Housing: Creating a Pro-Housing City

Mayor London Breed has transformed San Francisco’s reputation as the City of “No” to the City of Yes. With changes that have been put in place and are now moving forward, San Francisco can meet its goals of adding more than 80,000 new homes both through large projects that are creating whole new neighborhoods and building apartment complexes throughout San Francisco, including in neighborhoods where this kind of construction had previously been banned.

For years, San Francisco has been a City mired in obstructionism and anti-housing policies that blocked and slowed housing production. When Mayor Breed took office, she set as one of her top goals to turn San Francisco into a City that leads on housing. As someone who has witnessed her family, friends and neighbors displaced by bad housing policies, she understands at a personal level what more housing meant for this City. She knows City workers who have been forced to commute long distances from far-flung cities. She knows the families who cannot afford to grow here and the seniors who are fearful of losing their homes.

Mayor Breed brought that understanding of the need for more housing to every decision she made. It was the driving force behind her leadership on both local and state policies. For her, this wasn’t theory – it was understanding the lives of people trying to find an affordable life in all corners of this City.

Under Mayor Breed, San Francisco passed an ambitious Housing Element that set the framework for building 82,000 new homes over eight years. And then Mayor Breed followed that up by immediately issuing her Housing for All Executive Directive to put that plan into action. She passed laws to reduce fees, cut red tape, and eliminate barriers and unnecessary bureaucratic processes. She implemented administrative plans to streamline permitting. She oversaw the advancement of major housing projects at Potrero Power Station, Mission Bay, Pier 70, Treasure Island, Stonestown Development Project, and 3333 California that will lead to the creation of new neighborhoods and tens of thousands of homes. She supported and helped pass state law changes that have reduced the time it takes to get new housing approved and built by years.

As the first Mayor to place affordable housing into the City’s Capital Plan, ensuring that housing bonds were considered as infrastructure, she brought a new level of investment to affordable housing. Under her leadership, San Francisco passed two housing bonds and has constructed thousands of new affordable homes. Even during the pandemic, when the entire City was shut down, Mayor Breed made sure affordable housing construction was allowed to continue as an essential service so those badly needed new homes would not be delayed even by a pandemic.

To keep people stable in their homes, Mayor Breed supported and expanded tenant protection programs, including making San Francisco the first city in the country to fully fund the Tenant Right to Counsel, ensuring all tenants have legal representation in eviction proceedings. San Francisco also has delivered homelessness prevention funding that provides emergency support to prevent people from falling into homelessness.

All of this work took years of reforms, effort and a willingness to stand up to those who oppose housing. It took wrestling with entrenched interests and decades of In the last two years of Mayor Breed’s tenure in particular, this work bore fruit. After the Board of Supervisors rejected 500 new homes in Downtown San Francisco, the State of California rebuked and initiated a review of all of the City’s housing policies. Mayor Breed met this challenge and worked with the state to put in place policies to prevent local obstructionism from blocking housing. In 2024, in a remarkable turnaround, the state dubbed San Francisco a pro-housing city, unlocking affordable housing and transit funding for the city, and just as importantly, recognizing that San Francisco had made transformative change from a City of no to a City of yes.

Mayor Breed has set the standard for what it means to be a pro-housing Mayor, not just in San Francisco, but across the entire state of California.

San Francisco was one of only two Bay Area cities to have its state-mandated Housing Element certified on time, a state-mandated plan to build 82,000 homes by 2031. To meet the goals set out in the Housing Element, Mayor Breed issued Housing for All Executive Directive 23–01 (link to official press release) to fundamentally change how San Francisco approves and builds housing. This includes:

