Heating and cooling may sound simple, but after solar, it is the next frontier in residential decarbonization.

By the end of the decade, a group of 25 countries has a goal of installing 15 million heat pumps. Nine of these states want 90% of their residential heating, cooling and hot water systems to use this technology by 2040. To cope with the workload, the US will hire 23,000 technicians by 2032. Even then, they will likely be overloaded.

Part of the problem is that installing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is laborious and time-consuming. Automation is not good. But a lot of the rest of the work could be that, especially quoting new projects.

“Contractors spend three to five hours with a potential customer and have a 20% to 25% sales conversion rate,” said Phil Krinner, co-founder and CEO of Arch, a software company aimed at HVAC installers. “This is not only frustrating, but also a huge waste of resources.”

Buildings produce about 30% of carbon pollution in the U.S., and Krinner saw an opportunity to reduce emissions by encouraging people to switch from fossil fuel heat to heat pumps. He noted that the technology is ready, but the contractors are not.

Three years ago, Krinner asked 15 contractors for offers to replace his apartment's heating system with a gas furnace or a heat pump. The average price for a heat pump is higher, but none of the contractors can tell him whether it will save money in the long run.

It was a surprising omission. Krinner worked for years in the solar industry, where savings on utility bills are the most important part of the selling point. This, combined with low-cost solar panels and project design and quoting software, has helped the industry grow 24% annually since 2010. If heat pumps were to reach their potential, similar data and tools would be required.

Krinner first got to know the industry and supported contractors in preparing offers and installing heat pumps. Eventually, he and his co-founder Sacha Schmitz put together a team and developed an algorithm that would help contractors estimate jobs more quickly.

By using publicly available details about a home, such as: For example, the square footage and number of rooms by the time of construction, Arch's software can suggest a suitable heat pump capacity in minutes, reducing hours from the usual quoting process that usually involves measuring rooms and inspecting radiators and Piping.

“I’m not saying we’re 100%,” Krinner said. “But the interesting thing about heat pumps is that you don't have to get it perfect.” That's because heat pumps can vary their output dynamically, and the internal components of heat pumps typically only come in five different sizes between 6,000 and 18,000 BTU. “Since there are five units,” he said, “I obviously have a 20% chance of accuracy.”

The startup has dabbled in pre-seed funding but recently raised a $6.2 million seed round from Coatue, Floodgate, Gigascale Capital, MCJ Collective and ReGen Ventures.

Currently, the San Francisco-based company is focused on the Northeast, where poor natural gas infrastructure means many homes are still heated with costly oil. “There is a lot of traction in the market and the introduction of heat pumps is therefore progressing very quickly,” said Krinner. “It’s very easy to compete with him from an ROI standpoint.”

Arch will use the seed round to expand geographically and refine its estimation algorithm, Krinner said. The company will also add additional features to its software, including a tool that predicts how much homeowners will save on their utility bills and a marketplace where lenders can offer financing for heat pumps. The latter two are linked, Krinner said, because homeowners who spend less on utilities are more attractive to lenders, which should help lower financing costs.

Krinner and Schmitz's timing couldn't be better. Not only have dozens of states committed to encouraging heat pump adoption, but the Inflation Reduction Act offers incentives of up to $2,000 for homeowners who install heat pumps. If heat pumps were attractive before, they are now even more attractive.

Still, there is a lot of inertia in the market to overcome. Many sell what they know, which is usually oil or gas furnaces. Helping contractors see the value and benefits of heat pumps could go a long way toward overcoming their reservations. Software has helped accelerate the adoption of solar energy, and the same could be the case with heat pumps.

The post Arch has a plan to assist HVAC contractors set up extra warmth pumps appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Photo credit: Welcome/Getty Images

Heating and cooling may sound simple, but after solar, it is the next frontier in residential decarbonization.

By the end of the decade, a group of 25 countries has a goal of installing 15 million heat pumps. Nine of these states want 90% of their residential heating, cooling and hot water systems to use this technology by 2040. To cope with the workload, the US will hire 23,000 technicians by 2032. Even then, they will likely be overloaded.

