San Francisco Considers New Rules to Speed Housing Pipeline

San Francisco’s development pipeline is more of a pile up, according to SF YIMBY’s Robert Fruchtman, but new legislation that would remove many potential projects from Planning Commission review and eliminate neighbor notification could help speed the path to construction.

“It’s not the answer to every issue, but the process improvements are very welcome,” Fruchtman said.

Introduced by Mayor London Breed in April, and co-sponsored by new Supervisor Joel Engardio, the Constraints Reduction ordinance is the first major test of how committed the city is to making the changes necessary to meet its Housing Element requirements, which just barely passed by the deadline at the end of January.

“If the housing element is the constitution on which future development in San Francisco is based, the Planning Code is how the city implements that vision,” according to a Planning Department summary of the new legislation. “There are several efforts underway to implement the Housing Element, this ordinance being one of them.”

Project exemptions

The legislative package, which has the Planning Department’s approval and comes before the Planning Commission on Thursday, removes requirements for many large-scale projects to get conditional use authorization from the commission. The changes could save developers anywhere from six to nine months, according to the department.

“The removal of conditional use requirements in general is huge. That cannot be overstated,” Fruchtman said. “Exempting entire classes of projects from Planning Commission review will add a lot of certainty to the planning process for housing in San Francisco.”

Engardio said that the city’s housing production hasn’t kept up with demand, which has caused both seniors and young families to leave the city.

“The technical part of this legislation provides common-sense reforms to outdated zoning regulations,” he said via email. “The heart of this legislation keeps our loved ones in San Francisco by making it easier to house them.”

The changes that will be most impactful in producing more housing are those that allow demolition of existing dwelling units under specific conditions without requiring a conditional use hearing, as well as the removal of conditional use hearings for state density bonus projects, according to Aaron Starr, who works in legislative affairs at the Planning Department.

Neighborhood notification

The proposed legislation also eliminates neighborhood notification, which had previously required department staff to inform neighbors within 150 feet of code-complying building expansions or even major internal remodels. The one-month notification period allowed neighbors to file a Discretionary Review application, which then triggered a Planning Commission hearing. Neighbors can still file a discretionary review application, but it will no longer be the planning department’s role to notify neighbors, a change that will speed up approvals by three to six months and “frees up staff time allowing them to process more applications and focus on impactful housing projects,” the department wrote.

Other changes include the reduction of required setbacks, removing restrictions on where homeless shelters can be placed, allowing group housing in single-family neighborhoods and waiving fees for housing projects that are affordable for those making up to 120 percent of area median income.

The department has not received many comments on the legislation, but it has received a lot of inquiries, Starr said via email. Most of the comments against the legislation “are opposed to removal of neighborhood notifications and a general opposition to ‘developer giveaways.’”

If the legislation does not pass, it will “hamper our abilities to construct 82,000 units within the next eight years,” Starr said. That is the number the city must build to stay compliant with its state-mandated Housing Element plan.

Without pressure from the state, it’s unlikely that this package would be passed by the commission or, eventually, the Board of Supervisors, Fruchtman said. But with the state looking closely at the city’s approval process, it stands a good chance.

“A recommendation from the Planning Department doesn’t always predict what will happen, but in this case because there is the force of state law behind the consequences of rejecting this ordinance, I would bet dollars to donuts that the Planning Commission will approve it,” he said. “But they will probably bellyache in the process about the diminishment of their authority or, probably more than that, the silencing of community voices, or some such nonsense.”