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How SF dropped its housing failures on this California city's lap. Here's how it's responding
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Leroy N. Soetoro
Dec 22, 2023, 4:00:21 PM12/22/23
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https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-francisco-
sacramento-california-housing-18535720.php
This week, under extreme pressure from state officials, the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 to finally advance Mayor London Breed’s
legislation to streamline the city’s notoriously lengthy housing approval
process.
The board is set to take a final vote on the legislation next week to meet
a last-chance Dec. 28 deadline imposed by the state Housing and Community
Development Department, which has taken increasingly aggressive steps to
force San Francisco to implement the policies necessary to accommodate
82,000 new homes over the next eight years — its share of the 2.5 million
needed statewide.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration recently completed an unprecedented
yearlong review of San Francisco’s housing approval process, which
investigators determined takes 10 months longer than anywhere else in the
state. The state subsequently ordered San Francisco to take 18 corrective
actions, including passing Breed’s streamlining legislation by Nov. 24.
Supervisors punted that deadline, prompting the state to issue a strongly
worded warning reminding them that failure to comply could result in
decertification of San Francisco’s housing plan. That, in turn, would put
the city at risk of losing millions of dollars of affordable housing and
transportation funding and open it up to the “builder’s remedy,” which
would allow developers to bypass the local planning process altogether for
certain projects.
Yet supervisors still can’t resist tempting fate.
They tucked several amendments into Breed’s streamlining bill that state
housing officials had explicitly advised them to remove.
“I don’t know that picking an unnecessary fight with San Francisco would
be helpful to (the state’s) cause,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who
authored two of the amendments — including a particularly dubious one to
make it harder to demolish thousands of homes built before 1923 with no
clear historic significance.
It’s an overconfident and, frankly, reckless bet.
Although supervisors’ initial vote on Breed’s bill was an “encouraging
first step,” the state is “still evaluating the latest amendments,” David
Zisser, the state housing department’s assistant deputy director for local
government relations and accountability, said in a statement. He also
noted that San Francisco still needs to explain how it’s implementing
other overdue required actions.
It’s embarrassing that “the state of California has to babysit the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors to get them to do the bare minimum,” Louis
Mirante, the Bay Area Council’s vice president of public policy, told the
editorial board.
He’s right.
Contrast San Francisco with Sacramento, where its city council just
unanimously — unanimously! — advanced housing reforms that go above and
beyond what’s required by state law and may be among the most ambitious in
the country.
Sacramento’s policy, scheduled for a final procedural vote in early 2024,
aims to create what’s known as “missing middle” housing — such as
triplexes, fourplexes and other types of multifamily housing — near
transit and in neighborhoods currently restricted to single-family homes.
Anyone used to San Francisco housing politics — including hours-long
arguments over potential shadows cast by a proposed development — might
expect that Sacramento’s single-family neighborhoods would rise in
protest.
But “even the most suburban district of the city said, ‘Yes, more missing-
middle housing because of the environment, because of our housing crisis,’
” Kevin Dumler, a project manager at the affordable housing developer
Jamboree Housing, told the editorial board.
Sacramento City Council Member Caity Maple, one of the policy’s most
fervent backers, said that during her campaign, “the number one issue that
I heard from residents was that they were having trouble finding housing
they could afford — and keeping their housing.”
She added that in Sacramento, “people are really interested in development
in general,” especially when it comes to enlivening the vacant and
underutilized spaces that proliferated in California’s capital city amid
the pandemic as state workers stayed home and the businesses that relied
on them shuttered.
Many Sacramentans understand, Maple said, that new development means more
people out and about and more eyes on the street — helping to reduce
concerns about crime, homelessness and public safety, particularly in the
hollowed-out downtown.
In other words, Sacramento views new housing as an exciting opportunity —
while San Francisco treats it as a dreaded obligation.
San Francisco’s resistance to new housing, and the sky-high home prices
that result, help explain why so many Bay Area residents are moving to
more affordable cities like Sacramento and the largely rural region
surrounding it.
“The more San Francisco navel-gazes on its own ordinances, the more …
places like Antioch and Fairfield and Vacaville and Sacramento (become) …
dumping grounds for San Francisco’s luxurious indulgence in doing
nothing,” Mirante said. “We’re doing as much to accelerate homebuilding in
these regions as we can, but there’s only so much we can do.”
Sacramento is willingly doing more than its fair share to address
California’s housing shortage in part because it is forced to by the
refusal to build in cities like San Francisco.
But that doesn’t mean the state should let San Francisco get away with
doing less.
