Welcome to our regular ballot preview! As always, we’ve rounded up the alphabet soup of propositions. On March 3, there are five to consider, but the very last one stands out.
We launched The Frisc in 2017 because San Francisco’s fundamental crises — the housing shortage, homelessness, the dysfunctional transit and increasing congestion on our alarmingly dirty streets — deserved more urgent attention. Our timing has been fortuitous. All everyone talks about these days is housing insecurity and the threat of displacement; the social and public-health emergency of people forced to live in cars (if they’re lucky) and tents; and how Muni, never a paragon of reliability, is getting gridlocked by Ubers and Lyfts.
Enough seems to be enough. Pretending it’s 1985 or (ack) 1955 is not an option. In fact, homelessness and housing are the issues at top of mind for voters throughout California, far more than health care, immigration, or the economy.
So Proposition E is at the top of our local agenda too, even if the Democratic primary is mainly what’s drawing the hordes to the polls on March 3. Like many propositions in every election cycle, Prop E feels like a funhouse mirror. What you see depends on where you stand. One thing is clear, though: The initiative could define San Francisco for decades to come.
It’s complicated, but in essence the proposal would tether the amount of new office construction, which is already subject to limits set by 1986’s Proposition M, to affordable housing development. If affordable housing lags, then the allocation for office space is reduced by the same amount.
That’s appealing in theory. After all, suburban places like Cupertino and Palo Alto, which are happy to welcome tax-rich jobs but not tax-draining residents, should also be building their share of housing. (They’re not, and that’s another story.) Prop E was spurred in large part by the massive Central SoMa redevelopment, which piled on far more office space than housing, drawing criticism from many quarters, including the vehemently pro-housing YIMBY Action.
Won’t Prop E help San Francisco achieve a more righteous balance? Let’s just build a lot more affordable housing … right? That’s complicated too. Neighborhoods like the Mission and South of Market are wary, if not downright exhausted, of bearing the city’s housing burden.
In addition, vast swaths of the city show no appetite for development, not even affordable housing. Retiring Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer promised in 2016 to find affordable housing sites in the Richmond; there are four developments listed in the city’s pipeline that will bring 20, that’s right, 20 affordable units total to District 1. One of her predecessors, Jake McGoldrick, recently said that a plan to make the western neighborhoods build more housing was akin to rape. At the same meeting, Noe Valley’s Ozzie Rohm said it wasn’t fair to build on the west side because it’s “where the families and children live.” (Nonsense like that is why public meetings are broken—which is literally the headline of this post.)
Folks like McGoldrick and Rohm and many others supporting Prop E have been around a long time, and at best, they have not been beneficial in dealing with high housing costs, scarcity, and displacement. There’s no reason to believe they’ll suddenly open their arms to much-needed development of any kind. In other words, Prop E is backed by many of the same people who backed and reinforced policies that helped exacerbate San Francisco’s housing and displacement crisis in the first place.
I’ll expand on this: The signed supporters of arguments supporting Prop E are a who’s who of established antigrowth advocates, longtime NIMBYs, and local politicos. Here’s a longish list of the worst offenders: former mayor Art Agnos, former supervisor Tom Ammiano, former supervisor John Avalos, former supervisor David Campos, the anti-SB 50 Council of Community Housing Organizations, John Elberling (the point person for the proposition), former supervisor Matt Gonzalez, the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, Sue Hestor (“San Francisco’s best-known NIMBY lawyer”), former supervisor Jane Kim, former supervisor Quentin Kopp, former supervisor Eric Mar, Supervisor Dean Preston (“‘YIMBY’ is just another word for developer”), San Franciscans for Reasonable Growth (which sponsored 1986’s Prop M), and don’t-build diehard Calvin Welch.
Demolishing the California Dream: How San Francisco Planned Its Own Housing Crisis
Notice the word “former” popping out more than a few times? This is the same old gang that’s in denial about what it has wrought in San Francisco, and it’s hard to see how this hidebound group can bring about anything resembling progress on affordability — a cruel irony, since affordable housing is the rationale for the initiative itself.
If the city lacks the political will to build enough housing to loosen the Prop E office cap, the stalled development could create a vicious cycle, taking away fees that pay for affordable housing, transportation, and other services. The city’s chief economist reported last month that passage of Prop E could throw the local economy into reverse, with our gross domestic product potentially coming in $23 billion lower by 2040, and depressing employment by almost 8%, amplifying warnings from San Francisco business leaders. (Prop E’s supporters dismissed the report as “crass propaganda.”) Slower office growth cannot lead to a more affordable, equitable, diverse city. Obstructionist housing rules must change too.
