The Board of Supervisors rebuffed San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s latest proposal to streamline housing production.
Breed’s proposed charter amendment, which would have made its way to voters via the June 7 ballot, would have allowed some projects to skip the city’s discretionary review process, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. It would have required housing projects with more than 25 units to build 15 percent more affordable homes than the city requires.
Aaron Peskin and Connie Chan, the supervisors who make up the majority of the board’s rules committee, voted against sending the proposal to the rest of the board, which would have then decided whether to put the measure on the ballot for voters to decide on.
“San Francisco had a chance to make the most significant change in decades to how we build housing in this City, but it was rejected by the Board of Supervisors,” Breed said on Twitter after the vote. “Addressing the high cost of housing requires real solutions, not more obstructionism.”
Peskin said the proposal hadn’t been properly vetted with those whose communities it would be affected and, with a number of people in opposition to the plan, it wouldn’t be worthwhile to advance the amendment.
The third member of the rules committee, Rafael Mandelman, expressed concern that the amendment would force supervisors to sacrifice too much of their authority over housing projects, but ultimately voted in favor of the proposal.
The amendment’s sponsor, Supervisor Ahsha Safai said that he was upset that the other supervisors “wouldn’t let the debate move forward.”
The latest vote underscores tension between the mayor and board about how to best address the city’s housing crisis.
“It’s shameful this got strangled in committee by two supervisors and that they didn’t even allow a vote by the full board, let alone the voters who are the ones who suffer from our lack of housing,” Breed said after the vote.
It marked the third time that Breed has tried and failed to advance housing-related charter amendments. In 2019, committee members shut down her proposed amendment to streamline affordable housing for teachers. She tried again in 2020, trying to sidestep the board by collecting voter signatures to put a charter amendment on the ballot. The pandemic ultimately brought that effort to a halt.
Read more
Residential
San Francisco
No more “bullsh*t:” SF home prices soar even as property crimes jump
[SFC] — Victoria Pruitt