Yes on Proposition D
Make it easier to build homes
What is it?
Proposition D is a Charter Amendment introduced by citizens which will make it easier, faster, and cheaper to build three types of housing:
- Multi-family housing where 100% of the residential units are subsidized at below-market rates
- Multi-family housing with at least 10 units which provides at least 15% more on-site subsidized affordable housing units than currently required
- Multi-family housing for teachers
This is accomplished by streamlining the approvals that home builders must obtain from the City, and which are usually blocked by the anti-housing Board of Supervisors. Prop D allows homes which meet all relevant safety and development standards to bypass the political interference from the Board of Supervisors.
Fiscal impacts
Prop D will not cost the city any money, and in fact is likely to save the city substantial sums because it reduces the bureaucratic overhead and red tape preventing new housing from being built.
Why is this on the ballot?
A coalition of advocacy groups including GrowSF, Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, the NorCal Carpenters Union, SPUR, the Housing Action Coalition, SF YIMBY, and the Greenbelt Alliance gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. We collected signatures from roughly 80,000 San Francisco residents.
This is a City Charter amendment. All charter amendments must be approved by a 50% + 1 majority.
- Sponsors: GrowSF, Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, the NorCal Carpenters Union, SPUR, the Housing Action Coalition, SF YIMBY, and the Greenbelt Alliance
- Placed on ballot by: Signature gathering
- Endorsed by: State Senator Scott Wiener, Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Mission Housing (a nonprofit low-income housing developer), the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club, the Chinese American Democratic Club, the San Francisco Women's Political Committee, the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, the Ed Lee Asian-Pacific Democratic Club, and the United Democratic Club.
Why vote Yes?
Prop D, which is supported by pro-housing State Senator Scott Wiener and Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, will make it easier, faster, and cheaper to build housing.
Currently, nothing in San Francisco is guaranteed by the rule of law: all housing is subject to meddling by the Board of Supervisors, open to lawsuits on spurious environmental grounds, and subject to years-long delays over minor shadows. In other words, San Francisco makes it "insanely hard to build housing."
Prop D will start fixing some of these broken laws that prevent housing construction. Under Prop D, if you comply with the law then you will get your building permit. No more bribes to public officials, no more extortive lawsuits from NIMBY groups, no more uncertainty. This will dramatically decrease the cost of new housing and unblock thousands of homes for middle and low income families.
Prop D isn't perfect (we wish it applied to all housing, not just subsidized housing, and that it allowed demolition and redevelopment of existing housing), but it's a step in the right direction. It sets a precedent that housing is more important than NIMBY concerns about the character of the neighborhood. It enshrines in law the ability for low and middle income home builders to build. And, extremely importantly and undiscussed, it provides a legal mechanism to enact rule-of-law over all housing over time.
Once Prop D is enacted, three kinds of housing will be streamlined:
- Multi-family housing where 100% of the residential units are subsidized at below-market rates
- Multi-family housing with at least 10 units which provides at least 15% more on-site subsidized affordable housing units than currently required
- Multi-family housing for teachers
This is fantastic! This, alone, is reason enough to be a strong Yes on Prop D.
But equally important, and for some reason not discussed in other voter guides or the press, is provision 16.126(d)(2), which states:
[...] the city may enact ordinances applying the [streamlining] controls of [this law...] to additional forms of housing or housing projects
This means that the Board of Supervisors is granted the authority to apply Prop D to more kinds of housing construction in the future. This technocratic change is revolutionary and will actually allow San Francisco to dig itself out of the hole we've dug.