When you read the fine print, you can see Prop E has a lot of loopholes. For one, it only applies to “large” office projects of more than 50,000 square feet. Anything less won’t apply to the cap. What’s more, Central SoMa is also exempt. But the larger point is Prop E might end up being more grandstanding than effective policy.
Don’t be thrown by the us vs. them rhetoric that puts developers on the anti-Prop E side. Developers stand to gain from Prop E; those that pledge to build affordable housing will likely be at the front of the queue for new projects in the neighborhood. (Nonprofit developer Todco — for which, surprise, John Elberling is executive director — already owns and manages eight affordable housing properties South of Market.)
Yet, as one of the best political reporters in the city writes, this proposition will pass “barring unforeseen lunacy.” The rest of us will likely have to live with an ideological cabal’s diktat that says building new housing actually makes life harder for people. It’s more than a small part of the reason why SF is so fundamentally messed up.
Let’s get to the rest of the propositions on the upcoming ballot:
Proposition A: City College Job Training, Repair and Earthquake Safety Measure
The City College of San Francisco has been a shambles for years. According to the school’s trustees, more than two-thirds of the main campus facilities are in “poor condition.” Students tell the SF Chronicle that problems include everything from leaky roofs to rats. This year, the college is once again in trouble, spending $14 million more than it had in its last fiscal year.
Let’s first put this in perspective: San Francisco has an annual budget of more than $12 billion. The city must structurally repair CCSF’s funding stream. Shorter term, Prop A seeks to show resilient students some respect and fix the decaying buildings and infrastructure ASAP.
Prop A requires 55 percent of the vote to pass and would levy an additional $11 to each $100,000 of assessed value to homeowners’ properties. City College is essential for the city’s equity, diversity, and opportunity. You know what else would help its students? Housing. Especially those who have created DIY homes-on-wheels parked near campus.
Proposition B: Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond
This measure would issue bonds to bolster the city’s response to fire, earthquakes, and emergencies. Bonds are essentially a means for borrowing money; if the city sells all the bonds issued, it would raise more than $628 million. That shmoney would be used to pay for improvements and seismic upgrades of fire and police stations, as well as the 911 call center, along with building new stations, an emergency water system, a firefighting training campus, and other facilities.
San Francisco’s supervisors voted to place this measure on the ballot, because it seems that’s easier than actually sourcing and raising the funds from our $12 billion budget. It also requires a two-thirds vote to pass.
Proposition C: Retiree Health Care Benefits for Former Employees of the SF Housing Authority
This proposition would make health care coverage available to certain retired city employees who previously worked for the SF Housing Authority based on their combined years of service. This seems like the kind of bureaucratic stuff our elected officials should deal with and not punt on, but unfortunately it’s an amendment to the city charter and so it has to go before the voters.
Proposition D: Vacancy Tax
Retail is changing. With a few notable exceptions, it’s hard to compete against e-commerce. Rents are rising. Real-estate data firm CoStar puts the citywide vacancy rate at 3.5%, below what’s considered normal, but some neighborhoods are clearly worse than others with plenty of empty, papered-over, or boarded-up storefronts.
The most granular data comes from city’s Office of Economic Workforce Development, which surveys 24 retail corridors. As of December 2019, the average rate was nearly four times the CoStar count.
What should be done? Should San Francisco untangle its hairball of a permitting process, which can be disastrous for small entrepreneurs? Could it relax the restrictions on chain stores that are interested in high-traffic locations? That’s what a lot of businesspeople and real-estate agents say. Or should we tax landlords and tenants whose storefronts remain empty for at least half a year? Eight supervisors say the latter, convinced that those responsible will fear the fines and scramble to fill their spaces.
Again, there are caveats. There’s wiggle room for tenants with multiyear leases. Fines, based on the size of a space’s street frontage, might not have much teeth; revenues would add up to “a de minimis amount,” according to the city controller. Also, the fines would not apply to nonprofit organizations.
At least the city has a storefront count, albeit limited. If Prop D passes (it needs two-thirds of the vote), we might know within a year or two if it’s working. Then again, efforts to speed up permitting might deserve credit too.
Happy voting! What you support, oppose, or abstain from this time around will make history.
Special thanks for Alex Lash for, among other things, fishing out the OEWD data on vacancies. Follow Anthony Lazarus on Twitter: @Sr_Lazarus
