Fighting for Pelosi’s Seat, Scott Wiener brings Housing Reform

Intrigue around the timing aside, it didn’t mean much when Scott Wiener, the housing policy guru who represents San Francisco in California’s state senate, entered the race for Congress’s 11th district more than a month ago. Challenging Nancy Pelosi isn’t necessarily a winning strategy. But then came some political calculus that put Wiener’s perch as one of the most transformative California legislators of his generation in a different light.

On Thursday, Pelosi announced she wouldn’t seek reelection to a 21st term. A few days later, Christine Pelosi, who many believed to be the former speaker’s heir apparent, announced she wasn’t interested in her mother’s seat. In a post on X, the younger Pelosi instead revealed a plan to seek San Francisco’s state senate seat, currently held by Wiener.

Once you iron out the tangle of political fates, it’s clear that, without a Pelosi in the race, Wiener has suddenly risen as the frontrunner for a seat he has long sought. He’s already raised more than $1 million, far ahead of his most prominent challenger, Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Now, real estate executives are musing on whether Wiener, if successful, can carry that housing momentum to Washington.

His platform indicates he at least plans to. Housing largely exists as a city hall and, more recently, a statehouse issue, but Wiener lists it as his top priority if elected to Congress.

His track record adds weight to such ambition–since Wiener’s election to the state senate in 2016, California has multiplied the housing production it requires from cities and counties. The same tenure saw the legislature strengthen the state’s enforcement credentials and empower the attorney general’s office to go after local jurisdictions that fall short of the housing mandates.

Wiener authored a number of bills crucial to establishing leverage for the state, cutting into the local control over zoning held exclusively by cities and counties. His SB 79, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, offered the most recent example: it automatically upzoned the land along major transit lines in eight of the state’s most populous counties.

David Garcia, policy director for Up For Growth, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit focused on housing legislation, emphasized Wiener would face a very different legislative landscape if he wins Pelosi’s seat.

“The policies that have been pursued in California wouldn’t translate to Congress, and it’s unlikely that Congress would support the feds pre-empting local zoning laws,” Garcia told The Real Deal.

Indeed, the federal government has historically dealt in the financing side of the equation. The creation of the 30-year mortgage, the distribution of low-income housing tax credits, and the Community Reinvestment Act, which pressed banks to provide capital for affordable housing projects, are all federal initiatives.

Within that financing realm, Garcia said a pro-housing legislator could push for new tax credits that facilitate specific construction types, such as missing middle housing and accessory dwelling units.

Yet, the simple creation of new financing tools will mean nothing if they’re not made easier to use, said Jon White, chief real estate officer of Abode, the Bay Area’s largest non-profit housing developer.

“Affordable housing projects will only turn to federal financing if the project depends on it, because it’s so hard to deal with,” White told The Real Deal. “Streamling would be really helpful.”

Federal money often comes with a suite of what many developers and pro-housing advocates see as onerous and expensive requirements, including compliances with the National Environmental Protection Act, using American-made construction materials, and paying prevailing wages. Some of this is familiar territory for Wiener, who helped push through landmark legislation to reform and streamline the California Environmental Quality Act earlier this year, which had increasingly become a tool for opponents to slow or block housing developments.

White, who called himself “a fan” of Wiener’s work in the state legislature, said he wants to see Congress expand project-based vouchers — an important housing subsidy that White called the “lifeblood” of deeply affordable and permanent supportive housing developments — and address skyrocketing insurance costs. He said insurance rates have increased as much as 300% for housing developers in recent years.

“A lot of projects at Abode are under water because of insurance cost increases, and it’s going to take a national solution to figure out insurance,” White said.

Yet, not everyone believes Wiener will have the same latitude to effect housing if he wins Pelosi’s seat next year.

The CEO of one of California’s largest for-profit developers sang Wiener’s praises as “smart, relentless, detail-oriented and willing to take risks,” and referred to him as the “the most pro-housing legislator in California.” But he believes Wiener’s influence, if he reaches Congress, could become diluted by representing a Democratic stronghold and as one of 435 votes in the House of Representatives.

“It’s not going to be transformational, you can make more of a difference in housing at the state level than the federal level, that’s just a fact,” said the CEO, who only agreed to speak on background out of concern for getting too involved in an active race. “I’d start by saying, ‘Do no harm.’ But frankly, I’m not looking at Congress to be the major movers on housing policy.”

On this point, Abode’s chief real estate officer White sees an inverse reality. Although Wiener has been among the most effective legislators in California, the statehouse is now filled with lawmakers cut from a similar pro-housing cloth, and Weiner’s legacy of hammering on housing appears to leave Sacramento in good stead.

“On the federal side, there’s not many people who understand affordable housing in Congress,” White said. “His expertise could be way more valuable in Congress. We have a strong bench in the state, but the federal government needs more experience.”

A sea change could be shaping up in the U.S. Capitol, though. Over the last few years, a bipartisan, pro-housing YIMBY Caucus (Yes, In My Backyard) has formed, and just last month the Senate passed the ROAD to Housing Act, a 300-page bill led by otherwise strange political bedfellows Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). A key provision of the bill would tie the amount of federal money a city or county receives through the Community Development Block Grant program to the amount of housing it produces.

That adds up to a “significant shift” for Congress that seemed like an impossibility even just a year ago, according to Up for Growth’s Garcia.

“There would have been a time that a new member would get to Congress and talk about housing and not be taken seriously, because it just wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” Garcia said. “Now, if Scott Wiener wins, he will find himself among many other members talking about housing supply. And I think he would come to Congress with the biggest track record for doing really big housing policy.”