Housing and Tech Industry Showdown on the San Francisco Ballot

For years now, the news from San Francisco has spoken of bubbling over tensions with regard to the demographic forces at work as the booming tech industry takes a greater hold on the city's neighborhoods. The chickens will come home to roost, tomorrow, however.

"On Tuesday, San Francisco voters will weigh in on 11 propositions and candidates for various offices in an election that has essentially become a referendum on the city’s booming technology industry and a vehicle for voters to vent as they seethe over the sky-high housing prices that have come with it," according to an article by Conor Dougherty.

Dougherty adds: "Seven of the propositions on the San Francisco ballot are either directly or indirectly related to the technology industry and housing costs." That includes Proposition F, which will limit the number of short-term rentals (i.e., Airbnb supply), and "two affordable-housing measures and a proposal to help old-line businesses make rent in neighborhoods that are filling up with boutiques and organic restaurants."

Savvy observers of the San Francisco political scene will also recall Proposition I, or the "City of San Francisco Mission District Housing Moratorium Initiative," which would place an 18-month moratorium on the construction of market rate, multi-family residential developments.