(CALMATTERS) – On Wednesday, California’s state housing department published the results of a 13-month-long deep dive into San Francisco’s notoriously tortuous, delay-filled and unpredictable housing approval process.
The state’s assessment: The housing policy equivalent of “see me after class.”
According to the Housing and Community Development department’s first-ever “housing policy and practice review”:
“San Francisco has the longest timelines in the state for advancing a housing project from submittal to construction” — 1,128 day average, or nearly a year longer than the second slowest city.
The state has set an annual construction goal of 10,259 new units for San Francisco through 2030 — and city leaders passed a plan to meet it. But in the first six months of 2023, the city permitted only 179.
The report also included 18 “required” actions that the city will need to enact to get off the state’s naughty list. They include nixing approval hearings for many otherwise legally compliance housing projects, removing nebulous terms like “neighborhood character” from approval guidelines and cutting the number of opportunities for project opponents to appeal an approval.
Earlier this year, the department approved San Francisco’s development blueprint for the next seven years, known as its housing element. But the Wednesday report stressed that that approval was contingent on the city actually following through on its plans — a notable warning sign to other cities and counties.
HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez: “Should the city fail to comply with this there will be, potentially, a revocation of its certified housing element and then can lead to further enforcement action.”
As cities across California have discovered, going without a certified housing element comes with big consequences — notably the loss of zoning control.
This isn’t the first time San Francisco has been singled out as the problem child of the California housing crisis. In September, the state Legislature passed a law subjecting the city to a progress review every year, instead of once every four years.