It’s always tough to stick to new year’s resolutions. Imagine how San Francisco’s planners will feel on January 1 when their first acts of 2024 will not only be overdue, but also carrying a threat of penalties for the city.
A similar scenario, in fact, has just played out. State watchdogs at the Office of Housing and Community Development (HCD) have been pushing for an overhaul of SF’s broken housing development system. The first big step came early this year, when SF’s supervisors unanimously passed a blueprint, called the Housing Element, to boost the city’s housing density with some 82,000 new homes this decade.
In October, however, HCD issued a first-of-its-kind “accountability report,” essentially warning the supervisors and planners that they had to move faster. Failure to do so could have triggered loss of city control over housing, and potentially the “builder’s remedy,” as well as loss of critical funding for transportation and affordable housing.
HCD wanted a package of new laws to pass by Thanksgiving. That didn’t happen, and so the state offered a 30-day grace period. Supervisors took a few more weeks to add new pieces to the legislation, which tempted a rebuke from HCD, but the agency ultimately didn’t object and Mayor London Breed signed the bill last week.
The same day, the Planning Commission voted on another set of state-mandated rule changes, ones that did not require legislation but were still nearly two months late.
But wait, there’s more: January brings another set of policy changes that will likely require more grace from state regulators. Some don’t require lawmaking or legislative votes, but they’re supposed to be in place Jan. 1. Problem is, they also require public discussion, and some need a sign-off by the Planning Commission — and its next meeting is Jan. 11, 2024.
Unless Sacramento rings in the new year by whacking SF with penalties and throwing the process into chaos, these items due Jan. 1 should be waiting for the commission’s discussion and vote. The city must:
- Eliminate post-entitlement appeals for “development that benefits from a local ministerial approval process.” In plain terms, ministerial projects are those that comply with all the rules and requirements, and therefore need no additional subjective input by the city. “Post-entitlement” means that a project is far enough along in the process to be seeking building permits.
- Amend the City Charter to “narrow which permits are subject to additional administrative review.” This means complying with a new state law, authored by SF Assemblymember Matt Haney, that essentially bans late-stage appeals of projects that the city has already approved — also known as “only-in-San Francisco appeals.”
- Amend the business and tax code to prevent these same last-ditch, last-minute appeals.
In another set of changes due by the end of January, the city must:
- Revise the city process so that “housing developments that conform to existing planning and zoning standards” and include at least 20 percent affordable units “move efficiently through a local non-discretionary, ministerial entitlement process” — again, reducing or nixing the kind of subjective, judgment-call obstacles for many buildings that technically conform to the rules and requirements. Note that many parts of the city, like cultural districts and “priority equity” areas, may be exempted from this.
- Accept Planning Department recommendations for upzoning, per the Mayor’s Housing for All Executive Directive from earlier this year. Planners have been collecting public feedback on the new zoning map for months and plan to present it to the city for approval sometime in January.
For decades, developers and property owners in San Francisco have navigated a notoriously unpredictable and precarious system, one in which they may abide by every written rule yet still end up with their project rejected or, at the very least, held back by delays and impromptu demands from public appeals.
This system was set up apparently with good intentions, designed to maximize the power of residents and community voices. Nevertheless, the result was that it made it almost impossible to build new housing in large sections of the city. Now with these changes, the state is demanding that SF not only simplify many rules, but also eliminate much of the potential for dramatic surprises and last-minute objections.
Not everyone at City Hall is happy about being told what to do: Sup. Aaron Peskin, the president of the Board of Supervisors, has been a reluctant collaborator on the new Housing Element. He voted for the blueprint in January, but in nearly the same breath warned that fulfilling it would be nearly impossible without more assistance from the state itself.
This month, he voted against the constraints reduction suite of laws, and railed in a committee meeting that “the state has no idea what the fuck they’re doing.” (Sup. Connie Chan was the only other no vote.)
At the same time, Peskin has begun petitioning the state for more time to review and revise the city code. But it would take major politicking for these objections to force significant delays in next year’s calendar.
Looking back, the historic Housing Element vote in late January 2023 might be viewed as a belated new year’s resolution for this year. Planners and most lawmakers have kept to it, albeit with some delays, and the next few months will bring more tests of its resoluteness.
Adam Brinklow covers housing, development, and more for The Frisc.