Part of the problem is that installing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is laborious and time-consuming. Automation is not good. But a lot of the rest of the work could be that, especially offering bids for new projects.

“Contractors spend three to five hours with a potential customer and have a 20% to 25% sales conversion rate,” said Phil Krinner, co-founder and CEO of Arch, a software company aimed at HVAC installers. “This is not only frustrating, but also a huge waste of resources.”

Buildings produce about 30% of carbon pollution in the U.S., and Krinner saw an opportunity to reduce emissions by encouraging people to switch from fossil fuel heat to heat pumps. He noted that the technology is ready, but the contractors are not.

Three years ago, Krinner asked 15 contractors for offers to replace his apartment's heating system with a gas furnace or a heat pump. The average price for a heat pump is higher, but none of the contractors can tell him whether it will save money in the long run.

It was a surprising omission. Krinner worked for years in the solar industry, where savings on utility bills are the most important part of the selling point. This, combined with low-cost solar panels and project design and quoting software, has helped the industry grow 24% annually since 2010. If heat pumps were to reach their potential, similar data and tools would be required.

Krinner first got to know the industry and supported contractors in preparing offers and installing heat pumps. Eventually, he and his co-founder Sacha Schmitz put together a team and developed an algorithm that would help contractors estimate jobs more quickly.

By using publicly available details about a home, such as: For example, the square footage and number of rooms by the time of construction, Arch's software can suggest a suitable heat pump capacity in minutes, reducing hours from the usual quoting process that usually involves measuring rooms and inspecting radiators and Piping.

“I’m not saying we’re 100%,” Krinner said. “But the interesting thing about heat pumps is that you don't have to get it perfect.” That's because heat pumps can vary their output dynamically, and the internal components of heat pumps typically only come in five different sizes between 6,000 and 18,000 BTU. “Since there are five units,” he said, “I obviously have a 20% chance of accuracy.”

The startup has dabbled in pre-seed funding but recently raised a $6.2 million seed round from Coatue, Floodgate, Gigascale Capital, MCJ Collective and ReGen Ventures.

Currently, the San Francisco-based company is focused on the Northeast, where poor natural gas infrastructure means many homes are still heated with costly oil. “There is a lot of traction in the market and the introduction of heat pumps is therefore progressing very quickly,” said Krinner. “It’s very easy to compete with him from an ROI standpoint.”

Arch will use the seed round to expand geographically and refine its estimation algorithm, Krinner said. The company will also add additional features to its software, including a tool that predicts how much homeowners will save on their utility bills and a marketplace where lenders can offer financing for heat pumps. The latter two are linked, Krinner said, because homeowners who spend less on utilities are more attractive to lenders, which should help lower financing costs.

Krinner and Schmitz's timing couldn't be better. Not only have dozens of states committed to encouraging heat pump adoption, but the Inflation Reduction Act offers incentives of up to $2,000 for homeowners who install heat pumps. If heat pumps were attractive before, they are now even more attractive.

Still, there is a lot of inertia in the market to overcome. Many sell what they know, which is usually oil or gas furnaces. Helping contractors see the value and benefits of heat pumps could go a long way toward overcoming their reservations. Software has helped accelerate the adoption of solar energy, and the same could be the case with heat pumps.

The post Arch has a plan to assist HVAC contractors set up extra warmth pumps appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

HAUPPAUGE, NY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Upward Health announced today its selection by San Francisco Health Plan (SFHP) to deliver Enhanced Care Management (ECM) services to a high-complexity cohort of SFHP’s membership. SFHP provides health insurance to over 160,000 residents of San Francisco through California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal. ECM is a comprehensive, community-based care management service focused on both clinical and non-clinical needs. The program is part of the CalAIM (California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal) multi-year plan to integrate social services and improve outcomes for Medi-Cal beneficiaries.

