{"id":207518,"date":"2026-03-06T16:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/207518\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:02:10","slug":"trump-not-nimbys-delayed-great-highway-senior-housing-says-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/207518\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Not NIMBYs, Delayed Great Highway Senior Housing, Says Developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

One criticism of San Francisco\u2019s new housing plan is that it doesn\u2019t guarantee money to build subsidized housing for lower-income residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Family Zoning Plan, as it\u2019s known, is meant to make larger apartment buildings, the kind ideal for affordable homes, legal to build in several low-rise neighborhoods. It\u2019s not meant to fund them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But funding those buildings is indeed a problem, and there\u2019s no starker example than a project at ground zero of one of the city\u2019s biggest political battles: The Great Highway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More specifically, it\u2019s at 1234 Great Highway. It\u2019s a plum westside location, and not just because it\u2019s steps away from the ocean. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a rare large site, an old Motel 6 a full block long. It\u2019s what affordable developers need so that high construction costs make financial sense \u2014 at least in theory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even better, under a state law (different from the city\u2019s new housing plan) the 1234 Great Highway developers applied for fast-track approval<\/a> last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their plans call for two eight-story buildings with 199 homes and a care center for low-income seniors. Half the units would be earmarked for formerly homeless residents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AnThe latest design for senior housing at 1234 Great Highway was part of a presentation in both English and Chinese, a nod to the demographics of the Sunset District. (Courtesy TNDC and Self-Help for the Elderly)<\/a><\/p>\n

As rents around the city go through the roof<\/a>, they hoped to break ground this year. But now they won\u2019t. Neighbors who have complained for years about losing their views rejoiced, and at least one headline implied that they\u2019d won a battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the main developer says 1234 Great Highway doesn\u2019t have a NIMBY problem. It says the problem is 2,500 miles away in Washington, DC.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

HUD headache<\/p>\n

Affordable housing isn\u2019t affordable to build. With land, labor, and materials at a premium in SF, cost estimates range from $750,000 to $1 million per unit.<\/p>\n

No single source can cover that kind of bill, so affordable developers patch together grants and loans from city, state, federal, and private sources, often with time constraints.<\/p>\n

\"An1234 Great Highway seen from the corner of La Playa and Irving streets. Sunset Dunes Park and Ocean Beach are just to the west. (Photo: Alex Lash)<\/p>\n

Securing public money can be critical in persuading private lenders to fill in the gaps. Losing one major funding source can endanger a project. \u201cProjects die because they can\u2019t close their funding,\u201d says Jon White, chief real estate officer for Fremont-based developer Abode.<\/p>\n

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development was once a reliable financing partner. Like other agencies, it\u2019s now subject to Trump administration attempts to kill grants and purge spending, often based on reasons such as \u201cDEI\u201d \u2014 diversity, equity, and inclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edmund Campos, spokesperson for lead developer Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, says \u201cchanges at HUD have created uncertainty\u201d that have led TNDC to \u201cpause the project.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ALeave the light on: The Motel 6 sign will stay up longer now that funding for the 1234 Great Highway project has been delayed. Golden Gate Park and one of its historic windmills is across the street. (Photo: Alex Lash)<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a particular HUD grant that fell through. Instead, TNDC planned to use the federal Restore-Rebuild initiative, a complicated tool to help cities build subsidized housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HUD pays the rent for some of the lowest-income Americans via Section 8 vouchers, bu\u200b\u200bt the buildings themselves are mostly privately owned.<\/p>\n

Restore-Rebuild (previously called Faircloth-To-RAD) lets cities develop new public housing and convert it into private affordable homes, with HUD committing to subsidize rents for low-income renters for 20 years. With that guarantee, developers and lenders say it\u2019s easier to borrow money and finance some of these projects.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"SF\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Leaning on those guaranteed rents was a big part of the 1234 Great Highway plan, but project manager Jacob Goldstein says there\u2019s now a \u201cgeneral sense of uncertainty\u201d around HUD and its dealings.<\/p>\n

TNDC also lost out on a big grant closer to home. Financial documents drawn up last year show a $180 million price tag. Among the funding sources, City Hall would cover $34 million, mainly to buy the motel property, about $8 million would come from bonds, and $36 million from a state grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One big problem: TNDC didn\u2019t get the state grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only 30 of 164 applicants qualified for the state grant. Last year, 74 of 168 won awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that initial HCD award, the project cannot yet advance to the next financing stages,\u201d says Campos, using the initials of the state\u2019s Department of Housing and Community Development.<\/p>\n

TNDC has won grants through this program before, such as $20 million in 2022 for senior housing on Geary Boulevard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ADeveloper TNDC used a state grant as part of the financing for its 7-story building with 98 subsidized units for seniors on Geary Boulevard. (Photo: Alex Lash)<\/p>\n

HCD spokesperson Alicia Murillo says competition was intense, with 164 projects seeking a combined total of $2.8 billion. There was only $382 million in the funding pool. Only 30 of the 164 applicants qualified. The previous year, 74 out of 168 applicants won awards.<\/p>\n

