Tech executives pour cash into SF’s Prop D housing measure

Big tech is shoveling big money into a San Francisco measure for the November ballot to fast-track housing development.

Tech executives, founders and investors have opened their wallets to support Proposition D, a proposal to boost housing production trumpeted by Mayor London Breed, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

The measure, known as Affordable Homes Now, seeks to cut several years off the approval timeline for projects that are 100 percent affordable, are for teachers or are mostly market-rate but have 15 percent more affordable units than required by the city.

Tech leaders have united with YIMBY advocates of Prop D who call for a “yes in my backyard” to new market-rate and affordable homes. The Nor Cal Carpenters Union is another major backer of the fast-track housing measure.

Tech-affiliated donors account for at least two-thirds of the more than $1.5 million the Prop D campaign reported raising this year through Sept. 24, according to the Chronicle. After expenses, the campaign had $185,300 in the bank.

Among those who have given six figures to the Prop D campaign are Twilio co-founder John Wolthuis, Pantheon CEO Zack Rosen, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and the venture capitalist Garry Tan.

Angel investor Ron Conway, known for supporting pro-tech causes and political moderates, kicked in $50,000 and another $40,000 non-cash contribution related to mail. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn each gave $50,000 in August.

Tan told the Chronicle he gave to Prop D because the “anti-housing majority” of the Board of Supervisors “has blocked the building of new affordable and market-rate housing.”

He singled out the rejection last year by the progressive-majority board of 495 housing units proposed for a Nordstrom valet parking lot at 469 Stevenson Street in SoMa.

“That action by itself speaks volumes about why we need (Prop D) to prevent petty progressive politics from stopping new housing,” Tan said in a statement. “Voters have had enough of supervisors blocking new housing and killing pro-housing legislation, all of which has led San Francisco to become the most expensive city to build housing, and the slowest city to approve housing.”

A competing Prop E campaign that launched later and didn’t need to run a signature-gathering effort raised $286,100 through Sept. 24 and ended the reporting period with $200,000. The proposition was placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors, raising concerns that voters might confuse the two.

Both Prop D and Prop E aim to shorten San Francisco’s lengthy approval process for new housing proposals. They differ which developments would qualify for the faster timeline and whether supervisors retain oversight of city funds used for each project.

— Dana Bartholomew

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