Upward Health recognized the partnership opportunity with SFHP as a natural fit. Upward Health has been delivering its in-home, whole-person model of care to high-risk and high-need patients across the country, including within California, for years. ECM similarly serves individuals with complex needs, categorized as unique Populations of Focus defined by the State of California’s Department of Health Care Services. The Populations of Focus include those suffering from homelessness, those managing serious mental illness or substance use disorders, those transitioning from incarceration, and several other vulnerable groups.

“We are excited about the chance to impact the patients that we care about most – patients who have fragmented care and who need help to access the support available in the community,” said Glen Moller, CEO of Upward Health. “We look forward to working with the outstanding team at SFHP to engage in this good work.” San Francisco County is the most recent addition to the counties in the state where Upward Health is providing ECM services.

Patients referred to ECM with Upward Health will work with a dedicated Care Specialist who will serve as the care manager providing support and coordination. ECM is a high-touch, person-centered program focused on coordinating physical, behavioral, and social services. Patients participating in ECM receive help with a range of services, including finding doctors, scheduling appointments, understanding and tracking medications, and finding and applying for community services such as housing supports.

“Upward Health’s commitment to underserved communities and to addressing the social determinants of health made them an easy choice,” said Yolanda Richardson, CEO of SFHP. “We look forward to this partnership and improving the health of our members with the greatest needs.”

ABOUT UPWARD HEALTH

Upward Health is an in-home multidisciplinary provider that partners with health plans and other risk-bearing entities to address the unique needs of the most high-risk, high-need users of the health care system today. Using a unique, in-home community-based approach to meeting a patient’s needs, Upward Health facilitates and delivers care that improves outcomes and the quality of life for every patient it serves. Upward Health has a measured Net Promoter Score of 86, among the highest in the healthcare industry. To learn more, please visit www.upwardhealth.com.

ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH PLAN

About San Francisco Health Plan San Francisco Health Plan (SFHP) has a rating of 4 out of 5 in NCQA’s Medicaid Health Plan Ratings 2021. SFHP is a licensed community health plan providing affordable health coverage to over 160,000 low- and moderate-income families residing in San Francisco. SFHP is designed for and by the residents it serves—many of whom would not be able to otherwise obtain health care for themselves or their families. Through SFHP, members have access to a full spectrum of medical services including preventive care, hospitalization, prescription drugs, family planning, and substance abuse programs. SFHP’s mission is to improve health outcomes of the diverse San Francisco communities through successful partnerships. San Francisco Health Plan is also the third-party administrator for the nationally recognized Healthy San Francisco program. For more information on SFHP, visit www.sfhp.org.

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Employees said management declined to voluntarily recognize their membership in the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29 during a tense town hall on Friday. According to workers who spoke with KQED, Kisch told staff that a letter with a list of names was not sufficient to show unionizing was not an “actual, uncoerced decision on the part of each employee listed.”

Even without that recognition, workers will soon move forward with a ballot election.

“Most of us can’t afford to live in the city where we help people find housing,” said Juliana Dunn, who works with kids at Compass Clara House, a transitional housing program. “And we want to have a voice in that. We want to have a seat at the negotiation table. We don’t want to be dismissed.”

In a written statement to KQED, Kisch said that she respected the right of staff to decide whether to bring in a labor organization to represent them in collective bargaining.

“For more than 100 years Compass Family Services has been devoted to serving the homeless families in our community, including new arrivals,” she wrote in the statement. “If a majority of our staff decide that is in their best interest, we will honor that decision.”

Dunn said employees began talking about the need to improve working conditions around the fall of 2021. They were worried at the time that hybrid work options were ending, and staff would need to return to work in person five days a week.

Jobs at Compass can be both fast-paced and high stress, with workers having difficult conversations over the phone, sometimes in multiple languages ​​at once. That can make working in the office uncomfortable, and can place an unnecessary burden on Compass staff already struggling to balance child care on top of the secondary trauma of working with families experiencing homelessness. Staff at Compass are also overwhelmingly people of color.

