Daniel Lurie, leader in the vote tally for next mayor of San Francisco, has plans to boost the development of homes.
The leading mayoral candidate from the election Tuesday is the only contender to have developed housing, and who has outlined a strategy to jumpstart development, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
At last count, Lurie led Mayor London Breed by 56.34 percent to Breed’s 43.66 percent, according to election officials.
While his campaign declined to comment, the newspaper reviewed statements made by the founder of Tipping Point as well as its track record for development.
In 2021, Luri’s nonprofit joined Mercer Housing and the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund to build a 145-unit permanently supportive housing complex at 833 Bryant Street in South of Market.
The project was built in 33 months for $377,000 per unit, Lurie said during a September mayoral debate. When adjusted for the land purchase and construction debt, the cost was $470,000 per unit, according to a case study by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center.
That’s 30 percent faster and 25 percent lower cost than comparable projects in San Francisco, according to the study. One affordable project cost $1.2 million per unit.
“On day one” in office, the heir to the Levi’s fortune pledged to announce a San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation to gather “the best of business, government and civic leaders.” He said it would be modeled on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation launched after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 to rebuild the area and distribute federal funds.
To kickstart home construction, Lurie plans to exempt multifamily projects from city transfer taxes, while implementing economic policies to spur development in San Francisco. That includes temporarily lowering affordable housing requirements for market-rate apartment development, plus lowering fees for those projects, according to his campaign.
If Lurie can convince the Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance, eliminating transfer tax for multifamily properties could help make housing projects pencil out for developers.
Lurie has blamed “City Hall insiders” for the glacial pace of San Francisco’s housing pipeline. He said his Tipping Point had completed a residential project “at a fraction of the cost, and a fraction of the time it takes these insiders to do the same thing.”
The almost-mayor wants to launch an “approvals tracker” on the status of permits and entitlements, while including contract information for relevant projects in the city.
Lurie’s campaign had focused on middle-income housing, especially for public servants such as cops, firefighters, teachers and nurses who can’t afford to live in San Francisco.
Read more
Politics
San Francisco
Daniel Lurie, heir to Levi’s fortune, leads in SF mayor race
Residential
San Francisco
Affordable housing in SF can cost up to $1.2M per unit
Politics
San Francisco
San Francisco Chronicle endorses Levi’s scion Daniel Lurie for SF mayor
The candidate wants to use public-sector tools such as a Joint Powers Authority to issue bonds to finance workforce housing, or to partner with the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority to help fund construction of such homes.
While Lurie wasn’t endorsed by city landlords and pro-housing advocates, he was perceived as a candidate who, if elected to the city’s top job, would highlight the importance of creating homes in San Francisco, according to the Business Journal.
— Dana Bartholomew