FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, 415-554-6131

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MAYOR LONDON BREED’S LEGISLATION TO KEEP ENDANGERED HOUSING PROJECTS MOVING FORWARD UNANIMOUSLY PASSES BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Legislation will ensure 2,298 housing units—including nearly 340 affordable units—are not derailed by unrealistic permitting deadlines

San Francisco, CA — Today the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation introduced by Mayor London N. Breed that will protect 2,298 units of housing, including 340 units of affordable housing, in San Francisco’s pipeline that were at-risk due to unrealistic permitting deadlines. The legislation is part of Mayor Breed’s efforts to ensure that San Francisco builds at least 5,000 new homes per year to address the high cost of housing.

When San Francisco changed its affordable housing requirements in 2016, a number of projects were grandfathered in at specific inclusionary rates to keep them moving through the approval process. However, they were only given 30 months to get their site permits, and many projects had not gone through the City’s entitlement process. Many of these projects would not have met this deadline, and were at risk of not moving forward if they did not.

The legislation will extend the deadline for projects to secure building permits by 18 months to ensure that they still move forward in a timely manner, while also recognizing that the projects should not be penalized for a long entitlement process.

“In order for families and working people to be able to afford to live in San Francisco, we need to build more housing. We have failed for decades to create enough housing to keep pace with job and population growth, and as a result we now have some of the highest rents in the world,” said Mayor Breed. “This legislation will prevent the loss of thousands of new homes as we work to speed up the approval process for new housing.”

Following the passage of Proposition C in June 2016, which raised the City’s inclusionary rate for new housing projects, a number of existing projects were grandfathered in at specific inclusionary rates in recognition that they should not be subject to new standards mid-project. These projects were given 30 months to receive their building permits before their grandfathered inclusionary rate would expire.

The intent of this deadline was to encourage these projects to be built quickly, but many have not been able to move through the complicated planning process. With the December 7^th permitting deadline approaching for these grandfathered projects, many were at risk of facing new inclusionary requirements that would likely cause them to be abandoned.

Mayor Breed recently announced the creation of the position of Director of Housing Delivery, who will be tasked with working with a Housing Delivery Team to move projects through the permitting process and propose reforms to streamline the approval process.

The Board will have to pass a final vote on the legislation before it goes to the Mayor for her signature.

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