SF housing advocate moves to oust Dean Preston in 2024

Political moderates tied to tech are now working to oust a progressive San Francisco supervisor who had backed a building vacancy tax and helped kill a 500-unit housing project.

Grow SF, an advocacy group aligned with moderate politicians with close ties to the technology industry, is forming a political action committee to oppose District Five Supervisor Dean Preston’s prospective 2024 re-election bid, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

Preston, a democratic socialist and former tenant rights lawyer, is a frequent target by city moderates at odds with his housing policy.

“We want people to know that there’s going to be support for someone to challenge him,” Grow SF Director Sachin Agarwal told the newspaper. “He’s completely detached from popular opinion in San Francisco. His views don’t align with what people want.”

Agarwal pointed to Preston’s support for Proposition M, a proposed vacancy tax on apartments left empty for more than six months. The ballot measure proposed by Preston was leading Thursday 52.7 percent to 47.3 percent, but was opposed by Grow SF.

He also highlighted Preston’s vote last October to reject nearly 500 apartments planned for a parking lot at 469 Stevenson Street in SoMa, which sparked a state probe into the city’s glacial housing approvals. YIMBY, another Bay Area pro-housing group linked to tech, has sued the supervisors for rejecting it and another 300 homes.

Agarwal said Preston suffered from a “scarcity mindset” hostile to the city’s need to spur new home construction in response to its housing crisis. He also cited the support for former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, among other concerns. Boudin was recalled by voter in June.

“He’s just out of touch,” Agarwal said.

The Chronicle requested a comment from Preston’s office, but did not include a response.

Preston, who frequently butts heads with Mayor London Breed, was narrowly elected to office in 2019 and then re-elected a year later by a wide margin.

In June, he called for $100 million in long-term debt financing to pay for 100-percent affordable housing developments, along with repairs to existing government-funded homes.

The boundaries of his district changed during the city’s redistricting process this year to include the Tenderloin plus the Fillmore, Western Addition, Haight-Ashbury and neighborhoods he already represented.

He’s not the only supervisor who Grow SF may target in two years, as five other districts will be on the ballot. Agarwal said the move to remove Preston is “just the start.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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