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Board approves Potrero Yard modernization as supervisors push for housing funding
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Summary
After days of committee debate and a lengthy full-board exchange, supervisors adopted a modernization agreement for the Potrero bus yard March 24 and passed an amendment urging the mayor’s housing office to identify funding and sites to make up lost affordable units.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on March 24 approved a contract and project agreement to modernize the Potrero (Petroro) bus storage and maintenance yard, voting to adopt the resolution as amended after contentious debate over a related loss of affordable housing that had been envisioned for the site.
Supervisor Connie Chan introduced nonbinding amendments urging the mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) to identify funding to construct infrastructure that would enable future housing development tied to the modernization project and asking SFMTA to identify additional sites to help deliver the 465 affordable units referenced in entitlement legislation from 2024. "The board of supervisors urges MOHCD to identify funding sources to construct the infrastructure needed to enable future housing development opportunities as part of the patrol yard modernization project," Chan said when she introduced the language.
Judson True, SFMTA chief of staff and director of external affairs, told the board the yard is functionally obsolete and seismically unsafe and that the agency’s original vision included a podium to support housing above the yard. True said contractor cost estimates rose roughly 30 percent from an early estimate of about $560 million to more than $700 million, and that removing the podium saved roughly $70 million — a change SFMTA concluded was necessary to keep the overall modernization project financially feasible and to avoid killing the entire project through further delays and rebids. "Adding $70,000,000 of cost to a project makes the afford—there's a line worth saying: affordable housing is not affordable to construct," True told the board, explaining why the podium was removed after value engineering.
Robert Baca, joint development director at OCD, told supervisors that treating $70 million as a site-acquisition proxy would equate to about $191,000 per potential unit and make financing affordable housing at that site extremely difficult. "We think there is probably better value out there," Baca said, arguing MOHCD could likely produce more housing by spending funds on different sites.
Supervisors expressed frustration that the earlier entitlement legislation envisioned far more affordable housing at Potrero than the current project will deliver. Some members said they would support the modernization because it is a necessary investment to maintain Muni service, while pressing the mayor’s housing office and SFMTA for follow-up. The board voted 9–1 to adopt Supervisor Chan’s amendment urging MOHCD to identify funding (Supervisor Mandelmann voted no on the amendment) and then voted 10–0 to adopt the amended project agreement.
The adopted resolution authorizes SFMTA to proceed with the Potrero Yard modernization and includes a board request for MOHCD to pursue funding and for SFMTA to explore alternate sites to help achieve the larger affordable-housing objectives discussed in 2024 entitlements. Supervisors said the project will now proceed to design and construction with directed follow-up on housing commitments.