TODCO’s Mission

As South of Market Neighborhood Builders, it is the Mission of the TODCO Group to assure that the poor, the disadvantaged, and the working people of South of Market —elders, hotel residents, homeless, immigrants and families — will always be an integral part of their Neighborhood's future, always benefited rather than displaced by renewal, and able:

• To meet basic needs for housing, nutrition and economic security, ending deprivation.

• To live in safety with dignity, respect and equity, ending isolation and exploitation.

• To share community productivity to build social capital, institute wellness, expand common assets, and impact the future.

• To achieve their just aspirations now and for generations to come.

Current Advocacy

A4ECA (Advocates for Empowerment California) has been formed to: (1) develop and advocate plans and programs to secure equitable, just, and sustainable community development and affordable housing for all, as well as social and economic justice, in the San Francisco Bay Area and State of California; (2) undertake research and provide education, information, and support to their central city communities concerning these issues; (3) advocate for governmental legislation, regulations, and actions, and undertake legal and civil action when necessary, in furtherance of these purposes; and (4) carry on other public and charitable activities associated with these purposes.

The mission of A4ECA (Advocates for Empowerment California) is to foster positive societal change through bold leadership and innovative empowerment of frontline leaders. A4ECA follows its vision which ensures that it helps change the future by empowering groups with providing organizing capacity, research, education, technical support, public polling, as well as supporting and running ballot measures that will protect the working people of San Francisco.

PAST ADVOCACY

Build Affordable Faster (BAF) is a local, regional, and state Civic Advocacy & Action Project of Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (T0DCO), a nonprofit community-based community development corporation for San Francisco’s South of Market Neighborhood since 1971. TODCO has built, owns, and operates 950 units of affordable senior and SRO housing for lower-income San Franciscans in eight SOMA residences.

The mission of Build Affordable Faster is to fight for and with the poor, disadvantaged, and working people of our Golden state —elders, people of color, the unhoused, immigrants and families, in order to win affordable housing and build a strong safety net which supports the health, safety and well being of all Californians. Our project aims to engage organizers, advocates, and policy makers around legislation and ballot measures which address production and protection of affordable housing, our untenable wealth inequality and the health and economic well being of all Californians.

469 Stevenson

TODCO statement on 469 issued December 6, 2021. Also see more from 48 Hills here.

TODCO’s History

TODCO’s founders 50 years ago were “community activists” of their era, not “housing developers.” Then, George Woolf, Peter Mendelsohn, and the members of TOOR (Tenants and Owner Opposed to Redevelopment) were determined to create and build a better Yerba Buena and South of Market of the Future for all its communities upon the ruins of their redevelopment-bulldozed neighborhood. And as they knew well - both then and now - that takes strong and direct civic action to accomplish, not just simply building affordable housing. We have always incorporated this as a central and vital theme of TODCO’s mission.

Today TODCO is among the forefront of progressive civic action leaders and organizations striving to realize a future San Francisco founded on community-based economic and social justice for all. This includes:

Community Information And Engagement

Throughout its history TODCO has always emphasized teaming up with Central City community organizations of all backgrounds to work together on the many difficult realities of the Central City and SOMA’s future, including:

• Our Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium which has convened YBC residents and stakeholders regularly since 1980 to learn about and address the never-ending complex issues facing this pivotal heart of South of Market (several described below), especially those impacting the 2000 senior housing residents of this neighborhood, such as pedestrian safety.

• Community Advisory Committees such as the South of Market Project Area Committee for the Sixth Street Redevelopment Area, the Eastern Neighborhood Citizens Advisory Committee for all SOMA, the SOMA Stabilization Fund Citizens Advisory Committee for the Rincon Hill SOMA Community Mitigation Fund.

• Boards of Directors such as the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District, Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy and the Treasure Island Development Authority, now past board.

• SOMA Community Coalitions such as the South of Market Problem Solving Council, Senior Power, Advocates for the South of Market, the Coalition For Jobs, Arts, and Housing, and today, We Are SOMA.

Community Planning

Since 1980 TODCO has been a leading community voice in very consequential urban planning undertakings for the South of Market and the Central City, including:

• Yerba Buena Redevelopment Area as a key stakeholder and advocate for building a real neighborhood throughout the project’s five decades of development, including our seminal 1980 Year Buena Neighborhood Plan.

• South Beach/Rincon Hill Redevelopment Area as principal advocate for affordable housing development within this 1980s repurposing of SOMA’s former industrial waterfront district.

• South of Market Rezoning as the voice for community stabilization of South of Market in this 1980s envisioning its affordable mixed-use future.

• South of Market Redevelopment Area as the spearhead community instigator of this post-Loma Prieta Earthquake recovery and 1990s neighborhood building project focused on SOMA’s distressed Sixth Street community.

• Treasure Island Base Reuse Project as 1990s co-founder of the Treasure Island Homeless Development Initiative and leading neighborhood building proponent for this visionary $5 billion master-planned complex.

• Today's Central SOMA Plan as the leading community proponent – our Central Corridor Community Plan that fully integrates neighborhood and community building and social justice objectives with downtown and tech industry expansion – of this comprehensive master plan and rezoning completed in September 2018.

• Mission Bay Community Survey 2021: Documented Race & Equity societal dynamics within an entirely new master-planned San Francisco neighborhood of 10,000 residents.

• DignityMoves: 2021 Significant funder for temporary Unhoused Housing operator’s start-up and 33 Gough Street prototype ‘village’ project.

