Michael Cohen, director of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, told us that Lennar was never supposed to build all 32 percent affordable housing units, even though that seemed to be its promise. The developer is only required to build the usual 15 percent of housing units as affordable under the city’s inclusionary housing law. The remaining 20 percent is to be built by the city partnered with an affordable housing developer.

“They take land that is dedicated to affordable housing and give it to the city and the city partners with affordable housing developers,” said Cohen. “Their job is to give land back, improved, to the Redevelopment Agency. That is explicitly what has always been contemplated—they are doing exactly what they’re supposed to.”

The term for this practice is “land dedication” and according to Cohen, Mission Bay and Treasure Island are examples of its success. When we asked whether this technique would slow down the construction of the redevelopment’s affordable housing, Cohen said all the affordable units are supposed to be built at roughly the same time as the market rate units.

But Daly notes that this is land that the city gave Lennar, and that it was cleaned up with money that the city secured from the federal government. And now the city needs to use its scarce affordable housing funds to build the units that Lennar promised. “It’s all really sad, and a good reason why we should have passed Prop. F,” Daly said.

Though the Community Benefits Agreement claims to guarantee more affordable housing, the truth is that only 15 percent of those affordable units will be rentals for individuals making less than 60 percent of the Area Median Income. The rest of the “affordable” units will be for-sale homes for individuals earning up to 160 percent of the Area Median Income. That’s about $130,000 per year—in Bayview-Hunters Point.

“This will be the smallest affordable housing component in any urban renewal area in San Francisco history,” said Calvin Welch, program director of the San Francisco Information Clearing House. Welch, who considers Mission Bay a successful development, thinks quite the opposite of Lennar’s redevelopment at the Hunters Point Shipyard. “Half of all tax increment financing is supposed to be set aside for affordable housing. This deal puts the tax increment dollars into the stadium” that the city wants at the shipyard site to build to try to keep the 49ers in town.

And according to Welch, the Community Benefits Agreement does not hold the weight of the Disposition and Development Agreement, adding that Lennar could violate it at any point and would only suffer a lawsuit but would not be terminated. But labor officials still say they’re hopeful that ultimately Lennar will meet its obligations.

“We have a binding legal written agreement and there’s no reason to change that. In order to get support for Prop G, we said 32 percent affordable housing and millions of dollars in workforce development,” said Tim Paulson, director of the San Francisco Labor Council. According to Paulson, the amount of affordable housing in the Community Benefits Agreement is the largest extracted from a for profit developer in United States history. “If there’s any change to that, we’ll be surprised and we’ll take action.”

“There’s going to be provisions that much of that will be union jobs,” said Paulson, adding that the Labor Council represents about 100,000 workers in District 10. “A lot of our workers who work in the city can’t afford to live in the city.” Lennar promises to provide 8,000 jobs.

Alicia Schwartz, organizer with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), feels that the Community Benefits Agreement, dated May 30, 2008—one month before last June’s Prop G and F election— compromised the community’s need for 50 percent affordable housing and derailed Prop F.

“From our analysis, the reasons Prop. F was defeated were because a month before, those groups held a press conference and then had a campaign against Prop F,” said Schwartz. Indeed, the agreement contains a “support obligation” which required organizations involved to vote Yes on Prop G, send pre-written letters of support for the project to all parties dictated by the developer, and speak publicly at various hearings. In addition, the agreement stated that “each lead organization shall publicly oppose any efforts by public or private individuals or organizations or governmental bodies to require greater commitments for the provision of community benefits related to affordable housing, workforce development programs…”

“We don’t think that Community Benefits Agreements are the appropriate models to use,” said Schwartz. “We have seen them contribute to gentrification all over the country. We have questions and concerns about the terms in the agreement and we don’t think Lennar will comply.”

But even if Lennar sticks with the agreement’s 32 percent affordable housing component, the question remains of what is truly affordable, particularly for a community with over 50 percent unemployment and an Area Median Income of about $40,000, compared to the citywide AMI of $65,000. The majority of residents in the Bayview make under $15,000 a year.

“In a community like Bayview where 80 percent cannot afford the new houses and San Francisco has an affordable housing crisis, are we doing enough to meet our need for affordable housing? And in the last remaining African American neighborhood in the city?” asked Schwartz. The San Francisco Out Migration Task Force study found that since 1990, San Francisco’s African American population has decreased by over 25 percent.

“We have a particular developer that has shown complete disregard for the community, resulting in 9 months of toxic bombardment,” said Schwartz, referring to Lennar’s public health and safety violations when the company stirred up asbestos in the soil next door to schools and homes during the preparation of Parcel A for condominium construction.

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question, but it’s unlikely Lennar will respond to the Bay Guardian. They don’t trust the Bay Guardian,” said Lance Ignon of Sitrick and Co—the public relations firm handling communications between Lennar and the public—when the Guardian asked him about the affordable housing requirement.

As Ignon said, “They’re under no obligation to any newspaper to comment.”