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SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - A ballot initiative that a city legislator said will make San Francisco more affordable ignited a heated debate Thursday.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty has authored a June ballot measure that would give developers who agree to build below-market-rate family-size units the ability to build more units per project site than current planning rules allow.
On Thursday, at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting, members of the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, or MAC, an advocacy group that aims to keep working-class people in San Francisco, said the measure would not produce enough affordable housing to justify the density bonuses it offered developers — and said they would oppose it.
The measure has the support of the Residential Builders Association, one of the group’s leaders, Sean Keighran, told supervisors at the meeting. Developers would be allowed to put more units into a project site if they provide two- or three-bedroom below-market-rate housing units on-site to meet city laws that require developers to offer 15 of the units on a project site at below-market rate.
The “inclusionary housing” law, also gives developers the choice to pay in-lieu fees, or build the below-market-rate units off-site, if the units are 20 percent of the project total.
Planning Department staffer Anmarie Rodgers said density increases would vary. For example, she said a parcel at 24th Street near Noe Street would allow four 1,000-square-foot housing units and if the measure passes five could be allowed, while the nine units allowed one a parcel at Larkin Street near Eddy Street could be increased to 16 units.
Dufty, addressing his critics, said that he had “recognized the frustration of affordable housing developers, both the nonprofits and other advocacy groups, and supported Supervisor Chris Daly’s measure for a [affordable housing] set aside which has certainly won me a lot of dissatisfaction from certain people in this building.”
Dufty was referring to a charter amendment Daly authored that would require The City to spend $2.7 billion on below-market-rate housing during the next 15 years.
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Comments from Examiner Readers
1:10 AM MST on Tue., Jul. 22, 2008 re: "Housing measure may be removed from ballot"
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12:42 PM MST on Mon., Jul. 21, 2008
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10:36 AM MST on Mon., Jul. 21, 2008
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10:10 PM MST on Sun., Mar. 9, 2008
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10:08 PM MST on Sun., Mar. 9, 2008
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3:39 PM MST on Fri., Feb. 15, 2008
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10:13 AM MST on Tue., Feb. 12, 2008
re: "Supervisor Daly wants half of proposed Treasure Island housing to be affordable"
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Examiner Reader said:
Helpful hint - if SF keeps taking from people who work hard to provide cheap housing to unwed mothers, pimps, drug dealers, and gangsters, the flow from the city of families with children who can actually afford to pay taxes will become a torrent instead of merely a fast moving river. Send them to Newark or Union City where the locals are quite happy to have them and subsidize them.
2 agree | 1 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Great, keep giving to the poor and taking away from the hard working people. Why don't we stop helping the poor and see if they can get jobs and start being productive parts of society.
6 agree | 1 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
San Francisco has been furiously building housing for the last 5 years and I don't believe the rental/home prices have come down significantly in that time.
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Examiner Reader said:
moratorium on development, office building, and strip malls throughout the state, until each major urban area builds 100,000 new rent-controlled rental units. Simple, and it solves the issue immediately.
4 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Make it all rental, rent controlled housing and put a hold on any for profit housing. IN essence freeze the real estate give-away, and force developers to build what we need 100,000 new rent controlled units.
3 agree | 6 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Yes, Native San Franciscan, Daly and the progressives really want mentally ill Marxist renters, drug addicts, blah, blah, blah. What an antiquated product of right-wing radio you are! In fact, the conditions on the street are the result of Reagan Revolution that decimated our cities. Wait and see what neo-neocon Schwarzenegger's new cuts do to us.
2 agree | 4 disagree
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Native San Franciscan said:
Chris Daly and the other progressive pinheads don’t give a damn about affordable housing or San Francisco. All they care about is keeping San Francisco so run down and dilapidated that the only people who will want to live here are mentally ill Marxist renters, drug addicts, panhandlers, etc. The progressive housing agenda is geared toward that goal. The Bayview, Jobs, Parks and Housing Initiative is the only initiative that offers San Francisco an opportunity to make a real dent in its housing crisis. Anyone who wants to see the City better itself should volunteer on the campaign so we can send Chris Daly and the other poverty pimps packing.
7 agree | 2 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Ending rent control in San Francisco would be the fastest way to empty the city of its workers. Look out for Proposition 98, from the same folks who destroyed California schools with Prop. 13! www.saverentcontrol.net
3 agree | 4 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
If we eliminate rent control, the complex nature of the housing markets, both owned and leased, will work themselves out to everyone's advantage. Perhaps, however, it strikes me as overly simplistic. I moved to San Francisco in the late 70's and I've witnessed a number of real estate booms in the city. None, to the best of my knowledge, ever considerbly brought down the prices in either market. However, whenever the state and local economy tanks, the prices come down subtantially and likewise, after major earthquakes, when there's an exodus of people out of California, real estate price come down considerably to reflect that change, too. While there are certain commodities which can be very well-served by the marketplace, the marketplace has also brought us the current state of home mortgages, healthcare, airlines, energy utilites as so forth.
