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Community and commissioners press for accountability at Alice Griffith housing; OCII to agendize oversight task force
Summary
Residents and local contractors told the OCII commission that management and maintenance problems at the Alice Griffith Hope SF development — including trash, elevator outages and heating‑related fires — persist. The commission voted to agendize creation of an affordable housing task force to examine oversight and enforcement.
Commissioners and community members on Oct. 1 sharply criticized the ongoing conditions at Alice Griffith, the Hope SF redevelopment in Candlestick Point, and directed staff to place an affordable housing oversight task force on a future OCII agenda.
Elizabeth Colomelo, OCII’s housing program manager, updated the commission on operations at Alice Griffith. She said earlier phases were transferred to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) as the housing successor and that OG teams have been coordinating with developers and property managers. Colomelo described operational challenges since the COVID‑19 pandemic, including lower operating income and higher costs (notably water and insurance), and noted MOHCD has used emergency rental assistance programs to support residents.
Multiple public commenters — including local contractors and neighborhood residents — told the commission they have not received timely outreach from McCormick Baron Salazar (MBS) and that some contractors hired for work were not local. Demetrius Williams, president of the San Francisco Hyper Local Building Trades Contractors Collective, said MBS has not engaged the hyper‑local contractors and that plumbing and other issues have been handled by companies from outside San Francisco.
Other speakers described poor maintenance and safety problems: trash accumulating where Department of Public Works cannot collect because some streets are not yet public; recurring elevator outages; heaters that caused fires in units; and playground areas reported to contain feces. Dennis Williams Jr. and Luke Jones called for greater community engagement and argued that local contractors were being excluded from meaningful work. Aronde Sterling and Melvin Simmons urged stronger, enforceable requirements and longer‑term workforce opportunities rather than short, low‑skill jobs.
Jennifer Wood, regional vice president for John Stewart Company (property manager), said John Stewart is a local firm, hires residents and has restructured onsite management into two teams to improve responsiveness; she said recruiting for open positions is ongoing and materials about hiring would be distributed to attendees after the meeting.
Commission Chair Vivette Brackett said the commission has repeatedly received complaints going back several years and called the conditions “unacceptable,” asking for immediate measures including monthly monitoring of trash removal, prioritized elevator repairs, safety inspections of heaters and clearer accountability when property managers or developers fail to remedy problems. She asked staff and the executive director to prepare options to strengthen oversight and remedies before future property transfers.
The commission voted to agendize a proposal to create an affordable housing task force subcommittee to examine oversight, enforcement and policy changes; the motion to agendize passed 4–0 (1 absent). Community members in the meeting urged that the task force include residents and representatives of local contractors.
