Editor,
We appreciate your thorough coverage of DM Development’s co-living project at 300 De Haro Street (July issue). Our team has been engaged in dialogue around this project for more than two years. We understand that it invites a range of reactions. However, I’d like to correct inaccurate comments attributed to Ms. Jennifer Doumani.
300 De Haro isn’t a short-term, Airbnb-style vacation rental. Like traditional apartments, residents will sign a rental lease and undergo background and credit checks. Additionally, co-living residents often stay as long or longer than traditional apartment residents due to the strong community ties in the building.
The homes at 300 De Haro will be fully furnished, beautifully designed, and highly functional, with private kitchenettes and bathrooms. 300 De Haro will also have kitchens and lounges on every floor and generous amenities such as ground-floor food and beverage offerings, co-working lounges, fitness centers, and ample outdoor space.
Contrary to Ms. Doumani’s unsubstantiated assertion that the Planning Department told her that they find this project an “abuse of the legislation”, our conversations with the Department have been positive. The project proposes 450 homes, of which 181 – 40 percent of the entire, or 54.25 percent of the base, project – will be onsite affordable to households earning 50 to 55 percent, 80 percent, and 110 percent of area medium income. Not only is this exactly the type of development envisioned when Senate Bill 35 passed, it allows the speedy addition of “missing middle” housing in a transit- and amenity-rich neighborhood which might otherwise take years to come to fruition.
DM Development is committed to ensuring that 300 De Haro is a welcome addition to Potrero Hill by designing a building that not only provides new homes, but also includes beautiful public spaces and neighborhood-serving amenities.
Mark Macdonald
Chief Executive Officer, DM Development
Editor,
In July’s story about 300 De Haro, developer Mark Macdonald misstates the benefit that impact fees associated with his project would bring to our neighborhood; specifically, that his fees would help fund Jackson Park renovation.
Mr. MacDonald has no authority to direct impact fees to a particular project, as their allocation is the responsibility of the Eastern Neighborhoods Community Advisory Committee (ENCAC). ENCAC has already allocated $6.3 million to Jackson Park. 300 De Haro, with its proposed massive height and bulk – way above the generous allowances of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan – won’t impact this allocation.
Put another way, the outsized proposal for 300 De Haro will not provide any meaningful monetary benefit to the neighborhood above what a code-compliant project would bring. Any statement otherwise is misleading.
Keith Goldstein
Former Chair, ENCAC