• Unlocking the Housing Pipeline: This new law enables a targeted form of public financing that will allow for the construction of critical infrastructure necessary for stalled housing development projects to proceed. Potrero Power Station, a 2,600-unit housing project located in the Southeastern part of the City, was the first project to opt into using this new tool. Stonestown and 3333 California (UCSF and CPMC site in Laurel Heights) have also opted into this new tool.
• Reducing Housing Fees: This law reduced inclusionary housing requirements and other impact fees both for pipeline projects and new projects. This legislation emerged from the work of the Inclusionary Housing Technical Advisory Committee, which found that most projects were infeasible at the existing inclusionary housing fee rates.
• Streamlining Housing Approvals: This law delivered housing constraints reforms that simplify the Planning Department approval process for new housing. These reforms eliminated unnecessary review and approval processes, removed restrictive standards and geographic limitations that impede new housing, and expanded incentives for affordable housing construction.
• Supporting Downtown through Office-to-Residential Conversions: Mayor Breed authored a ballot measure to eliminate the transfer tax for buildings converting from office to housing, which was approved by the voters in March 2024. She authored “adaptive reuse” legislation that makes it easier to convert old, underutilized office buildings into housing.
• Reforming Bureaucratic Systems: The One City ActionPlan describes the actions and strategies being implemented by a dozen City departments to streamline City’s complex, interdepartmental approval processes, allowing projects to move forward to construction more efficiently. As a result of these reforms, the City has established parallel processing of building permits and has created a more responsive permitted experience through the Permit Center, including meeting established “shot clocks” that guarantee the timely and transparent review of building permit applications within 30 or 60 days depending on project size.

More Pro-Housing Wins

Major State Law Changes
Mayor Breed worked closely with our state legislators and state housing regulators at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to advance housing policy changes that will deliver more housing in San Francisco. Overall, pressure from the state has significantly limited the Board of Supervisors’ ability to block projects and pro-housing policies.

Examples of state bills include:

• SB 423 streamlined code-compliant housing projects in San Francisco. This means that 75% of housing projects in San Francisco are now over the counter, eliminating months and years off their approvals.
• AB 1114 eliminated appeals of building permits in San Francisco and reduced DBI response times.
• SB 593 created a tax increment financing mechanism for replacing more than 5,800 units of low- and moderate-income housing that were demolished in the 1950s-70s period of redevelopment.

Cars to Casas

Mayor Breed passed her Cars to Casas law to remove arbitrary density limits (i.e., apply density decontrol) on auto-oriented lots and eliminate the need for conditional approval to remove an existing automotive use. This legislation also reduced parking maximums to encourage new housing development that is less car-dependent.

Permitting

• Permit Center
• The City opened the Permit Center in 2021 and offers 23 distinct service areas through the Planning Department, Department of Building Inspection, Department of Public Health, and the Department of Public Works, among others. By centralizing services in one place, customers can move between permitting departments efficiently, resulting in a better experience and improved government function. Since the start of 2024, the Permit Center has served an average of 191 customers per day and provides on average 531 services daily.

Affordable Housing Funding & Production

Affordable Housing Bond Funding: Mayor Breed has passed two affordable housing bonds since taking office, Prop A (2019) for $600M and Prop A (2024) for $300M.

Affordable Housing Construction Data: Under Mayor Breed’s leadership since 2019, San Francisco has built over 4,900 new deed-restricted affordable homes, with nearly 3,000 more units slated to be completed, continue construction, or break ground soon. This includes 3,500 units in 100% affordable projects funded through MOHCD or OCII.

Neighborhood Preference

As supervisor, Mayor Breed established San Francisco’s program to ensure that 25% of new units in affordable housing buildings are set aside for residents of the neighborhood in which the building is located. This program prevents displacement and keeps San Franciscans in their communities.

Hope SF

Led the revitalization of three HopeSF sites — Sunnydale, Potrero, and Hunters View. At Sunnydale, 222 units have been completed, with 178 more finishing in 2025. The Hub also opened as a community center and resource, with a new gym also opening next year. At Potrero, the first new building opened with 72 units in 2019, with a 167-unit building opening in 2025. The last phase of Hunters View, which consists of new streets, a park and two buildings 118 affordable units, will finish in 2025. All of these projects also anticipate market-rate housing, but that has been stalled by economic conditions arising from the pandemic.

Development Agreement Projects

Worked to advance 45,000 + new homes at projects across almost 20 projects. Many of these projects were approved prepandemic and have required the city to go back and come up with creative ways to keep them moving forward in changing economic environments. The work Mayor Breed has done has keep these projects that will provide the bulk of San Francisco’s future housing moving forward.

