MIDTOWN PARK Acknowledgment The purchase of Midtown Park by the City of San Francisco and the subsequent management of the units by an organization of residents involved the following individuals and organizations: City and County of San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto John H. Tolan, Jr., Deputy for Development Wesley Slade, Special Assistant for Housing & Relocation United States Federal Government Philip N. Brownstein, Assistant Secretary for Mortgage Jack G. Tuggle, Assistant Director, San Francisco Office, Stanley S. Surrey, Assistant Secretary, Department of Midtown Park Board of Directors Clarence Green, President James Gibbs, Vice President (to December 1970) Claudine Burns, Treasurer Robert Love Nancy Van Houffel (to August 1970) Frances Huff The mortgage for Midtown Park was handled by Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company with local assistance from the Marble Mortgage Company of San Francisco. ORIGINAL DEVELOPMENT The case history of Midtown Park provides a descriptive account of some unique development and management processes associated with housing families in the inner city. It tells something about efforts in the early sixties to house modest-income families, something about housing finance and the Federal Housing Administration, and something about the delicate balance of undertaking a cooperative housing venture. More important, however, the Midtown Fark story tells about a City's initiative and ability to salvage defaulted housing projects, and, in the end, it tells a good deal about the importance of sound management and a sense of pride and sincere interest in the development by the residents themselves. The Midtown Park story is a mixture of housing successes and failures. Midtown Park is located in San Francisco's Western Addition on the block bounded by Scott, O'Farrell, Divisadero and Geary Streets, only minutes away from the downtown area by regular public transportation. It is part of the Western Addition A-1 Redevelopment Project. On September 12, 1962, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency sold this parcel of land to Barton-Western, Inc. for the construction of cooperative garden apartments. Built during 1963-1964 Midtown Park was an early attempt of urban redevelopment to provide home ownership opportunities for modest income families in the central city. Midtown Park consists of a total of 140 dwelling units of which 24 units are 1-bedroom, 56 units are 2-bedrooms, and 60 units are 3-bedrooms. The units are located in six reinforced concrete buildings around a landscaped court and children's play area. Each building has four apartment floors over a parking level one-half story below ground level. Beginning at the second story level each unit has a spacious outdoor balcony with an overhead canopy. Most of the apartments have two levels with an internal staircase permitting the separation of the bedroom area upstairs from the living quarters downstairs. Individual apartments feature all-electric kitchens and wall-to-wall carpeting. The development of 140 units on 99,662 square feet of land has a residential density of 61.2 units per acre. BartonWestern, Inc., financed the housing project under FHA Section 213 for market rate cooperative housing, a special plan of the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage insurance program which secured low down payments and monthly payment charges and which, up until that time, permitted generous purchase terms otherwise unobtainable in the normal market of mortgage finance. Section 213 offered 40-year mortgages as well as other features attractive to families with modest incomes. Down payments for individual apartment units at that time ranged from $1,500 to $2,000 with monthly payment charges at $155 for a single bedroom unit and $226 for a three bedroom apartment. A portion of the monthly payment charge is income tax deductible, (1) as interest on the mortgage loan, and (2) as the proportional share of real property taxes, the same as in the ownership of a single family dwelling. The total mortgage for Midtown Park amounted to $2,968,300. The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed Midtown Park and construction of the housing complex was undertaken by the contractors, Rothschild, Raffin & Weirick, Inc. Completion of the project auring 1964 permitted formal dedication ceremonies to occur on May 4, 1964. In dedicating the project, Mayor John F. Shelley spoke of the "constant search for new ways to develop housing such as Midtown Park for families of moderate income". During the sixties other special Federal mortgage programs would be enacted to assist city dwellers. Such programs would provide low interest mortgages and, still later, mortgage interest subsidies for housing low and moderate income families. Ultimately, rent supplement programs would assist in the placement of low income households in residential units developed in FHA programs. These subsidy programs, however, were not available during the initial organization and design of Midtown Park. The Federal Housing Act of 1961 provided low interest mortgages for cooperative housing undertaken by non-profit and limited dividend sponsors. Only a few blocks from Midtown Park the International Longshoremen's and Marehousemen's Union of San Francisco successfully sponsored St. Francis Square, a cooperative housing venture of some 300 family units under Section 227 (d)(3) which allowed a forty year, three percent mortgage. This mortgage program substantially reduced the monthly debt service below comparable costs set in a Section 213 program. Although the Section 221(d)(3) program became available at a midpoint during the design and financing arrangements for Midtown Park, Barton-Western Inc., decided not to alter their plans to encompass the mortgage subsidy program. The developer retained his profit status and certain building design elements which were above minimum standards established in the Section 221 (d)(3) program. |