A site that had been one of several to spark controversy and protest in the last decade as market-rate developers were ravenous to build in the Mission District is now going to become the largest 100%-affordable development in the neighborhood in 20 years.

A groundbreaking ceremony took place Thursday at 1515 South Van Ness Avenue, which is being developed as Casa Adelante, an all-affordable, 168-unit residential project that joins an already constructed 94-unit senior-housing project on the adjacent site, 1296 Shotwell. It is being co-developed by the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) and the Chinatown Community Development Center, who also co-developed the senior complex, which opened in 2021.

As the Chronicle reports, so much affordable housing has been built in the Mission in the last few years, the rituals of these groundbreakings, with participation by city leaders, have become almost rote: " There was the blessing of the land by the Xiuhcoati Danza Aztec dancers. There was the smell of burning sage and copal. There was mariachi music provided by day laborers from Nuevo Sol Domestic Worker Center."

These 168 units will join almost 200 more that also already under construction, and a total of 777 affordable units have been built in the Mission District in the last five years.

This is quite an accomplishment after a period in the last decade when affordable housing advocates — led by former Supervisor David Campos — regularly faced off with developers and YIMBY activists over the need to stop rampant gentrification, and the need to develop affordable housing in the midst of skyrocketing housing costs and market forces.

Those market forces shifted, though, before the pandemic dealt a final blow, and construction costs rose to the point that developers like Lennar, who bought the site at 1515 South Van Ness for a mostly market-rate development back in 2014, gave up trying to develop anything here. Lennar sold the property to the city in 2019 for $18.5 million, for use as an affordable site, and soon it was being used as a "safe-sleeping village" with tents for the homeless — one of several of these that popped up in the city as the pandemic took hold.

The fate of this property — once dubbed "the Mess on South Van Ness" by activists — is parallel to that of the property formerly called the "Monster in the Mission" at 16th and Mission. That property, 1979 Mission Street, was also sold back to the city in recent years after once being eyed for a massive market-rate development, and will soon be redeveloped as a 100% affordable project by MEDA along with Mission Housing.

At today's groundbreaking, as the Chronicle reports, Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who sits in the board seat once occupied by Campos, celebrated the fact that "the people of this community organized, made their voices heard, and successfully pressured for a better outcome" for 1515 South Van Ness.

Renderings for the project are below.