Of homes and castles
Antidemolition ordinance would prevent low-income Trinity Plaza from being replaced by high-end residential towers

By Matthew Hirsch

Listening to Luisa Cruz Balabat describe her home in the Trinity Plaza apartments, you would never picture a converted motor hotel in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Balabat talks of a thriving multiethnic community with unusual amenities for the predominantly low-income residents: a swimming pool, an exercise room, a grocery store, and a restaurant.

"What I really like here is the neighborhood," Balabat said of Trinity Plaza but not its Market Street surroundings. "I think it's the best place to raise my kids. This is the only place around where there's no violence and there's no drugs, so my kids aren't exposed to that."

For four years Balabat has lived comfortably – though modestly – in her Trinity Plaza studio apartment. All that changed in May when Angelo Sangiacomo, who owns the property, announced plans to tear down the building.

Though it appears structurally sound, Sangiacomo wants to raze the 377-unit Trinity Plaza so he can replace it with five residential towers on land he owns on Eighth Street between Market and Mission Streets. The project would result in about 500 evictions and the loss of 360 rent-controlled apartments. The new towers would hold 1,410 rental units, all market rate except the minimum required 12 percent set aside as low-income housing.

That is unlikely to win support from Sup. Chris Daly, who brokered a deal with two Rincon Hill developers last month in exchange for nearly 100 additional units of affordable housing (see "From Lightning Rod to Love Fest"). "We don't have a housing crisis in San Francisco as much as we have an affordable-housing crisis," said Daly, who is sponsoring a proposed ordinance that would spare Trinity Plaza from the wrecking ball.

Daly's antidemolition ordinance, which goes to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Land Use Committee Feb. 9, would prohibit the demolition of any building with 20 or more units unless the building is more than 50 years old and virtually falling apart. The city planning code already discourages the demolition of sound housing, but a residential demolition policy adopted last December by the San Francisco Planning Commission leaves room for a project like Trinity to be approved.

Cornell Fowler of Reputation, the public relations firm representing Trinity Properties, told the Bay Guardian Sangiacomo is committed to doing his best for the tenants in Trinity Plaza. But the antidemolition ordinance goes too far, Fowler said. "We checked with the city's rent database. There are 1,100 properties in the city with 20 or more units. That affects everybody," he said.

Naturally, real estate owners oppose Daly's antidemolition policy, arguing it's an infringement on property rights. Janan New, executive director of the San Francisco Apartment Association, told us there's no reason for a citywide ordinance to deal with an individual project.

"I don't think there's a lot of people out there who want to demolish their buildings, but I also don't think there's a lot of people out there that want to give up their rights," New told us.

Tenant activists say despite the shortage of housing in the city, there's simply no reason to tear down one apartment building only to replace it with another. "I actually believe there are tons of places to build in San Francisco, just tons of them," said Sam Dodge, a tenant organizer supporting Trinity residents. "We haven't gotten to the point where we need to cannibalize our housing stock."

Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who chairs the Land Use Committee, told us he is inclined to agree with the tenants. In fact, McGoldrick wants to extend the antidemolition ordinance to protect buildings with six units or more, he said.

The project also has public health officials concerned about the impact of demolition and displacement on residents' health. Carolina Guzman, an epidemiologist in the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Health Inequities Research Unit, is planning two focus groups with Trinity tenants to assess their reactions to the threat of eviction.

She wants to know "what about where they live right now makes them healthy, and what about the threat of eviction affects their health?" The DPH isn't supporting or opposing the Trinity project, but it is encouraging both city planners and developers to take into account the results of its research.

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