wouldn’t that be better than relying on a six-week old beyond chron blog post?
bonus question: why do you think beyond chron ignored reporting on the resolution when it passed?

then, i suggest you check out the supervisors’ meeting on january 9, where they passed the resolution unanimously, and acknowledged that some of the exact same arguments you present in this thread … are incorrect.
http://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=10&clip_id=2953

then, if you really want to talk productively about housing policy, i suggest you check out the state law that requires cities to have a housing element in their general plan that actually meets quantified objectives for affordable housing. (it isn’t really an option to throw your hands up and say it’s impossible. if the state finds out, they can suspend your general plan … … and therefore bar your planning and building departments from issuing any building permits. check out what they’re doing to the city of pleasanton sometime.)

here’s one quote from section 65583 of that law:
“The housing element shall identify adequate sites for
housing, including rental housing … and shall make adequate provision for the existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community…”

and then, check out the housing element of the city’s general plan, where fully eight of the twelve Objectives listed in the Housing Element (Objectives 1,3,4,5,6,7, 10 and 12) and 41 of the 69 supporting policies commit the City to a multi faceted program of increasing affordable housing opportunities.
http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp?id=41412

maybe then we can actually discuss the issues involved with this resolution, which does nothing more than commit the City to following what it promises in the housing element of its general plan.

or, you can just be lazy and continue to argue against this resolution (that has already passed by unanimous vote, and that the planning department is already working on compliance) because you think it does things that it doesn’t. your choice.

since the dot-com boom and bust, the City’s population has gone down.”

Uh… your example proves that supply demand applies in SF. When prices for housing was going through the roof (no pun intended), INVENTORY (supply) of housing was at an all time low. Look at inventory now, it’s relatively high and housing prices have softened.

Tony, you are correct and I DID NOT ready Maxwell’s plan for affordable housing. Maybe I should but whether this plan requires developers to set aside 64% affordable housing, or to designate certain cites for affordable housing, it will not work.

Anyways, what’s wrong with market rate housing? I’m so confused. BMR housing is just another form of public housing. There are so many restrictions on how much you can sell your house for and all that other crap it’s so stupid. You’re not really wholly owning the house then.

The current 10-15% requirements for affordable housing is fine as it is. If Maxwell’s resolution will keep BMR housing at 10-15% then I have nothing to complain. Otherwise, this resolution sucks. It will not work.

Even if they find ways to INITIALLY fund this stupid 64% requirement, there will be dire long term consequences for the community that will not be reversable. Looks like the Eastern part of SF will be forever be the bad part of SF.

I find no clear explanation of this ‘here’. I have no idea of the substance of your point. If you *argue* that the Beyone Chron article is incorrect, and you can point out where, and substantiate your views, I will credit that. But assertion and short cut are not convincing.

“the resolution does not burden any developer, because it can’t.”

This is rhetorical. If the resolution tells the planning dept to burden the developer, than the effect is the same. This is disingenuous.

The issue really is, what is the effect of a 64% affordability requirement on development? Does it stop development?

You say the resolution tells the planning dept to ‘identify sites’. It’s hard to know what this means in the real world. Sites owned by the city? Sites purchased for affordable housing? One of the biggest expenses for housing is land. who pays for this? What does it mean - that the planning dept identifies ’sites’ for private developers?

If your intent is to make this resolution seem sensible, you have a chance here to make your case. Short cuts don’t make your case. Lack of substantive arguments & explanation don’t make your case.

My understanding of the 64% requirement is that it was based on an understanding of the need for affordable housing, and not an understanding of what could actually be built with existing resources. In the real world, this distinction matters - alot.

You say that the planning dept says “that the 64% affordability goal is difficult but attainable, using a variety of methods and policies that go well beyond one requirement placed on market-rate development.”

What you’re saying here is that we’ll get our affordable housing not only by restricting commercial development but also by “a variety of
methods and policies”. Now I really know what you’re talking about (NOT).

Let’s see: we don’t need to worry about shutting down development because of ’sites’ and ‘a variety of methods and policies’. Huh?

it’s already been mentioned here that the Beyond Chron article you linked is incorrect, and closely tied to a particular developer’s (false) argument that was advanced in december.

at the board of supervisors vote earlier this month, a number of supervisors made clear that that argument - that the resolution requires private builders to meet a 64% affordability standard - was incorrect and a misreading of the resolution. that was one reason why the resolution was passed unanimously.

again i ask, have you READ the resolution? did you watch or listen to the supervisors’ debate on the resolution this month? it really sounds like you haven’t.

the resolution does not burden any developer, because it can’t. it does instruct the planning department to come up with area plans for the eastern neighborhoods that satisfy the city’s general plan - and that includes identifying SITES sufficient to meet the demand for affordable housing specified in the general plan’s housing element.
that is very different from your claims of the resolution does.

the planning department has said publicly, on numerous occasions, while creating the housing element of the general plan and since, that the 64% affordability goal is difficult but attainable, using a variety of methods and policies that go well beyond one requirement placed on market-rate development. the resolution simply instructs them to stick to that standard. and, since the passage of the resolution, the department has been working on ways to accomplish those goals. i hope we’ll see their progress on that and other goals the next time they present their area plans to Potrero Hill in late march.

please, do not accuse me of not arguing in good faith when you don’t have the facts.

