There is a bit of a disconnect between theory and results with the Wiener bills. Art by sfbluecomics.
Commentary: How long can you hold a citizenry hostage to a crisis?
Mass confusion over the meaning and implementation of SB79, which amounts to unlimited growth near mass transit, is sweeping California’s largest cities that are targeted by the one of the most draconian bills ever devised. After turning over the Pacific coastline to developers, and blaming cities for the housing shortage, Senator Wiener, has managed to make almost everyone mad at him. Now it turns out his penchant for writing long, detailed, prescriptive bills is not playing well with the public or city officials who are charged with enforcing what has been described as developer wet dreams.
Give the anger and confusion over SB79 in his district is giving Scott Wiener’s competitors a boost. He is rumored to be considering a delay in implementation of the bill as he seeks support for his new power move to Washington to replace Pelosi.
In his haste to divide and conquer Wiener has succeeded in dividing both his friends and foes, often referred to as YIMBYS and NIMBYS. Wiener is not enjoying a lot of support from the press either. He relies heavily on the Abundant crowd in Silicon Valley, that his constituents are being hammered by. If you were not recently laid off by a high tech firm, you may have lost your income to Waymo or been evicted from a gentrified neighborhood.
Wiener is fighting a Dead horse that is obvious to everyone but him and people are ready to fight back.
There are some gems in this article that covers a lot of the history of how we got here and where the Wiener of the world want us to go. Here are a couple of pull-quotes from the article:
A few neighbors on Coleridge street complained that the project would reduce the size of an existing park that has been closed for years and was hardly ever used when it was open. It’s a private park, not a city park, and it sits on top of a pedestal with a garage underneath, which makes it unstable anyway.
The project would include a new park that would be much more accessible…
Sup. Jackie Fielder, who supported the affordable senior housing, asked Planning Department staffer Audrey Maloney a pretty basic question. Under current state law, where are people supposed to go to raise questions about a new development in their neighborhood?
Maloney: Under SB 35 (a bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener), the city has no role in this project. The public has no right to a hearing. If it’s compliant with the local zoning, there’s nowhere to raise any questions. It’s approved by right…(more)
I’m going to add one other issue that comes to mind where handing out entitlements to developers is concerned. Not all of the projects are being built as planned. Quite a few change hands and the plans may be altered without any notice. That is of great concern to the neighbors, and everyone concerned. Thousands of units are on hold. We have no idea what the developers will finally do once they decide to build, if they ever do.
As we all know, and Tim Redmond points out, “But SB 35, and its unholy progeny SB 423, doesn’t just apply to affordable housing projects. It also applies to a huge number of potential market-rate projects in much of San Francisco.”
We don’t need for the state to declare we are under builder’s remedy because we failed to meet the RHNA goals. We already are.
San Francisco in 2026 faces an electoral blizzard. Its first contested congressional race since 1987, two tight June supervisor races on top of the November contests, and at least three high-profile ballot measures. San Franciscans will also be involved in the governor’s race and helping Democrats take back the House and Senate.
For campaign professionals, hardworking volunteers, and political junkies, 2026 should be a great year.
Here’s our early forecast of the key San Francisco races along with the governor’s contest…
Charter Reform
It has yet to be decided what the planned charter reform ballot measure will cover and whether it will be on the June or November ballot (or both). Here’s what I previously wrote about all those claiming that San Francisco’s biggest problem is its charter:
Charter reform will not close open-air drug markets. It will not fill downtown office vacancies. It will not solve MUNI’s financial troubles. It will not lower health care or housing costs. It will not get lenders to make loans to build new housing. It will not boost the international tourism that Donald Trump has deterred. Charter reform will make San Francisco government operate more effectively. But it will not address the top ten problems facing the city.
I hope you will read this entire article. It is somewhat surprising coming from Randy Shaw, but, rather close to what many of us believe may turn the city political arena back into balance. Or closer to balance than it is now. A healthy middle is what the public seems to want but has problems figure out who to trust to get them there.