Significant Construction

• Mission Rock saw the first full phase completed this year, with 537 units across two buildings — the Canyon and Verde — and two commercial buildings, including one that is now the Global Headquarters of Visa, as well as China Basin Park, a stunning open space right across McCovey Cove from Oracle Park.
• Treasure Island has seen continuous construction over the last six years, with the first major phase of infrastructure on Yerba Buena and Treasure islands complete and many new buildings and parks completed or under construction. More than 600 units are complete, including two new 100% affordable buildings — Maceo May and Star View Court. A park with sweeping views and world-class art graces Yerba Buena Island, and Cityside Park on Treasure Island will open in 2025. A ferry serves the island, and the western ramps from the Bay Bridge are all being rebuilt. After the project was renegotiated this year, construction on phase 2 is expected to start in 2025.
• Potrero Power Station pushed to start construction of its infrastructure during the pandemic (in part with the support of the new public financing tool), and now many of the streets are nearing completion. The first 105-unit affordable project is under construction, and the project received approval this year to be the site of a future UCSF cutting edge cancer center.
• Plumbers Union was almost entirely completed during the pandemic — only the renovation of the Civic Center Hotel remains. In addition to a new union hall, the project delivered 535 new homes and a small park that will open soon.
• 5M saw its first phase completed during the pandemic, with the 302-unit building The George, a new office building and a park.
• Pier 70 completed its first phase of infrastructure, but the developer did not pursue the construction of new residential or commercial buildings because of economic conditions. A significant investment was made, though, in the rehabilitation of historic Building 12, which is now home to many businesses and regularly hosts cultural events.
• Hunters Point Shipyard Phase 1 saw continued construction on new residential units in recent years, with a 77-unit market rate building completed in 2023 and three affordable buildings totaling almost 200 units finishing in 2025.
• Mission Bay is nearing completion after 25 years but has continued to see new housing and parks in recent years. An affordable homeownership project with 148 units just finished, and the impressive Bayfront Park opened in October.

Projects Moving Toward Construction

• 3333 California is working with OEWD to use the new public financing tool, which will also cover the non-DA project at 3700 California, to start construction as soon as possible.
• Balboa Reservoir is expected to begin construction in Q2 of 2025. The first phase will consist of the first two 100% affordable buildings (Buildings E and A) totaling 283 affordable units, as well as all project streets and infrastructure. A significant milestone to get to construction is expected with the Board of Supervisors approval in December of the project’s Final Map.
• India Basin is expected to begin construction on the first phase of project infrastructure in late 2025, with vertical construction on the first phase beginning by 2026 depending on the project’s success at obtaining financing. The project received Planning Commission approval in October 2024 for a redesign of the Flats segment of the project, which will allow a lower density initial phase of 150 market rate homes in 2-unit dwellings, paired with a 100% affordable building of approximately 180 units.
• Candlestick saw a major re-approval this fall that should lead to the start of infrastructure construction in two years.

Projects Approved Recently

• Stonestown’s Development Agreement was approved in July 2024. The initial phase of the 3,500-unit project is expected to include approximately 700 residential units. The developer plans to begin design of the initial phase of buildings and infrastructure in 2025.

Expanding Tenant Protections

A diverse and vibrant City like San Francisco must build more housing while also ensuring that people can stay in the homes they already have. Tenant protections are essential to maintaining social fabric within communities and preventing people from falling into homelessness. Mayor Breed has supported many programs to protect tenants and prevent displacement, including:

• Eviction protections: During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Breed worked quickly to put local emergency eviction protections in place, before state protections went into effect. These protections prevented households from losing their home during the job instability and uncertainty of the early pandemic and are a key part of our homelessness prevention strategy.
• Emergency rental assistance: Mayor Breed supports the City’s emergency rental assistance program, which provides housing cost assistance to households most at risk of housing loss or homelessness. This program helps to stabilize households and prevent homelessness helping low-income residents pay for past-due rent, move-in costs, and/or future rent.
• Tenant right to counsel: Mayor Breed has funded and continues to fund the tenant right to counsel program to provide free legal representation to households at risk of eviction from their landlords. This program has a 92% success rate, meaning that 92% of tenants served by the program retain their current home or settle in a manner that gives them enough time to relocate to alternative housing. Of the tenants served by this program, the majority are people of color, and nearly half are living with a disability. This program is crucial to addressing discriminatory behavior from landlords and preventing at-risk individuals from falling into homelessness.
• Preventing demolition of tenant-occupied buildings: Mayor Breed strongly supports the streamlining of housing, but I do not support the streamlined demolition of tenant-occupied buildings. Mayor Breed supports the common-sense protections that exist in local and state law to ensure that unscrupulous property owners are not displacing tenants as part of the development process. As someone who has lived in the Western Addition and has witnessed the mass displacement of communities, I am dedicated to avoiding the errors of our past.