Political Battles Heating Up Over Affordable Housing in San Francisco

Lamar Anderson reports on the strange politics of affordable housing in San Francisco, where a recently proposed ballot measure that would simplify the approval process for affordable housing met public resistance from affordable housing advocates.

Supervisor Scott Wiener proposed a measure that would waived the need for a conditional use permit for housing projects that include 100 percent affordable units for middle and low-income residents. Anderson's take on what happened when the San Francisco Planning Commission examined the issue in December: "Getting affordable housing built faster: Sounds like a no-brainer, right? But the same proposal met with pushback at a December Planning Commission hearing—even from some members of the affordable housing community, whom the measure is meant to help."

Anderson reports some of the details of the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering by affordable housing organizations, as well as Supervisor Wiener, before identifying the issue at the heart of the controversy: the conditional use permit. "A criticism that came up often at December's Planning hearing was, essentially, that more people need more opportunities to weigh in more via more process," according to Anderson. From the opposing point of view, time is money, and conditional use permits slow the approval process even when everything goes perfectly.

To conclude, Anderson speculates along the lines of a soundbite Wiener originally provided to Emily Green at the San Francisco Chronicle: that the opposition to the ballot measure is more about personality politics than actively seeking the best possible solutions for the city's housing crisis.