Controversial plans to turn a hotel in the Japanese district of San Francisco into permanent housing for the homeless have come to an abrupt end.

After months of community backlash, KHP Capital Partners, owner of the 131-room Kimpton Buchanan hotel, said it would no longer sell the building to the city, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“We will continue to operate the Buchanan as a tourist hotel, and look forward to continuing to be an important part of the community for years to come as San Francisco’s economy recovers,” said a group statement. investment.

The hotel is one of many in San Francisco that has been transformed into an on-site emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. The city took advantage of the downturn in the hotel industry and millions of dollars in urgent state affordable housing funds to approve the purchase of three more hotels. These will permanently house more than 300 homeless people and the city also aimed to own Kimpton.

Even before KHP’s announcement, the city had slowed down plans to buy the Japantown hotel. Neighborhood groups feared that turning one of only two hotels in the neighborhood into permanent accommodation could hamper recovery efforts in the tourism-dependent zone, where many small businesses have closed during the pandemic.

SoMA’s neighbors also raised objections to the city’s desire to buy the Panoramic apartment complex in Ninth and Mission for $ 86.7 million, saying the area already had more than its fair share of social services and subsidized housing. They ultimately failed to stop the plans for the city.

The other buildings approved for the purchase of homeless housing, an Outer Mission Motel and an ORS Mission, were chosen in part because they are not located in the downtown area of ​​the city, where many projects supportive housing has been placed.

At community meetings, longtime Japantown residents argued that their objections were not just another form of NIMBYism.

“Our concern has everything to do with saving our community’s economy and the survival of Japantown’s small businesses,” Paul Osaki, who has lived in Japantown for six decades and is executive director of the Japanese Cultural and Community, told The Chronicle. Center of Northern California.

Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents Japantown, sent a letter to the city last month asking it to consider two other hotels whose owners have expressed interest in selling and are within a few blocks of the Kimpton Buchanan.

“What impact does the loss of the Buchanan as a tourist hotel have on the future survival of Japantown?” ” He asked. “How can we, as a city, plan with, not more, the community of Japantown to resolve potential issues? “

So far, the city has only said it is continuing its research to find more hotels to buy, but not which they might be.