Dunn said that when staff attempted to share their concerns about equity, workers felt dismissed. They said the work environment became even more uncomfortable because of microaggressions, like glares on the job or suggestions that they were replaceable. After that, workers began researching what union membership could look like.

Compass is not the only city nonprofit to see labor strife recently. Employees at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, another San Francisco transitional housing provider, went on strike over the summer for the first time in history and ratified a contract for higher wages earlier this month. Staff at Hotel Whitcomb, one of the city’s hotels housing vulnerable residents under the state’s Project Roomkey program, have described the mental health toll on the job of regularly responding to drug overdoses.

Melani Gomez is currently a case manager at Compass. She previously was a client for about seven years. She relied on services through SF HOME, a program with Compass that provides rental subsidies and case management. Gomez said she went through about seven case managers during the years she used their services.

“You have to tell your story again and again and again. And sometimes you get tired,” Gomez said, adding that now she understands why so many of her case managers left. “Being a client really helped me grow and be where I am right now. But seeing the other side of that coin, they’re not very supportive of their own families who are working for them.”

Alex Arauz works at Compass’ Central City Access Point, one of the first points of contact for families experiencing homelessness. His official job title is “problem solver.” He said that without Compass, many families would be lost, calling every agency to see where they could receive help.

Before he worked at Compass, he worked at a union shop, Catholic Charities, but was looking for somewhere more progressive that embraced harm-reduction services. When he started in August, he said he heard murmurs of unionizing and workers who were scared.

“I have never experienced a workplace where every single worker was scared of what administration could do. And it shook me,” he said. “To be scared of this agency that said, ‘We’re all a family, we’re all here.’ That’s not something that I want to feel from an agency that says they have my back, and I thought we were all moving towards the same goals.”

The post ‘We Do not Wish to Be Dismissed’: Employees at Compass Household Companies in San Francisco Plan Vote to Unionize appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Employees said management declined to voluntarily recognize their membership in the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29 during a tense town hall on Friday. According to workers who spoke with KQED, Kisch told staff that a letter with a list of names was not sufficient to show unionizing was not an “actual, uncoerced decision on the part of each employee listed.”

Even without that recognition, workers will soon move forward with a ballot election.

“Most of us can’t afford to live in the city where we help people find housing,” said Juliana Dunn, who works with kids at Compass Clara House, a transitional housing program. “And we want to have a voice in that. We want to have a seat at the negotiation table. We don’t want to be dismissed.”

In a written statement to KQED, Kisch said that she respected the right of staff to decide whether to bring in a labor organization to represent them in collective bargaining.

“For more than 100 years Compass Family Services has been devoted to serving the homeless families in our community, including new arrivals,” she wrote in the statement. “If a majority of our staff decide that is in their best interest, we will honor that decision.”

Dunn said employees began talking about the need to improve working conditions around the fall of 2021. They were worried at the time that hybrid work options were ending, and staff would need to return to work in person five days a week.

Jobs at Compass can be both fast-paced and high stress, with workers having difficult conversations over the phone, sometimes in multiple languages ​​at once. That can make working in the office uncomfortable, and can place an unnecessary burden on Compass staff already struggling to balance child care on top of the secondary trauma of working with families experiencing homelessness. Staff at Compass are also overwhelmingly people of color.

Dunn said that when staff attempted to share their concerns about equity, workers felt dismissed. They said the work environment became even more uncomfortable because of microaggressions, like glares on the job or suggestions that they were replaceable. After that, workers began researching what union membership could look like.

Compass is not the only city nonprofit to see labor strife recently. Employees at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, another San Francisco transitional housing provider, went on strike over the summer for the first time in history and ratified a contract for higher wages earlier this month. Staff at Hotel Whitcomb, one of the city’s hotels housing vulnerable residents under the state’s Project Roomkey program, have described the mental health toll on the job of regularly responding to drug overdoses.