• Westbay Pilipino Multiservice Agency: 2021 Significant funder for SOMA youth services organization to buy a warehouse and renovate it for a new permanent home.

• SF Citywide EIFD 2021-22: Propose and advocate for $2 billion of tax increment bond funding over next 10 years for affordable housing, small business assistance, arts/community building infrastructure, and other community-building projects.

• Hub Area Plan 2018-20: Significantly reduced scope and secured modifications, including Collateral Agreements to secure the ‘Mission Monster’ housing site and other community benefits.

• Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy 2019-20: Significant funder and organizer of new nonprofit CBO now operating the Gardens facilities and programs.

Civic Advocacy

Consistently joining community coalition efforts throughout the decades, TODCO has played a major role in pivotal civic issues, including:

• The Downtown Plan which rezoned all of the Central Business District in 1985, including much of SOMA, working with San Franciscans for Reasonable Growth, ultimately resulting in the 1986 Proposition M Annual Limit On Office Development and the 1991 citywide Unreinforced Masonry Building Seismic Retrofit Program.

• Hotel Tax And Redevelopment Agency Financing For Affordable Housing that over the last 30 years has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for development of low and moderate-income nonprofit housing in San Francisco, working, as a founding member, with the Council of Community Housing Organizations.

• Inclusionary Affordable Housing Program that over the last four decades has produced thousands of affordable housing units within market-rate projects, working again with CCHO and housing advocates to establish first in SOMA and then expand citywide this innovative public-private approach to meeting our City’s housing needs.

• Yerba Buena Gardens, the treasure of South of Market, working with the Friends of the Gardens in past decades to create and build this vision of community amenity for all San Francisco, and today with other Yerba Buena Neighborhood groups to improve and expand its features plus establish the new nonprofit Yerba Buena Gardens Consortium to undertake its future community-based management.

City Election Ballot Measures

TODCO’s Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium has helped to develop and provided significant financial support to a series of San Francisco Ballot Measures over the last five years, including:

• 2014 Proposition K which set an overall 50% goal for all future City housing to be affordable for low, moderate, and middle income households.

• 2015 Proposition K which mandated affordable housing development on surplus City properties.

• 2016 Proposition C which mandated an increase of the City’s affordable inclusionary housing requirement for all large market-rate developments from 12% to 18% in 2018 with gradual increase to 24% in 2025.

• 2016 Proposition X which mandated replacement of existing South of Market and Mission District commercial spaces for production, distribution, repair, and arts uses demolished for new developments.

• Proposition C 2018: Major supporter of successful Business Tax increase to fund Unhoused facilities and services.

• Proposition E 2020: Official Sponsor and funder of successful permanent housing/office development balance mandate for SF.

• Proposition I 2020: Major supporter of successful Transfer Tax increase to fund affordable housing.

• Proposition J 2020: Major supporter of SF Police Department City Charter update.

• Proposition G 2020: Lead supporter of unsuccessful Charter amendment for 16-year youth vote in City elections.

Legal Action

TODCO’s Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium has undertaken formal appeals and litigation challenging approvals of major SOMA real estate developments, including:

• UCSF Parnassus Campus Expansion 2021-22: Filed EIR suit to improve UCSF jobs/housing balance, trial pending.

  ABAG Plan Bay Area 2050: Filed EIR suit challenge the Plan’s lack of protections for inner city “sensitive communities of concern” and lack of an actual funding plan for building the future affordable housing the Plan assumes will be provided.

• 2016 Lawsuit challenging the Environmental Impact Report for the 706 Mission luxury condo tower project due to its failure to fully evaluate the Yerba Buena Neighborhood pedestrian capacity and safety impacts caused by the Moscone Convention Center. The suit was settled in 2017 with a City commitment to widen sidewalks at bottleneck locations and install new signalized crosswalks to Yerba Buena Gardens.

• 2018 EIR Appeal challenging the City’s massive Central SOMA Plan rezoning that will expand downtown further into South of Market without giving equal priority to building a future neighborhood and community too, as envisioned by TODCO’s Central SOMA Community Plan.

State Litigation

• AB464 2021: Sponsored new ‘EIFD’ funding mechanism for small business and nonprofit facilities. Bill passed and signed.

• SB6 2021-22: Lead community supporter for landmark statewide housing zoning bill. Bill now pending.

• CA Wealth Tax Movement 2020-??: Assisted statewide coalition advancing Wealth Tax legislation.

Community Empowerment

United To Save The Mission 2020-now: Lead funder for grass roots Mission community advocacy coalition.

Oakland Progressive Alliance 2021-now: Lead funder and co-organizer for grass roots Oakland community advocacy coalition.

Latino Task Force 2020-21: Significant funder and organizer for community-based Covid Pandemic response coalition in Mission District.

South of Market Community Stabilization Fund 2019: Secured CAC renewal and increased funding for community services/facilities in Central SOMA Plan Settlement.

South of Market Community Planning Advisory Committee 2019: Secured establishment of new SOMA CAC for City housing/land use/open space planning in Central SOMA Plan Settlement.

Inner Sunset Coalition 2020-22: Lead funder for grass roots community coalition challenging UCSF Parnassus Expansion project.

469 Stevenson Project 2021: Successful EIR appellant with SOMA Community Coalition to stop market housing project that threatened to gentrify the Sixth Street Community. Read more here. Also see the December 6, 2021 statement on this project here.

Next

Oakland Downtown Plan 2022: Potential ballot measure to mandate a “Housing First” alternative Plan.

San Francisco Ballot Measures 2022: TBD.

State Legislation 2022: TBD.