The Affordable Housing Trifecta
Three Laws to Build More Affordable Housing, Faster
San Francisco says it wants more Affordable Housing, but there hasn’t been much action to actually get it built. Our laws force projects to spend years in community meetings, trying to placate hostile neighbors while housing proposals get scaled back or shelved.
Now Mayor London Breed is championing three pieces of legislation to get the job done. She’s targeting the three biggest needs for Affordable Housing: LAND, PERMITS, and FUNDING. Land has to be zoned to allow housing; permits to build have to be issued; and public money has to be invested. You’ll be shocked to hear that San Francisco’s track record on housing, even Affordable Housing, isn’t great. So, the question remains, will San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors join with the Mayor on each of these three critical legs of the stool?
TLDR, you should send this email now:
LAND: Legalize Housing!
Across much of San Francisco there is a ban on new apartment buildings. If you think that’s terrible, you’re right. It’s like we’re in a bread shortage and we outlawed bakeries.
Mayor Breed is proposing to rezone almost 1000 publicly owned parcels across the city for multifamily Affordable and Teacher Housing. One would think it’s a no-brainer to allow public parking lots to become housing for low and middle income people. Thanks to Mayor Breed, this ordinance will be on the ballot in November, and you should vote for it! (Read more about it in the SF Chronicle)
Still though…
San Francisco could go a little further and legalize building new Affordable Housing everywhere. The Board of Supervisors, San Francisco’s city council, could legalize building low-income housing on privately owned land across the city, in addition to the publicly owned parcels the Mayor is targeting. (Read more about Affordable Housing Everywhere here, or take action to support this proposal now.)
Or San Francisco could go all the way (following cities like Minneapolis) to end the apartment ban for all kinds of housing. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors could propose ending exclusionary single-family-home-only zoning tomorrow, if it wanted to. Polls say 6 in 10 Californians want to end single-family-only zoning near transit and jobs, but local elected officials don’t believe that there is a voting bloc clamoring for this. They hear from NIMBYs all the time, but folks who think we need to end the apartment ban don’t often contact the Board of Supervisors. You can send an email asking the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to end exclusionary zoning now.
PERMITS: Stop the NIMBY Nonsense.
Getting permits to build housing in San Francisco is a nightmare. In some ways it’s almost beautiful in its absurdity, as illustrated by artist Alfred Twu in the amazing poster below. Hahasob.
At the very least, we should streamline the process for Affordable and Teacher housing. This housing shouldn’t be at risk for neighborhood opposition.
When the process is this ugly, even a small group of opponents can threaten an individual project. While it’s rare for Affordable Housing to actually get killed outright, the opportunities for obstruction makes proposals smaller and less ambitious. This process wastes everyone’s time, squanders public money and loses precious units of Affordable Housing.
Mayor London Breed is asking the Board of Supervisors to put a charter amendment on the ballot so we can streamline permitting for Affordable and Teacher Housing. Already, several Supervisors have said they’ll oppose it. They want to make sure every kind of housing can always be appealed. They might call it a “community process” — but anyone who has ever had to listen to a NIMBY justify opposing low-income housing in their neighborhood needs to stand up and call bullshit.
There is never a good reason to oppose zoning-compliant Affordable Housing and we shouldn’t tolerate classist NIMBY obstructionism anymore.
FUNDING: Duh, we need more.
In a rare instance of camaraderie between the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors, we are poised to get a $600 Million Affordable Housing Bond on the November Ballot. This is great and basically everyone will support it.
Not to beat a dead horse, but streamlined permitting will help make sure this money goes as far as possible. Ask San Francisco’s Supervisors to Support Streamlining Affordable & Teacher Housing NOW.
