A view of the ground floor of the housing development planned for the Safeway site in San Francisco’s Marina District. The grocery store will be at the foot of the tower.

Many people look at the Marina Safeway project and see a particular community in a particular neighborhood opposed to a particular development. 

I do not. 

I see the natural end result of 50 years of antidevelopment hysteria.

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Today, American boomers own more household wealth than all other generations combined. In California, this wealth is shielded by a 1978 ballot initiative called Proposition 13. It locks property taxes — a crucial revenue source for our cash-strapped school district, Muni, and city government — to often decades-old real estate assessments.

Several years ago, a group of recent Bay Area homebuyers created a map of the tax benefits Prop 13 grants longtime residents. Looking at the data for the Marina and Pacific Heights is a wild ride.

As a teacher at SFUSD’s Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, when I see $45,000 in annual subsidies here, $76,000 worth of annual tax breaks there — block after block, millions in total property taxes lost in these wealthiest of neighborhoods — I think about the two amazing counselors my school lost this past year due to budget cuts, one a good friend of mine. I think about the additional 15 counselors the district expects to cut next year by raising each........

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