Affordable housing, the issue that has dominated San Francisco politics for the past three years, is suddenly the hot topic at the state Capitol in Sacramento.
That might seem like a good thing, but not all San Francisco housing advocates are happy.
In a move that came as a total surprise even to insiders such as state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who is the chairman of the Senate budget committee, Gov. Jerry Brown introduced legislation last month to streamline the environmental review process for proposed housing projects that are consistent with local zoning.
If enacted, the proposal would allow planning staff to rubber-stamp what are known as “by right” housing developments that conform to the city’s zoning and include 10 percent affordable units, or 20 percent if the project is not close to public transit. It would allow developers to avoid the lengthy public environmental review process that addresses concerns about the impacts on traffic, wind, shadows and noise. Activists often use the review process to win concessions on affordable units, open space and other public benefits.
Reducing regulation
At a news conference on his revised budget, Brown laid out his argument for the plan, complaining that it costs $500,000 to produce a unit of affordable housing in San Francisco and suggesting that it needs to be less expensive and faster to put up residential units.
“The general idea is if you want some assisted housing, you’re going to have to reduce some of the regulatory burdens that are faced by developers,” he said.
While he has not explicitly said so, the consensus in Sacramento is that the reforms Brown is proposing are part of a quid pro quo: He agreed in Thursday’s budget deal to spend $400 million on statewide affordable housing that Democrats wanted, but the money won’t be released until the by-right language is agreed to.
Not surprisingly, market-rate developers across the city are cheering Brown’s proposal, which has the potential to reduce the city’s expensive and time-consuming approval process. Outside of San Francisco, the initiative could force antidevelopment suburban and rural communities to accept badly needed multifamily housing.
“I would view housing reform as one of the major pieces of unfinished business for Jerry Brown,” said Gabriel Metcalf, the executive director of the generally pro-development San Francisco urban think tank SPUR, which has come out in support of the legislation. “He was an urban mayor. He understands the planning process. And I think he is hoping to leave things a little better than when he arrived, in terms of California’s housing crisis.”
But in San Francisco, which produces more affordable and market-rate housing than most other California cities, Supervisor Aaron Peskin calls the legislation “a huge giveaway to developers.” He points out that the city has produced 13,391 market-rate housing units since 2010 and 7,064 affordable units. San Francisco has 11,000 entitled units and another 20,000 in the approval pipeline, more than any other city in the state.
On Tuesday, Peskin introduced a nonbinding resolution at the Board of Supervisors proposing that Brown’s plan include a performance provision, under which cities that are successfully building affordable units — at least 25 percent of production — be exempted from the by-right approval process. But a vote on the resolution was delayed until this Tuesday after Supervisor Scott Wiener introduced an amendment to the resolution that calls for changes to Brown’s legislation but not an outright exemption.
Considering cities’ results
Leno said he supports a performance provision for cities, like San Francisco, that are “getting it right.”
“No one else is near (San Francisco’s) numbers in terms of affordable housing production,” he said. “And we are surrounded by water on three sides. The cost of construction here is not comparable to anywhere else in the state.”
Leno also said that a major change like the by-right legislation deserves far more scrutiny. “This is a major change in complex land-use law with a one-size-fits-all solution which could have far-reaching and unintended consequences,” Leno said.
Opponents of the bill say that rather than using the current approval process to stop development, San Francisco’s affordable housing advocates use it to get more below-market units, more space for blue-collar jobs, more open public space and better design. If given the choice, profit-driven developers would not agree to those enhancements, resulting in lower-quality developments with fewer affordable units and public benefits, said Peter Cohen, who heads the Council of Community Housing Organizations.
This is a terrible bill for San Francisco and other high-price cities where gentrification is a very real problem,” Cohen said. “It’s crude politics in a political pressure cooker. You have to look at the track record of cities and respect where (affordable housing) is being produced.”
While San Francisco may be a top performer in producing affordable units, Metcalf said proof that the city’s housing policies are not working is that it has the highest costs of housing in the United States. He said Brown’s bill will help the city generate more market-rate and publicly subsidized housing.
“San Francisco has not been a good actor in terms of creating a predictable and transparent process in which housing that fits within (the city’s) zoning is allowed,” he said. “The governor’s reforms would be helpful. It will not solve all our problems. It can be undermined in a lot of ways. But it will be a step in the right direction.”
Chiu wary of further vetoes
For Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, the situation is politically perilous. Brown has vetoed several affordable housing bills he introduced. He doesn’t want to see that happen again. And while he agrees that affordable-housing-producing cities like San Francisco should be allowed flexibility, he understands that in most parts of the state, the approval process is used to block affordable housing, not squeeze more of it out of developers.
“There are other jurisdictions around the state that have not focused on affordable housing to the degree we have done so in San Francisco,” Chiu said. “Across the state, a lot of my California counterparts are happy with this because they are trying to build housing and are getting stopped by true NIMBYs who use (the environmental review process) to stop affordable housing.”