As San Francisco attempts to increase the amount of much-needed housing in the city, local government has passed an initiative to develop underused spaces in existing homes and complexes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a measure on July 26 that permits landlords and home owners to carve new housing units out of unused spaces such as storage facilities, attics, basements, and garages. The legislation will soon go to Mayor Ed Lee, who is expected to sign it into law.
These new units, often called in-law units, are hoped to alleviate the city’s notable shortage of housing, which has caused rent prices to rise 50 percent since 2008.
City planners estimate that the new ability to develop in-law units will create as many as 14,000 new units, good news for a city that struggled to add 3,000 new units in all of 2015.
It is also thought that the sudden influx of housing will drive down rent prices in the city. Many of the new units are expected to have lower-than-average rents due to their generally small size.
Measures similar to this one have been proposed to the city government multiple times in the past but were frequently defeated due to fears of overcrowding.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who co-sponsored the measure, was pleased with the success the legislation saw this time around.
Whether it’s a shift in thinking or an adjustment to the crisis at hand, it is a sea change,” he said.
The bill limits complexes with fewer than five existing units to one in-law unit; larger structures are allowed an unlimited number of new in-law units.
Many still have doubts about the measure, notably the fact that there have been no accompanying plans for creating additional parking.
City planner Mike Antonini worries that the bill has not provoked enough careful consideration from members of the city government.
“It’s been rushed up very quickly because there’s this whole conception that we have this housing crisis,” he said.
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The City of San Francisco is set to revamp over a thousand units of public housing this summer in a new project made possible by an injection of federal dollars.
Housing Finance reports that the project, which will affect 1,422 units located across 14 properties in the city, is set to cost $693 million in repairs and improvements to housing designed for low-income San Franciscans.
That price tag is far above what the San Francisco Housing Authority would normally be able to afford. For this project, the city is enjoying help from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C. and its RAD program.
RAD, or Rental Assistance Demonstration, allows cities to turn public housing projects over to HUD and receive federal money. In turn, the city makes what was once temporary public housing into Section 8 units, which have long-term contracts.
The move creates a more stable source of income and justification to spend more money in renovations.
It is unclear the extent of the renovations that are being done and if they are meant only to improve the look and quality of the units or if they are meant to create room for more tenants.
Once the 14 properties are completed, an additional 15 properties will be undertaken in the improvement project.
The effort to improve San Francisco’s public housing has enlisted a large ensemble of companies and groups, including Bank of America, Freddie Mac, and the city itself.
“It’s the entire San Francisco affordable housing ecosystem working together for the common goal of preserving affordable housing formerly run by the housing authority,” says Olson Lee, director of the Office of Housing and Community Development for the Mayor.
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In a matter of days, San Francisco voters will have the chance to vote on a referendum that could majorly impact the development of housing across the city and, depending who you ask, ease or exacerbate the Bay Area’s need for more affordable housing.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that on June 7, voters will be able to vote on Proposition C, which will require housing developers to rent an unprecedented amount of its units at prices considered below market value.
Currently, the City Charter mandates that developers sell or rent at least 12 percent of its units at affordable, below-market prices. Proposition C looks to raise that number to 25 percent and give the city’s Board of Supervisors the power to raise or lower the requirement.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a co-author of Propsiton C, states that the legislation’s goal “is to push the development community to do as much as is maximally feasible without diminishing new housing starts.”
Many of San Francisco’s elected officials, including Mayor Ed Lee and the entire board, see the initiative as a way to ensure that more affordable housing is built for the city’s residents, who already face the highest rent prices in the United States and have seen home prices skyrocket twelve percent in the last year.
Many housing developers, however, warn that Proposition C will stifle the building of affordable units instead of encouraging it by making building in San Francisco more expensive.
Developer Oz Erickson describes it as “well-intentioned legislation that is not grounded in economic reality.” Erickson says that, using San Francisco’s unionized labor force, he is unsure of how economically feasible meeting Proposition C’s requirements will be.
While the initiative was being crafted by the Board of Supervisors, large numbers of developers visited City Hall to voice their disapproval of the legislation. This did not stop the board unanimously approved the proposition.
However, developers did win a victory after the referendum was already approved to be on the city’s ballot; amendments were passed to exempt current housing projects from the 25 percent threshold. This was to ensure that developments already in progress would not be killed because they were not in accordance with the legislation.
No other city has an affordable unit requirement as high as 25 percent. In New York City, the number is 20 percent and in San Jose it is only 15. Many cities, including Los Angeles, have no requirement at all.
In addition, not one of the city’s developments currently meet the initiative’s requirements. This means that developers will have to seriously change the way they build if voters pass Proposition C.
It is apparent that, good or bad, if Proposition C passes, San Francisco will be heading into uncharted waters. It will soon be up to voters to decide whether or not the city will head into those waters and potentially determine the direction of the city’s housing development for decades.
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