SF Board of Supervisors Should Use Recess to Address Affordable Housing Crisis

As 2005 began, most political insiders assumed the Board of Supervisors would quickly address the weaknesses in the city’s affordable housing laws. The defeat of the 2004 housing bond was expected to galvanize support for expanding affordable housing resources in other ways, particularly through revising its inclusionary housing formula.

But eight months later, we have seen press conferences and hearings on the housing crisis, but other than the Rincon development deal, no legislative action to create new resources.

The reason for this inaction is a mystery. It is one thing for legislation to have been introduced and then be defeated through political opposition; but no revision to the city’s inclusionary law has even been introduced.

Moreover, the contours of a new affordable housing law are widely recognized:

• Income limits for eligibility must be reduced to account for sharp increases in area median incomes since the passage of the original law
• Developers must be required to meet all or a portion of their obligation by paying into a fund going for rental housing, rather than allow them to meet requirements by selling condos to those earning 100% of area median
• The affordable percentage should increase above the current 12% (Berkeley and even San Ramon require 25%) and should rise with the number of units built, rather than be a fixed percentage.

Activists and developers can fight out the precise numbers, but in the absence of pending legislation, debating the specifics means little.

One reason for the Board’s inaction is the assumption that imposing greater requirements on housing developers would be opposed by Mayor Newsom, and that eight votes would be lacking to override a mayoral veto. But to my knowledge the Mayor has not taken a position on the issue, and the risk of a veto should not become an excuse for the Board not passing critically needed legislation.

Given his attempt to win public credit for city housing developments, the Mayor could potentially embrace a measure that increased affordable housing funding. He could offset any political downside from such support by addressing the cost effectiveness issue that has turned many Westside voters into opponents of nonprofit housing.

Even if Newsom vowed to veto changes to the current inclusionary law, the Board should still go through the process of enacting the legislation. This would set the stage for a June ballot measure where, unlike the housing bond measures, only 50% plus one of the electorate would have to approve the greater exactions.

The housing boom has continued for so long that San Franciscans may forget that from the late 1980’s until the late 1990’s, there was very little market rate housing built in the city. The window of opportunity to generate far more affordable housing via new developments is already beginning to close, so that legislation action should commence upon the Board’s return from recess.