Interesting post for our San Fran friends to ponder

Bringing Affordable Housing Back to the Bay Area—Quickly
site-iconglobest.com/commentary/legislative/Bringing-Affordable-Housing-Back-to-the-Bay-AreaQuickly-346593.html
By Patrick Valentino, partner, real estate group, VLP Law Group | Commentary
Proposition B—In the middle of this affordability crises, Proposition B cuts into the heart of housing production because it focuses voters on height, and therefore developers may be compelled to shrink their developments optically in order to convince voters to approve their ballot measure. And to make matters worse, any development terms approved by voters are no longer a “project” with respect to CEQA and therefore will avoid that laws environmental review process. While the initiatives proponents likely were looking to block developments on port lands, the design of their simple proposition—to require a vote of the people of San Francisco if a building is higher than the height limits—left open the question of what a developer needs to bring to the public for a vote beyond a disclosure of height limits. In some areas there are zero foot limits, and therefore Proposition Bs impact could be to drastically reduce the amount of rental and affordable housing that can be built.

Proposition B doesnt inform voters what is a good development or what community benefits might stem from it, whether those benefits are housing supply, parks, open space, funding for repair of sea walls and childcare services. Will shorter buildings be wider and full of offices instead of housing? Will they be blocking views of the bay? Proposition B simply requires that the new height limit be disclosed without anything more. Under the current planning process, all aspects of a development are on the table until a mutually agreeable proposal is negotiated. The developer, the City and the community all weigh in and once agreed, those terms are put forward in a development agreement that would go to the Planning Commission, Port Commission and Board of Supervisors for approval. Public input (through the Advisory Committees, community meetings and at informational presentations to Planning and Port commissions) is incorporated as the plans evolve. If heights are limited by ballot initiative—or any other aspect of a project that is approved by the voters—then planning staff cannot consider what could have been, only what is possible based on project limitations imposed by the voters. Proposition B will either eliminate or delay the development of affordable housing by requiring a public vote on virtually any new housing on Port of San Francisco property.

Where do we Go?

For the waterfront, the plans have been in the works for almost a decade. Nearly 10,000 individuals have attended public meetings just for the Pier 70 development alone. We have in-place a robust community planning process that includes open citizen advisory committees. Utilizing parking lots and abandoned buildings, we have the opportunity to build vibrant urban neighborhoods while contributing to the community and to our scarce housing supply.

A vigorous debate on the Housing Balancing Act is where we should focus our energy. The production of housing is critical to fight our way through this affordability crisis, which all San Franciscans believe is the #1 issue. Proposition B is a huge distraction from that effort. Our supply problem must be addressed immediately, and Proposition B does nothing to attend to that issue but create one more roadblock. If the debate surrounding the Housing Balancing Act relaxes height restrictions on affordable housing, that element would go a long way towards increasing supply.

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