Your argument above does not meet that standard.

It is disingenuous to assert that requiring 64% of new housing be affordable does not put a stop to development.

I could say, we are going to improve San Francisco’s high school education by requiring all students to go to schools with high test scores. That would be a disingenuous argument, because there isn’t room in those high schools and some students wouldn’t get to go to high school at all.

That is like what you are doing. Yes the goal of
64% affordable new housing is a great goal. But since it can’t be done,
it’s grandstanding and a sound bite, and the policy has destructive effects
of stopping new housing in its tracks.

On December 12, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on a resolution requiring that housing built in the city’s Eastern Neighborhoods be 64% affordable. Since no nonprofit housing has been built in the area for sixteen years, and no private builder can afford the 64% affordability requirement, the measure sponsored by Supervisors Maxwell and McGoldrick effectively ends new construction in the area. The city’s inclusionary housing law requires developers to provide 15% affordability, but that law seeks to provide affordable housing. In contrast, the 64% requirement is seen as necessary to prevent new market-rate housing from being built. Of course, Maxwell and McGoldrick’s opposition to market-rate housing is selective. The duo supports thousands of market-rate, gentrifying units in Bayview-Hunters Point, as well as luxury housing downtown. This resolution is not about stopping market-rate housing—it’s about giving Maxwell and McGoldrick control over where it gets built, and by whom….

Maxwell’s resolution will enable lower Potrero Hill to sit fallow while the city awaits the return of manufacturing to its former industrial sites. But the resolution will not reduce the construction of market-rate housing in San Francisco. It simply shifts such housing to be the neighborhoods where politically favored developers like the Lennar Corp. desire to build.

Maxwell argued at the Land Use Committee that opponents of the measure are over-reacting, as the 64% rule is “only a Resolution.” But if it the measure is meaningless, why did she bother to draft it, quickly set it for hearing, and push for its passage?

If the Board wants to ban future market-rate housing in the city, it should pass an ordinance to that effect. But making believe that San Francisco is stopping the scourge of market-rate housing when the city is simply redirecting it to certain neighborhoods—particularly the low-income, African-American community of Bayview-Hunters Point—is dishonest.

link: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4000

have you read it? from your comments here, it seems that you haven’t.

it’s a resolution directing the planning department to attempt to meet its own goals, as stated in the city’s general plan, when developing area plans for the eastern neighborhoods. it never supports or proposes a stop to development.

the planning department’s own documents quantify both the need for 64% of new housing to be affordable, and the capabilities of various planning efforts and policies to meet that goal. the need to develop affordable housing, and provide SITES to develop affordable housing, has never been solely a burden on market-rate developers, and the resolution doesn’t ban any kind of development at all.

really, there are so many misunderstandings, incorrect assertions, and flat-out whoppers in this thread, it would take too many hours to dredge all of it.

the city’s general plan, housing element, and Mayor’s Office of Housing is very clear about all of this, and i wish folks would be more familiar with it AND the resolution before making assumptions about supply/demand curves and the like.

what’s more, there is funding available to build more low and moderate-income housing; but nonprofit housing developers can’t get their hands on any sites to build that housing. THAT is what the maxwell resolution is about, and it says so very clearly.

another point: the 15-20% below-market housing requirement on market-rate housing doesn’t help us meet the demand for affordable housing. all that does is mitigate the impact of the market-rate housing itself. the recent Keyser Marston study of market rate housing shows that. (here’s what they found in their analysis: new market rate housing brings new residents, with new disposable income, requiring new workers to provide goods and services for that income; those new workers are generally paid less, and need housing somewhere in the vicinity of the new housing, and therefore … you need new below-market housing.)

lastly, no one is trying to kill Trinity Plaza; they’re just trying to make it comply with the new law mandating a proper percentage of affordable units. sheesh.

The richness of 18th St. was not due to planning (or grandstanding) by the Board of Supervisors– it happened organically, over time, and influenced by market forces– a demand for the services provided there.

The 64% affordable housing requirement is ridiculous–there’s no way to fund it. The major funding mechanism for building affordable housing is the current requirement of 15-20% affordable (below-market) units in market-rate developments. Also, Maxwell has supported a moratorium on building housing in the eastern neighborhoods. This will just serve to drive up prices, and reduce the number of affordable housing units built.

Lastly, Maxwell and McGoldrick’s efforts to kill Trinity Plaza, with its hundreds of affordable rental units, have been counterproductive. Why not let Chris Daly take the lead on this– it’s in his district.