Melani Gomez is currently a case manager at Compass. She previously was a client for about seven years. She relied on services through SF HOME, a program with Compass that provides rental subsidies and case management. Gomez said she went through about seven case managers during the years she used their services.

“You have to tell your story again and again and again. And sometimes you get tired,” Gomez said, adding that now she understands why so many of her case managers left. “Being a client really helped me grow and be where I am right now. But seeing the other side of that coin, they’re not very supportive of their own families who are working for them.”

Alex Arauz works at Compass’ Central City Access Point, one of the first points of contact for families experiencing homelessness. His official job title is “problem solver.” He said that without Compass, many families would be lost, calling every agency to see where they could receive help.

Before he worked at Compass, he worked at a union shop, Catholic Charities, but was looking for somewhere more progressive that embraced harm-reduction services. When he started in August, he said he heard murmurs of unionizing and workers who were scared.

“I have never experienced a workplace where every single worker was scared of what administration could do. And it shook me,” he said. “To be scared of this agency that said, ‘We’re all a family, we’re all here.’ That’s not something that I want to feel from an agency that says they have my back, and I thought we were all moving towards the same goals.”

The post ‘We Do not Wish to Be Dismissed’: Employees at Compass Household Companies in San Francisco Plan Vote to Unionize appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion established Roe v. Wade, the city of San Francisco is bracing itself for potential fallout.

According to a June 24 press release from the mayor’s office, the city is working with abortion advocacy group The San Francisco Department of the Status of Women (DOSW) to identify initial steps that the city will take to prepare for the potential influx of out- of-state travelers seeking abortion services. Part of that plan includes distributing $250,000 in emergency grants to local organizations so that San Franciscans can continue receiving adequate service despite this potential influx.

The announcement also says that DOSW is in the early stages of coordinating with Bay Area advocacy groups and government agencies to assess the types of services that are currently available throughout the region — and to determine what else is needed to prepare for any future rulings that might Impact abortion services at a state level.

They’re currently assessing the capacities of abortion services in San Francisco specifically, as well.

Additionally, in June of this year, The Bar Association of San Francisco and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu introduced the Legal Alliance for Reproductive Rights: a new volunteer effort between law firms that aims to provide free legal services to people affected by the Roe v . Wade ruling.

“This decision is devastating to women and our country,” Mayor London Breed said in the press release. “San Francisco has proudly served for generations as a place that respects fundamental civil rights, including a women’s right to choose. The ramifications from this Supreme Court ruling on public health, poverty, and so many downstream consequences have yet to be seen, but right now, women are scared about what this means for them, for their daughters, for all of us.”

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The concept of single-family zoning was born from lies. Specifically, Bay Area read.

For decades starting in the late 19th century, white residents of San Francisco tried, unsuccessfully, to impose state-sanctioned segregation on their Chinese neighbors. The 1890 Bingham Ordinance, which explicitly banned Chinese residents from certain areas of the city under penalty of jail, was thrown out by the courts on equal protection grounds — as were subsequent efforts at openly racialized zoning.

Undeterred, white property owners searched for legal end-arounds. And they found one in single-family zoning. White elites had almost exclusive access to the kind of capital needed to purchase a freestanding home. And so single-family zoning became a tool for de facto apartheid, under the guise of separation of use. The idea was first implemented in Berkeley in 1916 as a tool to eject Asian-owned laundries and a “negro dance hall” from the proximity of white homeowners. San Francisco soon followed suit.

Like the Bingham Ordinance before it, single-family zoning was initially shot down by courts — for its only slightly more subtle racialized designs. It ultimately survived constitutional scrutiny, however, with the aid of a Supreme Court reversal — by the same justices who upheld “separate but equal.”

And so the practice spread throughout the country — the Bay Area’s gift to American racism.

On Tuesday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to finally end single-family zoning in the city that helped birth it. But, with the weight of history on their shoulders, did supervisors rise to the challenge of crafting a bill that earnestly addresses a century of historical wrong?

