Dear Mayor Lee,

As a distinguished leader who is proud of being part of the I-Hotel struggle, I urge you to prevent the further displacement of Filipino youth, families and seniors by not approving the 5M Project Special Use District (SUD) as proposed by Hearst Corporation and Forest City. You should instead be expanding and strengthening the SoMa Youth and Family SUD (YF-SUD) and finalizing the establishment of the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood as an alive and thriving Filipino Heritage District.

As you know, Filipinos were first displaced from Manilatown adjacent to Chinatown, then from Yerba Buena Center through redevelopment. The 5M Project proposal in South of Market is the latest attempt to drive out Filipinos from their homes and neighborhood. The up-zoning in the proposed 5M SUD will obliterate the Youth and Family SUD and will accelerate the displacement of thousands of Filipinos and other working class families, youth and seniors from SoMa.

Within a five-block radius of the proposed 5M Project, there are over 2,200 Filipino tenants. Furthermore, SoMa is home to many Filipino cultural institutions, community centers and businesses. Yet, the entire staff report on the 5M Project being presented at the Planning Commission on September 17, 2015, and its nearly 1,300 pages of documents, completely ignores the Filipino community.

The SoMa community fought to protect the affordability levels in the neighborhood for several years, and through a community planning process passed the SoMa Youth and Family SUD in 2008. The Planning Department has always communicated to the SoMa community that the Youth and Family SUD was to be expanded and strengthened through the Central SoMa Plan. This has not happened. The Filipino Heritage District will recognize, memorialize and protect the existing community’s cultural assets, resources and social and economic contributions to SoMa, San Francisco and the country. These measures are what the community needs, not the 5M SUD.

In July 2015, your office introduced an ordinance to fast track approval of the 5M Project, binding the City to the 5M SUD. By fast tracking the 5M project and exempting it from established Area Plans, the City is negating the hard work of all those involved in community planning processes. Dismissing the impact of major up-zoning on vulnerable communities adjacent to the Project Site threatens responsible development in every neighborhood throughout San Francisco. The approximately 12,000 units of housing built in SoMa in recent years, over half of all units built in San Francisco, have not helped SoMa become more affordable. The UC Berkeley research initiative, the Urban Displacement Project, shows that SoMa is in advanced stages of displacement and gentrification. The 5M Project will only accelerate this displacement.

We know that this approach does not reflect your values. We know that you respect the Filipino community because of your defense of the I-Hotel and Manilatown. We urge you to tell the Board of Supervisors to not to pass the proposed 5M SUD, and instead, uphold and strengthen the Youth and Family SUD and finalize the Filipino Heritage District. Your office, the Board of Supervisors, the Planning Department, the Planning Commission, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development cannot continue to ignore the concerns of the Filipino community by supporting the proposed 5M Project. Otherwise there will be no more Filipino community left in SoMa.

Sincerely,