December 1, 2023
The State of California has once again shown that their priority is to punish vulnerable communities in order to give luxury housing developers unchecked power to build whatever they want.
In the letter written by the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) to the City of San Francisco’s Planning Department on November 28, the state declared that they are one step closer to decertifying San Francisco’s Housing Element, which HCD themselves helped write and approved earlier this year. By placing arbitrary deadlines that were nowhere in the original San Francisco Housing Element and by crafting new hurdles that are impossible to meet in the “San Francisco Housing Policy and Practice Review” (PPR) released on October 25, such as changing the SF Charter (which would need to be approved by voters), HCD is signaling that their end goal appears to be to force San Francisco into decertification. Decertification would trigger the so-called “Builder’s Remedy”, which basically gives luxury developers unchecked power over their own project approvals. This is already taking place in other Bay Area cities.
Three major coalitions representing nearly a hundred organizations with decades of experience developing affordable housing, protecting tenants, and building strong communities have joined forces to oppose the State’s attempt to completely take over the City’s housing regulations and strong arm the City. The San Francisco Anti Displacement Coalition (SFADC), the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition – San Francisco (REP-SF), and the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) are urging the Board of Supervisors to pass Board President Aaron Peskin’s Resolution File #231175, pushing back against the state’s arbitrary deadlines and requirements. It will be heard at the SF Land Use Committee on Monday.
“Let’s be clear, this isn’t about improving San Francisco’s approval process or even about building more housing. This is about developer lobbyists controlling Sacramento,” says John Avalos of the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO). “They have doubled down on Statewide housing regulations that are incapable of addressing rising housing insecurity, displacement, and homelessness, but highly capable of carving up precious land for their industry’s profit. Now the housing production system is infected top to bottom with a legalized framework that puts wealth accumulation over the public good,” Avalos continues.
San Francisco already passed legislation earlier this year that would shave off more than a year for approvals. Developers are sitting on 50,000 units that are past all permitting and are not being built because of high financing costs and lower demand by real estate investors who are the real customers for high-end housing. The myriad of developer giveaway legislations that San Francisco already passed this year and the economic conditions post-pandemic are being ignored by the State in their outrageous demands to San Francisco.
The “Builder’s Remedy” would be at the expense of vulnerable communities who desperately need truly affordable housing and are more likely to live in rent-control housing, which are both being threatened by HCD. In HCD’s PPR, they made clear that if the City of San Francisco does not pass the Mayor’s streamlining legislation which removes processes used to protect tenants from eviction and without amendments that would protect the demolition of rent-controlled housing, the State will withdraw funding for affordable housing and transportation to San Francisco.
“It’s really clear who the winners and losers are when it comes to HCD’s strong-arming San Francisco. Luxury developers are going to get automatic approvals for developments that they can cash in for more profits without even building. Meanwhile, low-income communities of color are going to have less affordable places to live and will be silenced,” says Jeantelle Laberinto of the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition – San Francisco (REP-SF).
The author of the November letter, Assistant Deputy Director of HCD David Zisser, and lead researcher for the PPR, Prof. Moira O’Neill, even presented at a developer lobby event on November 28, hosted by YIMBY Action called “Clock’s Ticking” where it was clear that developers are eager for all the power they may soon get when the state removes all of San Francisco’s local decision making power over development.
“It looks to us like the ‘constraints’ HCD is so focused on reducing are actually the people living here,” says Molly Goldberg of the San Francisco Anti Displacement Coalition (SFADC). “Thousands of low-income seniors and working class people who have managed to hang on onto lower rent units could be facing evictions if the Builder’s Remedy kicks in. It’s as if the state sees low-income renters as simply impediments in the way of new luxury condos.”
Encouraging demolition of rent-controlled housing is in blatant violation of the state and city’s civil rights obligation to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing and SF’s Housing Element. This was to be the City’s first Housing Element “centered on racial and social equity.” Instead, the actions of HCD show not just a complete disregard for vulnerable communities, they are openly hostile to them by threatening to tear down low-income housing and silencing communities by removing conditional use hearings and other points of leverage used by tenants and advocates.
“It’s sad and ironic that the author of the November HCD letter, David Zisser, was part of the team that successfully used the very processes that the State wants to gut to replace the ‘Monster in the Mission,’ the notorious luxury development proposed at the 16th Street BART station, with the ‘Marvel in the Mission,’ a 100% affordable housing development,” says Maria Zamudio of the Plaza 16 Coalition. Zisser was an attorney with Public Advocates, the legal firm that supported the Plaza 16 community coalition’s victory.
“Instead of wasting time and resources on taking away communities’ power, the State and the City should be prioritizing ways to build the 46,000 affordable housing units San Francisco needs. This is being completely ignored and so are vulnerable communities,” says Zamudio.