They didn’t.

Instead, their effort, like single-family zoning itself, was a cheap ploy — a not-so-subtle end-around to subvert a new California law mandating streamlined development in exclusionary neighborhoods. Despite made-for-headlines boasts about allowing fourplexes and six-unit homes on formerly single-family plots, the supervisors’ housing bill will do nothing to spur denser development in excluded neighborhoods.

And they know it.

A planning department feasibility study shows that developers trying to navigate the bill’s restrictions will lose money by the handfuls should they try to build denser housing on a formerly single-family plot.

Cue the chorus of boo-hoos. But guess what happens when developers are guaranteed to lose money? They don’t build anything.

As if to stamp home the fact their bill has no intention of breaking up a century of single-family dominance, supervisors inserted a rule that says only those living in their homes for more than five years, or those who inherited the real estate, can take advantage of new streamlined zoning rules.

What is the point of ending single-family zoning if developers aren’t actually allowed to easily build denser new housing in formerly restricted areas?

“Luxury” condos are notorious boogeymen in San Francisco. But single-family homes are the city’s most luxurious form of housing. Their median sales price is $1.95 million in 2022; that’s $700,000 more than a condo. Single-family homes, with rare concessions, are exempted from rent control — making them largely unaffordable to working families. Homeowners, meanwhile, are granted generous state and federal tax breaks. They also enjoy protections from police search and seizure that many renters do not. Home ownership in America affords a higher status of citizenship. And single-family ownership is at the top of that status.

“This is not the final statement on density in low-density neighborhoods,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the housing bill’s author, said on Tuesday.

Perhaps like that. And the board deserves praise for apparently coming to terms with Mayor London Breed on new social housing spending that could allow government to directly build more affordable units.

But that effort will provide just a fraction of the more than 80,000 new homes San Francisco needs.

As if putting a stamp on the limited scale of their vision, supervisors this week moved forward with another dubious housing measure. This one, draped in sanctimonious language of affordability, would appear on the November ballot—despite feasibility studies that, once again, show nothing will get built under the tight-fisted rules of the plan. With a wink and a nod, the measure’s goal appears to be sabotaging a competing initiative by Breed that would streamline the construction of much-needed dense, mixed-income developments.

These cheap theatrics are ideological parlor tricks in service of a status quo that is failing San Francisco.

Single-family zoning was born of racial malice and a desire to find a legally permissible end-around to integration. That malice is built into the physical structure of our communities.

Read put us here. They won’t get us out.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

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If you want a handy guide to the small-scale interventions that are in vogue these days for urban America — from parklets to pop-ups to cultural programming — a newly released “action plan” for downtown San Francisco is a valuable place to start.

If you also want a document that offers a realistic blueprint for bringing the city’s Financial District back to life, keep looking.

That’s the challenge in trying to gauge the merits of the often-inventive Public Realm Action Plan released this week by Downtown SF, a business nonprofit that provides services to 43 blocks stretching from Jackson Square south past Market Street almost to the Embarcadero.

It’s a smart assessment of how streets and outdoor spaces in the tower-studded terrain could evolve in coming years. It also concedes that, 28 months after we were all told to go home and shelter in place to ward off the coronavirus, barely half of the district’s workforce has returned to their offices.

A pedestrian walks past a building for lease inside a sunken public plaza surrounding One Bush Street at the corner of Market and Sutter streets in San Francisco.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

And that’s the problem: what frames negative perceptions of the Financial District right now is empty storefronts and mostly vacant high-rises, not the lack of shady trees or lunchtime concerts.

To their credit, the people behind the plan acknowledge that their vision to activate dormant sidewalks is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

“This is not going to solve all the issues downtown; we know that,” said Claude Imbault, deputy director of the nonprofit. “This is a tool to start the conversation.”

The plan draws heavily on what’s known in planning circles as tactical urbanism, where the aim is to jump-start an area’s potential with small enticements rather than wait for large-scale investments. The idea is that plenty of people working and living nearby are eager to explore the civic landscape, if they have a reason to do so.