16 agree | 11 disagree
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Dede said:
Eliminating rent control promotes investment in existing rental stock and redevelopment of existing stock. Eliminating condo conversion restrictions does much of the same. Reducing the risk to developers in the entitlement process will also facilitate development - and reduce the cost of housing. Eliminating inclusionary housing will reduce the cost of housing. (who do you think pays for BMR units? your neighbors). If the city want's to buy down units to make them affordable - great. Otherwise it is a tax on every other buyer - and I mean every because the cost of new housing raises the price of existing housing.
27 agree | 26 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
It doesn't matter how much "affordable" housing you try to create, supply will never meet demand. There are only 2 places that a large percentage of the 300 million Americans want to live, San Francisco and Manhatten (I know I'll get heat over that one...get over it..its true). So San Franciso currently houses less than 0.3% of the US population. As I said, supply and demand will always be out of balance. Herr Daly can do what ever he likes but there will NEVER be enough "affordable" housing. I am not saying its right or wrong, but "it is what it is." Get over it and try and make life bearable for those who actually do what it takes to live here. I would vote for the $2 billion to go toward MUNI and improving the 38 Geary rather than build a bunch of cheap apartments to house the lucky thousand who win a lottery of some sort.
32 agree | 17 disagree
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logicbomb said:
Seven and Reader: New units are not subject to rent control, so your economic theory that rent control is curtailing development in San Francisco is null and void.
33 agree | 19 disagree
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Garwood said:
Hey Josh Sabatini (author) - thanks for giving the landlords of San Francisco to get on the bank wagon and raise the rents. Gee wiz, everybody must be raising the rents, so why shouldn't I? If you story is supposed to be a pubic service of some sort, well, you blew it, really blew it. When I get my rent increase letter from my landlord, I'll be sure to think of you. Landlords that might be on the fence as far as raising rents will go for it now after you've given permission to every penny pinching landlord is the City to do so. Where is the statisical data supporting your claim? Thanks for nada, Joshole.
29 agree | 32 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Expensive housing? Thank the bureaucrats who impose rent control. Rent control is nice for the few that live under it but the widespread and long term cost is a housing market that is artificially manipulated to the point that costs in both rent AND sales continues to rise. Rent control has been studied to death and always is proven to make matters worse. Erasing rent control would be the fastest method and the cheapest method to create housing for everyone.
39 agree | 21 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I meet a married couple recently who were enjoying the life of "affordable" housing despite both working with good companies and making good money. The reason? THEY decided to have three kids before planning their life and so, the kids cost was deducted somehow from their gross pay which then qualified them for Burbank Housing (low rent / public subsidized) rentals. So, your support of "affordable" housing is a farce. I'm not paying taxes just to make life easy on people who chose to have kids they cant afford. They also told me that Burbank Housing cannot "discriminate" against people coming out of prison and only view the persons income. So, "affordable" housing also is used to support ex-cons. Your tax dollars at work, folks.
31 agree | 17 disagree
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Seven said:
The only way to get more rentals on the market is to end rent control.
24 agree | 16 disagree
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M.S. Jackson said:
Don't be too alarmed, the Examiner makes this sort of announcement in an effort to bolster rents (Examiner is pro-landlord all the way) about once every two months regardless of the state of rentals in S.F. Do your thinking on this subject for yourself - check Criagslist.
33 agree | 16 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
the problem with this initiative is that it is classic ballot-box planning and offers a one-size-fits-all solution to complex planning problems. the city without question needs more family housing. the question is how to provide this housing in the context of detailed neighborhood plans. the measure for example allows builders the right to dramatically reduce rear yard open space (to 10'). this would undo much of the actual detailed planning work that has occurred in the market-octavia area and undermine other efforts to trade density for a broad range of desired community benefits. the affordable housing defined in this measure incidentally will be for households with close to $100k/year incomes. i wouldn't necessarily argue that incentives are not needed to produce housing for households in this range, only that voters should consider both what is being traded and what other benefits they might prefer out of such an exchange.
51 agree | 41 disagree
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logicbomb said:
A) Just because you make the housing affordable, doesn't mean it will be affordable to live there. Residents will still need to pay for a car (plus bridge toll, regardless of whether they work in SF or East Bay), bus, or ferry to get to work. B) Making 50% of the housing affordable is a sweet way to deter the 50% market units from selling. And the Island is already a hard sell.
54 agree | 50 disagree
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