Reach the Chronicle editorial board with a letter to the editor at
sfchronicle.com/submit-your-opinion.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-francisco-
sacramento-california-housing-18535720.php
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
sacramento-california-housing-18535720.php
This week, under extreme pressure from state officials, the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 to finally advance Mayor London Breed’s
legislation to streamline the city’s notoriously lengthy housing approval
process.
The board is set to take a final vote on the legislation next week to meet
a last-chance Dec. 28 deadline imposed by the state Housing and Community
Development Department, which has taken increasingly aggressive steps to
force San Francisco to implement the policies necessary to accommodate
82,000 new homes over the next eight years — its share of the 2.5 million
needed statewide.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration recently completed an unprecedented
yearlong review of San Francisco’s housing approval process, which
investigators determined takes 10 months longer than anywhere else in the
state. The state subsequently ordered San Francisco to take 18 corrective
actions, including passing Breed’s streamlining legislation by Nov. 24.
Supervisors punted that deadline, prompting the state to issue a strongly
worded warning reminding them that failure to comply could result in
decertification of San Francisco’s housing plan. That, in turn, would put
the city at risk of losing millions of dollars of affordable housing and
transportation funding and open it up to the “builder’s remedy,” which
would allow developers to bypass the local planning process altogether for
certain projects.
Yet supervisors still can’t resist tempting fate.
They tucked several amendments into Breed’s streamlining bill that state
housing officials had explicitly advised them to remove.
“I don’t know that picking an unnecessary fight with San Francisco would
be helpful to (the state’s) cause,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who
authored two of the amendments — including a particularly dubious one to
make it harder to demolish thousands of homes built before 1923 with no
clear historic significance.
It’s an overconfident and, frankly, reckless bet.
Although supervisors’ initial vote on Breed’s bill was an “encouraging
first step,” the state is “still evaluating the latest amendments,” David
Zisser, the state housing department’s assistant deputy director for local
government relations and accountability, said in a statement. He also
noted that San Francisco still needs to explain how it’s implementing
other overdue required actions.
It’s embarrassing that “the state of California has to babysit the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors to get them to do the bare minimum,” Louis
Mirante, the Bay Area Council’s vice president of public policy, told the
editorial board.
He’s right.
Contrast San Francisco with Sacramento, where its city council just
unanimously — unanimously! — advanced housing reforms that go above and
beyond what’s required by state law and may be among the most ambitious in
the country.
Sacramento’s policy, scheduled for a final procedural vote in early 2024,
aims to create what’s known as “missing middle” housing — such as
triplexes, fourplexes and other types of multifamily housing — near
transit and in neighborhoods currently restricted to single-family homes.
Anyone used to San Francisco housing politics — including hours-long
arguments over potential shadows cast by a proposed development — might
expect that Sacramento’s single-family neighborhoods would rise in
protest.
But “even the most suburban district of the city said, ‘Yes, more missing-
middle housing because of the environment, because of our housing crisis,’
” Kevin Dumler, a project manager at the affordable housing developer
Jamboree Housing, told the editorial board.
Sacramento City Council Member Caity Maple, one of the policy’s most
fervent backers, said that during her campaign, “the number one issue that
I heard from residents was that they were having trouble finding housing
they could afford — and keeping their housing.”
She added that in Sacramento, “people are really interested in development
in general,” especially when it comes to enlivening the vacant and
underutilized spaces that proliferated in California’s capital city amid
the pandemic as state workers stayed home and the businesses that relied
on them shuttered.
Many Sacramentans understand, Maple said, that new development means more
people out and about and more eyes on the street — helping to reduce
concerns about crime, homelessness and public safety, particularly in the
hollowed-out downtown.
In other words, Sacramento views new housing as an exciting opportunity —
while San Francisco treats it as a dreaded obligation.
San Francisco’s resistance to new housing, and the sky-high home prices
that result, help explain why so many Bay Area residents are moving to
more affordable cities like Sacramento and the largely rural region
surrounding it.
“The more San Francisco navel-gazes on its own ordinances, the more …
places like Antioch and Fairfield and Vacaville and Sacramento (become) …
dumping grounds for San Francisco’s luxurious indulgence in doing
nothing,” Mirante said. “We’re doing as much to accelerate homebuilding in
these regions as we can, but there’s only so much we can do.”
Sacramento is willingly doing more than its fair share to address
California’s housing shortage in part because it is forced to by the
refusal to build in cities like San Francisco.
But that doesn’t mean the state should let San Francisco get away with
doing less.
Reach the Chronicle editorial board with a letter to the editor at
sfchronicle.com/submit-your-opinion.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-francisco-
sacramento-california-housing-18535720.php
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
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