A pedestrian walks past a staircase leading to a sunken public plaza surrounding One Bush Street at the corner of Market and Sutter streets in San Francisco.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Of the six areas targeted by Downtown SF as potential spots to focus on short-term, the so-called Market Oasis gives a taste of what upgrades are envisioned — and the challenge of pulling some of them off.

The oasis would transform the north side of Market between Sansome and Front streets, a concentrated dose of what sets the Financial District apart from other neighborhoods. Ignore the vacant storefronts, look up instead, and the 29-story Shell Building thrusts skyward with 1920s aplomb directly across from One Bush St., 20 stories of bespoke midcentury modern.

For history buffs there’s the Mechanics Monument, a muscle-bound iron celebration of labor by sculptor Douglas Tilden from 1901. The shell of a 1910 banking temple holds one of the district’s most prominent privately owned public spaces, which are required by the city in new commercial development projects.

The action plan would enliven the scene via “an improved experience of significant public spaces” — one that would include colorful tables and chairs, planters filled with flowers and trees, light projections at night and lunchtime concerts or other events throughout the week.

As for the zone’s prominent but empty retail spaces, including a circular pavilion rising from the sunken plaza at One Bush, it’s suggested that a “buzzy lunch spot” could go into one, while “a collection of short-term pop-ups” could fill another. The pavilion is envisioned as holding “a highly visible downtown destination.”

An empty walkway leads through a sunken public plaza surrounding One Bush Street at the corner of Market and Sutter streets in San Francisco.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

But the plan is vague on how this happens, much less spell out where the money might come from to jazz things up. The goal instead is to take the plan and its pilot projects — starting with Leidesdorff Street, a short alley that ends at the Transamerica Pyramid — to gauge what interest there might be from building owners and public agencies.

Even if workers were clocking in upstairs at pre-pandemic numbers, there’s no guarantee that “Market Oasis” would magically blossom. The plan envisions a string of buoyant spaces within two short blocks, including the sunken moat-like plaza and the city-owned Mechanics Plaza on the east side of Battery Street, where Tilden’s sculpture resides. There are only so many workers to go around — you can imagine one or two spaces coming alive, but not all of them at once, on an ongoing basis.

So, what happens when the novelty fades? The city’s Public Works department freshened up Mechanics Plaza back in 2014, replacing tattered wooden benches with bright metal street furniture while adding stands for people to recharge cell phones or fill their water bottles. The vitality ebbed within a few years. When I stopped by Monday, a grand total of one person was eating lunch on a granite block next to an empty planter.

The plan’s creators acknowledge that while snappy designs and short-term pop-ups can generate buzz, they aren’t enough.

People eat lunch at the foot of a statue inside Mechanics Plaza along Market Street in San Francisco.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

“Whatever we do has to be a campaign,” said Laura Crescimano, whose Sitelab Urban Studio crafted the plan for Downtown SF with John Bela and Fehr & Peers. “These things happen in layers. People want to go to ‘a thing’ that’s a series of things.”

Ultimately, the value of the “action plan” might be as a tool kit to draw on, whether in the Financial District or other commercial districts.

“I appreciate the thoughtful approach they’ve taken … it’s a wonderful resource,” said Kate Sofis, director of the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Her office has the task at City Hall of finding ways to revive the larger downtown scene. “Some of the things they want to do are exactly the things we want to do.”

San Francisco’s Financial District won’t be returned to its bustling heyday by a more humane concept of public space. But small moves can add up — and with luck, some of the ideas offered by Downtown SF will help to move things along.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron

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South San Francisco officials pumped the brakes on a plan to craft a ballot measure seeking approval for the city to own and operate its own social housing, with councilmembers citing concern for potential high costs and lost property tax revenue.

Eddie Flores

The council agreed to study the item further ahead of an August deadline when a final decision will need to be made regarding placing the measure on November’s ballot.

“We need to perhaps take a step back and break it down … because right now it’s very, super abstract, the funding mechanism,” said Council member Eddie Flores. “It’s not that I’m saying yes or no, I just need more information.”

James Coleman

Because of a 1950 law, jurisdictions must obtain voter approval before acquiring or building low-income public housing. The City Council earlier this year signaled intent to request permission to add the equivalent of 1% of its housing stock, roughly 225 units, yearly over the course of the next eight years. The numbers would roll over and not expire, meaning the city could build all 1,800 units 10 years from now.

But while the ballot measure itself would not require the city to build — it would simply allow for the option — councilmembers said they would like to know the exact cost before moving forward, including determining lost revenue from property taxes, a key funding source for local schools which would not be collected from city-owned housing.

The city will also look into the feasibility of self-sustaining developments, where higher rent units would subsidize the cost of those set aside for low-income residents. Council member James Coleman, who has championed the initiative, said such developments could actually produce revenue that could be redirected to schools or other causes.

“The key word is mixed income,” he said. “It’s going to deviate from the history of public housing in the United States where it’s solely been built for low-income residents.”

His colleagues, however, were unconvinced. Traditionally, below-market rate housing in the city has been built by either nonprofit developers or included within larger market-rate projects, subsidized by for-profit developers as a result of the city’s inclusionary zoning rules. Either model does not require voter approval.

Tony Rozzi, the city’s chief planner, said it could cost the city as much as $750,000 per unit to build a project on its own. And while the city expects to have $110 million or more just in the next several years to spend on affordable housing creation as a result of commercial development fees, Mayor Mark Nagales pointed out that money could be spent in more familiar ways, like purchasing land and letting nonprofits do the construction and management.

“Are we as a city ready to invest and create departments that are five added personnel per building?” asked Flores, referencing staffing levels at other affordable apartment buildings. “There’s a lot of that maintaining … we don’t just want to create a building and say ‘yeah that’s social housing’ and then it operates poorly, you walk in and it’s trashy.”

Rozzi said city staff were also exploring a new rule that would allow commercial developers to pay a fee in exchange for being allowed to construct taller buildings, a potential revenue source for the effort.

For his part, Council member Mark Addiego suggested the city identify a project before seeking voter approval. He said it may be more feasible for the city to purchase an older existing building rather than start from scratch.

“What you want to do is find affordable housing currently that’s at the market rate but it’s affordable because it’s 50 years old, it needs a lot of help,” he said. “You buy those units and you’re impacting the schools the least because they’re not getting any revenue out of something that’s been on the tax rolls for 50 years.”

The city will need to contend with lost property taxes one way or another, as similar to social housing, nonprofit-owned housing is also not subject to the collection. Of the city’s approximately 22,500 units of housing, roughly 1,000 units are already nonprofit owned. And with the city’s planned investments that number will likely grow quickly in coming years.

State mandates require the city to add 1,300 units of low-income housing by 2031. Addiego pointed out that with the city’s current rules which require 15% of units in new residential buildings to be affordable for low-income tenants, the city would have to permit tens of thousands of new homes to satisfy the state law with taxpaying developers.

He also pointed out that new commercial developments feeding the city’s affordable housing funding capabilities are the reason the city is building affordable housing in the first place — to address soaring rents, largely a product of the Peninsula’s jobs to housing imbalance.

“There’s a vicious circle going on here,” he said.

As another appeal for social housing, Coleman said the nonprofit model, which unlike requires recurring outside investment, and rules capping rents need to be reinstated every 55 years or less (something that doesn’t always happen), social housing would more likely stay affordable over longer periods of time.

“I think this is a great opportunity for the city to lead on building affordable housing and really pioneering a new concept in the Bay Area,” he said.

San Francisco, Berkeley, Moorpark, Stockton and San Diego, in addition to Humboldt and Tuolumne counties have all placed public housing initiatives on the ballot in recent years. South San Francisco would be the first to do so in San Mateo County.

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