By David Woo, HANC President
On November 15th HANC joined the Race and Equity in All Planning Coalition (REP) in a rally and hearing at City Hall calling for the Citywide People’s Plan (www.repsf.org/citywide-peoples-plan) to be adopted and incorporated into the city’s Housing Element. The REP coalition (HANC is a member organization) demanded that the Housing Element, which currently focuses on market-rate housing, instead center racial and social equity and meet the needs of working class communities and communities of color by putting affordable housing first.
Market-rate housing will never address affordability. As the Director of the Planning Department stated during the Board of Supervisors hearing in response to a question about why approved market-rate units are not getting built, he said “construction costs are high, rents are [too] low…market conditions are not hospitable.” Market-rate projects are about making money. They need high rents to make profit.
Trickle-down Reaganomics says if you build enough, rents will drop. But if you need high rents to build, how do you ever build your way to affordability? You don’t. In reality, as pointed out by the Director of Planning, market-rate production slows and stops when rents come down even a little (which was the result of the pandemic, not housing production) and the market decides it's not profitable enough to build. We cannot continue to follow failed market-driven strategies that lead to further gentrification and displacement. Regulation of the market and the creation of 100% affordable housing is what creates affordability.
While the Mayor, Planning Department, and YIMBYs focus on profit driven market-rate housing, the Citywide People’s Plan (developed by REP drawing on existing community plans and expertise) offers alternative concrete strategies to achieve the state mandated 46,000 units of affordable housing in the next decade. The Citywide People’s Plan centers equity by leading with affordability and development without displacement - exactly what the Housing Element should be doing.
The last day for the City to make changes to the Housing Element was December 1st. It goes to the Board for approval in January. The Final (November, 2022) Draft of the Housing Element can be found here: https://www.sfhousingelement.org/final-draft-housing-element-2022-update.