Renewing North Beach Place

Chapter 11 charts North Beach Place’s decade-long struggle from initial HOPE VI proposal (1995) to completed development (2005). Unlike Tucson, where the public sector held sway, San Francisco had a weak housing authority; unlike Boston, no single tenant emerged as a Plebs pole star; and unlike New Orleans, San Franciscans refused to leave the fate of public housing to the unchecked preferences of for-profit developers. Instead, buoyed by support from the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center and the Chinatown Community Development Center, proponents of the North Beach Place redevelopment insisted on retaining all 229 deeply subsidized apartments, while densifying the site to include an additional 112 units of affordable housing, financed with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. With strong mayoral support, leadership from a not-for-profit developer, and empowered tenants, this version of HOPE VI preserved and enhanced the last remnants of affordable housing in an otherwise gentrifying neighborhood.