Murillo declined to comment on the qualifications of 1234 Great Highway but said the process tends to favor affordable developments that score at least 100 on a key bond-qualification metric. The Great Highway project is 100 percent affordable and had a score of 120, the highest possible, according to the Citywide Affordable Housing Loan Committee<\/a>, which called the project \u201cvery competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Not a reliable partner\u2019<\/p>\n

Under Secretary Scott Turner, a former Texas congressman, HUD has undergone staff cuts and tried to claw back or shift funds appointed by Congress, such as permanent supportive housing for previously homeless residents under the Continuum of Care (CoC) program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress already authorized HUD \u2014 with strong bipartisan support \u2014 to run a two-year CoC Program,\u201d but HUD has refused to spend the money, according to\u00a0 a letter<\/a> from the US Conference of Mayors in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco and many others have brought a lawsuit<\/a> and courts have blocked HUD\u2019s moves for now<\/a>, but the administration\u2019s dismissiveness of contractual norms has repercussions. (HUD did not return requests for comment on this story.)<\/p>\n

\"AWindow of opportunity? A notice posted at the 1234 Great Highway site notifies the public of SF\u2019s \u2018intent to approve funding\u2019 for affordable housing at the location. (Photo: Alex Lash)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not a reliable partner. That\u2019s a big deal,\u201d says one SF-based affordable housing developer who asked not to be named. \u201cIf everyone is worried about funding cuts and housing vouchers,\u201d lenders won\u2019t feel confident about pouring millions into affordable housing, the developer says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us years to convince lenders to underwrite these kinds of projects,\u201d says Abode\u2019s John White. \u201cThat trust is lost\u201d in the current environment, he adds, and Abode is now looking to rework projects around federal programs they once took for granted. \u201cLenders have good reason to worry, they read the news. Will HUD even exist in two and a half years when a project is ready to break ground?\u201d<\/p>\n

To many in the business, Washington feels like a black box; policy goes in one end and unpredictability comes out the other. \u201cI\u2019ve heard both ends,\u201d says California YIMBY spokesperson Matthew Lewis. \u201cSome folks say funds are coming through, others are getting cancelled or indefinitely delayed. Elon\/DOGE and Trump permanently broke [or] disabled many systems, but not all of them, so your mileage may vary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campos says TNDC will apply for new grants in 2027 and revive plans if the money comes through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If and when that happens, city and state laws should prevent angry neighbors from pulling local levers of delay. But the supervisor race for the district remains keenly attuned to local housing complaints. Incumbent Alan Wong, appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie in December, is fighting to keep his seat in a special June election. (The winner must run again for a full term in November.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

His four opponents are bashing him for his vote to approve the Family Zoning Plan. One, who runs a merchant association, told The Frisc in 2024 that a proposed eight-story affordable development at the other end of the Great Highway was \u201ctoo tall<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a candidate debate Wednesday night, neighborhood affordability was a key question. Wong said one way to bring down prices was to build housing for all income levels. When the moderator asked if he\u2019ll fight for 1234 Great Highway, Wong said he was \u201cstill developing his policy perspective.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Q to Wong: Will you work on 1234 Great Hwy senior affordable housing? Is that a priority? Wong: Supporting the Family Zoning Plan was “responsible and practical.” Re. 1234: “I’m still developing my policy perspective.” He says neighbors are worried abt fmrly homeless people being housed there<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Frisc (@thefrisc.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-03-05T02:57:19.646Z<\/a><\/p>\n

He also mentioned neighbors who didn\u2019t like that half the building would be reserved for formerly homeless people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reached by phone the next day, Wong confirmed that he hadn\u2019t yet decided about supporting the project and repeated that he\u2019s heard from \u201csome residents about their concern about how it\u2019s a mix between seniors and people that are transitioning off homelessness.\u201d (The developers have said<\/a> the residents will all be seniors, half of them formerly homeless.) <\/p>\n

The developer says the project can\u2019t move ahead without new grants. And by then, either Alan Wong or a rival will be serving the first year of a new four-year term, with no election to face for a long time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMore from The Frisc…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One criticism of San Francisco\u2019s new housing plan is that it doesn\u2019t guarantee money to build subsidized housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[380,45661,9498,536,9528,9386,68565,1011,9500,1913,5409,101,103,102,104,106,105,95735,16505],"class_list":{"0":"post-207518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-alan-wong","10":"tag-department-of-housing-and-urban-development","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-family-zoning-plan","13":"tag-great-highway","14":"tag-hcd","15":"tag-housing","16":"tag-hud","17":"tag-outer-sunset","18":"tag-policy","19":"tag-san-francisco","20":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","21":"tag-san-francisco-news","22":"tag-sf","23":"tag-sf-headlines","24":"tag-sf-news","25":"tag-tndc","26":"tag-urban-planning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}