Demolition permits have been filed for several buildings at Potrero Terrace, the aging public housing complex that's been the subject of redevelopment plans for what feels like geological time. The permits are almost certainly tied to the HOPE SF initiative, the city's ambitious plan to tear down and rebuild its most distressed public housing sites.

On paper, HOPE SF is exactly the kind of project everyone should support: replacing crumbling mid-century public housing with modern mixed-income developments that actually integrate residents into the neighborhood. Potrero Terrace, perched on the hill between Dogpatch and Potrero Hill, has long been one of the most visible symbols of how San Francisco's housing bureaucracy can let people down — decades of deferred maintenance, isolated design, and the kind of neglect that would get a private landlord dragged through the courts.

But here's where the skepticism kicks in. HOPE SF was launched in 2007. We're now eighteen years into a program that was supposed to transform four public housing sites, and progress has been glacial. The Hunters View rebuild has seen some completion, but Potrero Terrace? Still waiting. Filing demolition permits is a step forward, sure, but anyone who's watched San Francisco's development process knows that a permit filing and a finished project are separated by an ocean of environmental reviews, community meetings, appeals, and budget overruns.

As one local noted, this is likely part of the broader Potrero HOPE SF project that's been winding through SF Planning for years. "Likely" doing a lot of heavy lifting there — because with this city's track record, nothing is certain until the bulldozers are actually rolling.

The residents of Potrero Terrace deserve better than the units they're living in now. They also deserve better than an eighteen-year-and-counting timeline. If these demolition permits actually lead to shovels in the ground and new homes being built, that's genuinely great news. But we'll believe it when we see it — and we won't be surprised if we're still writing about this in 2030.