examiner that the supes should consider a takeover. The comment, which appeared in a Feb. 17 article, could cost him his job. Dunlop told us the mayor called him at home that evening and threatened to fire him if he didn't publicly retract the statement. The Mayor's Office did not return calls by press time.

Dunlop is confident he won't be removed, since his term does not end until 2004 and state code would only allow him to be fired for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct."