A gleaming new apartment building in the Haight hit a new milestone this summer — the structure is up, the exterior is complete, and the interior build-out is humming along toward an expected opening next year.
Nonetheless, the long-gestating project at 730 Stanyan has become a renewed flashpoint in an election-season brawl. In one corner of the proverbial boxing ring is Supervisor Dean Preston, who oversees the Haight as part of District 5. In the other is Bilal Mahmood, the tech entrepreneur who is vying to win Preston’s seat in the Nov. 5 race.
In recent weeks, Mahmood has turned up the temperature on his campaign against Preston, using 730 Stanyan and another proposed District 5 development, at 400 Divisadero St., to attack the incumbent’s housing record.
“Yesterday, Dean Preston took credit for building housing on 730 Stanyan,” the Sept. 4 message reads. “What he isn't telling you is the project required SB 35 — a housing streamlining measure — to be completed. A measure Dean OPPOSED. NIMBYs will always oppose YIMBY legislation. And then claim it's [sic] benefits.”
Mahmood is also the star of two billboards at the intersection of Divisadero and Fell streets. “THAT CAR WASH SHOULD BE AFFORDABLE HOMES. BILAL MAHMOOD WILL FIX IT,” one sign reads, referring to the shuttered Touchless Car Wash site that sits one block away.
Those billboards were paid for by the Coalition to Grow San Francisco, the PAC for the well-monied moderate political group GrowSF. In a statement to Gazetteer SF, Mahmood doubled down on the rhetoric, saying that Preston stood in the way of progress on both projects.
“Both properties are prime examples of Dean’s hypocritical track record of taking credit for work he had historically opposed,” Mahmood wrote in an email. “He pushes against housing projects until they are no longer financially feasible to build and it's our residents who get the short end of the stick.”
Despite the sharp words, the truth of the matter is far more boring. Preston has become a punching bag for some pro-housing advocates, and despite efforts to pin blame on the supervisor, Mahmood’s latest swing at the incumbent fails to prove anything in particular. It does, however, speak to a messy world of charged rhetoric and pointed fingers as the city attempts to navigate a housing affordability crisis.
In 2017, the city purchased the land under a McDonald’s at 730 Stanyan and later began a search for the right developers, ultimately choosing affordable housing nonprofits Chinatown Community Development Center and the Tenderloin Development Neighborhood Corporation to lead the build.
Preston told Gazetteer that, when he took office in 2019, he pushed for the still-empty lot to be used as a “safe sleeping” site for unhoused people while the city arranged permits and funding. He also led community meetings to gather feedback on the 100% subsidized development and allay related concerns, Preston said.
The initial design featured six stories and 130 units, but in 2020, Preston advocated for the city to permit two more floors and 30 more units in the building’s design; the city planning department eventually approved it two years later. The project broke ground last summer, after years of delays that Preston characterized as being largely the responsibility of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development — an assertion supported by some Haight Ashbury community advocates.
Mahmood told Gazetteer that Preston should not take credit for a project initiated by then-Supervisor London Breed, especially given how Preston took issue with SB 35, the state bill passed in 2017 that aims to cut red tape for builders and expedite housing permits. But Preston notes that his “opposition” to the bill, introduced by California State Senator Scott Wiener, focused on its treatment of market-rate housing, not affordable developments.
“The controversial portion for me was [how] it was deregulating aspects of market-rate development without asking anything in return,” Preston told Gazetteer. “But the question of whether or not you have streamlining for affordable housing, which of course I support and I hope everyone does, is not impactful on a site that sat empty for years with no progress.”
It’s a similar situation with Mahmood’s effort to blame Preston for the notorious delays at 400 Divisadero, which remains fenced-off and desolate today despite developers first announcing plans for apartments at the site back in 2015.
Mahmood claims that Preston is responsible for those delays because he has pushed the planning department to require a higher proportion of subsidized units in new developments, including the 184-unit building approved for the site in 2019.That project was slated to have 20% of its units reserved for affordable housing, but Texas-based developer Genesis — the second developer to try and build apartments at the carwash — pulled out in 2022.
“Dean requested 33% affordable again (source), despite warnings from the Planning Commission that anything above 20% affordable would render the project financially infeasible — warnings that were ignored by Dean and [community advocacy group] Affordable Divis, whose lobbying inevitably delayed the project,” Mahmood wrote in an email.
Preston wasn’t alone in asking for more subsidized apartments, however. The Alamo Square Neighborhood Association, as well as other community groups, had already demanded increases from developers building in the Western Addition. And Preston remains incredulous of the claim that he was responsible for Genesis reneging on its commitment.
“The site was up-zoned to allow for a bigger development, and usually when this is allowed, there’s an ask for more affordable housing. So Affordable Divis tried to get more than the required 20% inclusion — the requirement has come down to 10% today, but at the time, 20% was the requirement,” Preston said. “The Planning Commission fully approved and entitled the original plan despite our advocacy. I didn’t appeal it to the board. There was no way for us to cause a delay.”
Indeed, while Genesis has never provided an explicit explanation for why it pulled out of 400 Divisadero, its then-vice president of development, David Kriozere, gave a hint in 2021: Per reporting from the San Francisco Business Times, he told the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association that the project was on hold because of the “two-fold challenge” of skyrocketing construction costs and falling rents in SF, creating an “unprecedented dislocation” of industry norms.
This year, SF-based developer 4Terra revealed plans for a market-rate project that will include 10% affordable units, as mandated by the city — the third developer to make an attempt at the site. Mahmood characterized Preston as a hypocrite whose advocacy led to fewer subsidized apartments, noting that Preston is “clearly mischaracterizing his record to avoid accountability, again.”
But a review of the timeline doesn’t corroborate the claim that Preston actually held any power to delay, let alone prevent, a developer from moving forward on 730 Stanyan or 400 Divisadero. Instead, the tweets and billboards and campaign talk build upon an existing view of Preston as a radical obstructionist — even if his tactics are exceedingly conventional.
