A housing moratorium

EDITORIAL

If you read the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner Feb. 27, you probably got the impression that the biggest problem on the minds of Bay Area residents was the cost of housing and that it was driving as many as 40 percent to consider moving out of town. You also got the clear impression that the best — or maybe the only — solution to high housing costs was to open up more space to let developers build on.

That's horribly misleading. In fact, the survey the Chron and Ex reported on, done by the pro-developer Bay Area Council, found that 35 percent of Bay Area residents think transportation is the most important problem; only 19 percent (roughly half as many) listed housing. Not that housing isn't a massive problem, or that it isn't driving people to leave the region (and keeping people, especially young people and low-income workers, from ever coming to the area in the first place). But the truth is, more people are worried about transportation (which requires, of course, spending public money) than about housing costs (which the BAC and the Chron think can be solved by the private sector).

More important, perhaps, the survey offered only two "solutions" to high-priced housing, asking respondents whether they favored "building more new homes and apartments on vacant lots or underused spaces within existing Bay Area communities, or building more homes on land outside existing Bay Area communities." Not surprisingly (when you ask the question like that), 58 percent favored housing.

The better question — the one the poll didn't ask — goes like this: Do you think letting private developers build more market-rate condos will ever bring the cost of housing in the Bay Area down to a level where the average working-class person can afford a home? The clear evidence over the past half century shows the answer is no.

Polls like this one help developers push for zoning laws that allow more housing in places like southeastern San Francisco — and it's probably not a coincidence that the poll was published just as the San Francisco Planning Commission heads toward its next round of work on new zoning rules for the eastern neighborhoods. The rules are complex, and neighborhood activists have a long list of issues (open space, density, parking, height limits, etc.). Sup. Sophie Maxwell is pushing for stronger rules on the inclusion of some affordable housing.

But fighting the plans line by line and section by section may be a losing battle, since the real issue is much larger: The city wants to allow as many as 40,000 new housing units, almost all of them market-rate (which means $500,000 and up), on the eastern side of town. That will drive out light industry, cause massive gentrification and displacement, and literally change the character of San Francisco.

There's a big problem with that plan, though, and so far it's been under the political radar. On Jan. 24 the San Francisco supervisors overturned a negative environmental declaration for a 68-unit housing development at 2660 Harrison St. The supervisors' vote, on an appeal by attorney Sue Hestor and the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, confirmed that all market-rate housing projects require a cumulative impact analysis. The legal issue is complicated, but the bottom line is simple: Under the precedent of the 2660 Harrison case, the city shouldn't approve any new market-rate housing in the eastern neighborhoods — none at all — until a comprehensive environmental analysis is completed.

Planning director Dean Macris is aware of this and needs to announce at the next commission meeting, on March 2, that a market-rate housing moratorium is in effect for the indefinite future. *