Hidden Behind the Beauty of Mission Bay is Systemic Classism Wherein the City, the Giants and the Warriors Profit in Expense of Low-Income Residents.
My name is John Michael Santos and I’m a resident at 626 Mission Bay Blvd N, one of the many Affordable Housing buildings in Mission Bay. The Affordable Housing Tenants and our supporting neighbors would like to ask for your help in hopefully shedding a light on an important issue that’s been going on in our neighborhood. We have a big problem with street parking space and costs that are affecting most of my neighborhood’s well-being and already stretched pocketbooks.
When Mission Bay was planned and built, the developers of the Affordable Housing did not consider building enough parking spaces for the tenants since there is no requirement in the city of San Francisco to accommodate that. For example in my building with 143 units, we only have 20 spaces allotted for parking on a Reasonable Accommodation priority, (like if you have a disability, which I believe is a fair enough reason). The other building next to us, Mercy Housing, has 150 units with only 15 parking spaces. All Affordable Housing buildings were built with extremely limited parking spaces for residents.
Now for the rest of us, we have to deal with street parking. There is enough street parking, that’s not the problem. The problem is our whole neighborhood has metered street parking that runs from 9 am to 10 pm from Mondays to Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays if there is an event at the 2 sports venue next to us, Oracle Park and Chase Center. The parking meters are dynamically priced (demand-based) throughout the day from .50 cents to $3.00 an hour depending on demand and $8.00 an hour on event times and days.
Since we don’t have a parking space in our buildings we are forced to park on our metered parking streets and forced to pay whatever price the meter will dynamically program. That’s not the only issue, another issue is constantly getting citations for expired meters which have happened to almost all of us.
Some people might say, it’s our fault for not remembering to add money to the meters. But think for a moment, it is human nature to forget things at times, even if we put a timer on our smartphones to notify us — sometimes we would even forget to set up a timer.
When people get so busy throughout the day, it’s inevitable for us to forget to add money to our parking meters on time. The city takes advantage of this situation knowing that residents here who don’t have parking in the buildings will end up paying for metered parking and citations. It’s a classic form of Systemic Classism.
Imagine having that kind of stress thinking about the parking meter on an hourly basis almost 7 days a week.
Imagine having to move your car every four hours so you don’t get a citation.
Imagine not being tech-savvy and not knowing where to get information about events and when the prices change because of a lack of posted information or signs.
Imagine coming home from work but staying in your car until 10 pm because you can’t afford parking during game days.
Imagine parking outside your neighborhood and parking in the surrounding unsafe, carjacking, window-smashing infested streets.
Imagine paying more for street parking than your monthly housing rent.
Imagine getting your car booted and eventually towed and auctioned off because you can’t pay for the parking fees you incurred.
This neighborhood was designed this way on a transit first policy, to discourage people from driving here or owning a car or maybe to lessen the congestion or maybe because it’s to lessen our carbon footprint as we build new communities.
I am for all those reasons. I, for one, prefer to use a bike, a scooter, walk or use public transportation instead of driving a car, but most of us use our car for work, to make a living.
Our community is made up of low-income, diverse but mostly black and brown residents. Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers, food and grocery service drivers, janitors, cleaning ladies, caretakers, babysitters, construction workers, families with kids who go to different schools, people who work outside the city, people who have disabilities, people who work at different sites, or seniors who can’t ride a bike or scooter.
During the pandemic, we don’t have the privilege to work from home or to take public transportation, it’s just not an option.
Most people who live at a market-rate apartment or an HOA building don’t have the same issue because their developers made sure that they will have ample parking for each resident. Why, because nobody would want to pay $4,000 for a one-bedroom if they will have issues with parking. Not only do they have parking for one car, which they pay for a fee, on a monthly basis, but they also have access to park their second car on another luxury apartment garage next to them, again with a monthly fee.
The city even built parking spaces for the House Boat Community that’s been sitting empty for years and are not utilized next to their properties. They get an option to pick where they want to park. Affordable Housing residents don’t have that same privilege.
The developers of Affordable Housing don’t consider parking space for us because, one, it’s not required by the city, and two, these developers know that their buildings will always have tenants due to lack of housing availability. They know that the city will always have tenants for them coming from either the unhoused population, the low-income waiting list population, and from the thousands of Mayor’s Office DAHLIA, lottery winners and applicants.
Residents have inquired about Residential Permit Parking (RPP) but were turned down by SFMTA individually for 8 years now. I started a petition and was able to gather more than 347 signatures, SFMTA requires at least 250 signatures to consider RPP in our neighborhood. After gathering enough signatures, I was able to set up a meeting with 2 SFMTA Managers who pretty much gave me the runaround and stated that they cannot give us RPP instead they are going to look into other options for us including working with UCSF parking lots. They said that they can’t change the plan but through my research, our next-door community South Beach and a couple of blocks of Brannan St next to the ballpark were granted RPP Permits and they even changed the parking meters time to end at 6 pm instead of 10 pm on baseball off-season.
I’ve asked everyone who signed the petition to attend an SFMTA Board of Supervisors Meeting online to voice out our issue but I found out most of them are not technologically savvy, most of them speaks another language other than English, and most of them were at work during those meeting times. It’s been 3 months and nothing seems to be happening with our petition. I have also reached out to District Supervisor Haney whose staff stated that they will consult with SFMTA.
We would like to ask for two things.
First – a solution to our parking problem either by issuing us a Residential Permit Parking or find equitable parking spaces for us with a fee that’s affordable to us, get a refund on those years of parking citations that we’ve incurred from paying parking meters that were done by design that targeted low-income affordable housing residents, not only in Mission Bay but in all the Affordable Housing built within the last 8 years in San Francisco.
Secondly – a change in building permits to have a minimum requirement for the number of parking spaces for units in Affordable Housing that is comparable to the parking spaces allotted for Market Rate Apartments. These Affordable Housing Developers get funding from Federal and State Grants and tax credits that we think it’s fair enough to consider not just building apartment units but also having ample amount of parking spaces.
STOP TAXING THE WRONG GROUP OF PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF “TRANSIT-FIRST POLICY.”
This is not a luxury request that we’re asking for but a much-needed relief for us and our cars that we use as a source of income.
I’ve asked for legal help from the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Right’s of the San Francisco Bay Area and ACLU San Francisco Chapter and currently looking for other legal firms who might be able to help us because I believe this is a form of systemic classism, building and housing low-income communities, mostly brown, black and immigrant communities, in a neighborhood where the city is aware. that parking will be limited and yet installed all metered parking in the neighborhood and has been charging us with exorbitant parking and citation fees, denying us RPP request, and yet this issue is not experienced by “most” Market Rate residents.
PLEASE HELP US.
How you can help. If you are affected by this and you are a resident of Mission Bay:
- Submit your complaints to ACLU Northern California, or call them at (415) 621–2488, (English or Spanish) Mon to Fri 10 am to 12 pm and 1 pm to 3 pm.
- Join our Nextdoor Group, Post this on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and use tag @SFMTA.Muni, @londonbreed, @matthaneysf @SFBOS, @OCII
- If you haven’t signed the RPP Petition: RPP PETITION FOR MISSION BAY fill out the form, take a picture, and text it to (415) 666–5030
- Email our District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney and ask for an update on their talks with OCII/SFMTA. Matthew Mandich,
- Email our Mayor London Breed
- Reach out to SF Chronicle, ABC 7 On Your Side, and any other media outlets that you might know.