San Francisco's Bid On Affordable Housing

London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco and a strong supporter of liberalizing development in her city and California, has not had much luck pushing new housing ideas through the city’s board of supervisors.
Three times the board has voted to oppose a statewide bill that would allow taller buildings near transit, and which Ms. Breed supported. The mayor’s proposal to streamline construction of affordable housing and new homes for teachers never made it out of legislative committee, while the full board rejected a 63-unit project in the South of Market neighborhood on account of excessive shadowing.
Ms. Breed is now taking her case to voters. On Wednesday, the mayor is expected to submit a ballot measure that would amend the city’s charter so that buildings with a substantial amount of affordable housing — somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of units, depending on size — could sidestep the legislative process as long as they conform to local zoning codes.
There’s no guarantee that the proposal will even make the ballot, let alone be passed by voters. The initiative’s backers would need to collect the signatures of 50,000 registered voters to be included on the November ballot. In a city of about 900,000 people, this would be an expensive undertaking, requiring an army of volunteers and paid signature collectors that charge several dollars per signature.
“We are never going to make housing more affordable in San Francisco if we keep doing things the same way over and over,” Ms. Breed said. “I’ve seen too many of the people I grew up with leave because there’s nowhere for them to live, and there definitely isn’t any housing for their kids.”
Unlike most major cities, where development that conforms to local rules is largely allowed without going before a legislature, San Francisco has a complicated process in which even ordinary projects are subject to a gantlet of votes and commissions that takes years to navigate. It also creates a culture in which essentially every new building becomes highly politicized.
The ballot measure Ms. Breed is backing would attempt to rectify that by creating an “as of right” process for certain buildings that significantly add to the affordable housing supply.
At the heart of the proposal is a belief that regulation has a cost, and that developers would be willing to volunteer to take lower rents on more units in exchange for the certainty of a faster and more predictable approval process.
There was a similar philosophy behind a state law that was passed by the California Legislature in 2017, which has in some cases caused developers to rejigger their projects to add affordable housing solely to take advantage of the law.
Backing an initiative drive is an extraordinary measure for the mayor, who despite being popular with voters has continuously sparred with supervisors over housing.
“This is basic, zoning-compliant housing that provides badly needed affordable housing,” Ms. Breed said. “No height increases, no special districts — just housing that meets the already approved rules.”

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