Randy is correct in pointing out the one of the biggest problems we are current dealing with is government overreach. Both the national and the state administrations have usurped a lot of the power the citizens welded.
How does the public regain its power? Which candidates are most likely to reverse the trend to centralize authority? Who is most likely to find the solutions to San Francisco’s real problems?
SB 6777 (Wiener rider on SB 79) passed with no opposition. We could use a little help with sending some opposition letters. It might be short and sweet and posted as a NO to have some effect.
One of the few projects Wiener supports against the will of SF City Mayor Lurie that may bring him down when he runs to replace Pelosi this year. Media is not ignoring the opposition on this one of four Safeways targeted for demolition in SF. How many other cities or states are losing grocery stores?
Anyone concerned about expanding on the allowances in SB 79, through a Wiener Rider bill, may want to follow the debate tonight and see if this is covered. They may also want to consider writing a letter in opposition to SB 677, the rider bill. You may just look at the attached explanation (16 pages) to figure out what he is doing now or go through the rest of the message if you have more time. Dr. Wahab’s summary of the bill is attached. https://csfn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SB6777.pdf
Looks like Safeway wants to convert their business from groceries to real estate. Three Safeways are already closed or in the process of closing. They want to add the marina Safeway to the list. This is provably one of the worst site to building a tower. The Marina is sitting on landfill. This is where the houses fell and fires burned during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Fortunately Lurie doesn’t like this plan. What can be done to protect our grocery stores, pharmacies and banks when the land owners want to tear them down?
…
Arquitectonica architects said the unique design of this Marina District tower will allow it to preserve more “view corridors.” Whose views are they protecting?
Perhaps we should ask the candidates who are running for office what their plan is for protecting what we need to survive?
The Yimby champion is now attacking planners who supposedly don’t know economics—but it appears that this law professor doesn’t either.
Chris Elmendorf—UC Davis law professor, prominent Yimby enabler, and de facto Chronicle staff columnist—is a scourge of economic illiteracy. Usually he trains his contempt on “folk economics” —what he and his colleagues call the economics of “a mass public befuddled by the relationship between housing supply and prices.”
In an October 30 op-ed for the Chronicle, Elmendorf cast a withering eye on a new target: city planners—specifically the staff of the San Francisco Planning Department. For evidence of their cluelessness, he cited the “Family Zoning Plan: Economic Impact Report” released on October 29 and authored by SF City Economist Ted Egan.
The report shows that San Francisco will not meet the state’s demand that the city zone to “produce”—both Egan and Elmendorf use that term—82,000 homes by 2031. Instead, Egan found that under the best-scenario/high-growth forecast, the upzoning mandated by Lurie’s proposed plan is likely to generate only 14,646 additional homes by 2045.
Elmendorf warned that by next February, the shortfall could trigger the dreaded Builder’s Remedy, which gives developers wide leeway to build whatever they want.
The basic problem, he argued, is that the models behind the Family Zoning Plan and the state’s own housing framework were devised by planners, which is to say, “crafted without economic expertise…. [T]here is not a single staff economist at the state’s housing agency. Nor does the state Legislature have economists vet housing bills.” The upshot: “the state tells cities to make realistic plans but doesn’t furnish reasonable modeling tools that they may use to evaluate their plans’ sufficiency.”…
The basic framework of the Regional Housing Needs Allocations was established by AB 2853. Contrary to Elmendorf’s claim, the state did not intend that framework “to fix” the housing affordability crisis. Nor did it penalize cities if the amount of housing built within their boundaries fell short of their Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA—sounds like ree-nuh).
Indeed, AB 2853 stated: “It is recognized that the total housing needs…may exceed available resources and the community’s ability to satisfy this need…. Under these circumstances, the quantified objectives need not be identical to the identified existing housing needs, but should establish the maximum number of housing units that can be constructed, rehabilitated, and conserved over a five-year time frame. [California Government Code, Section 65583(b)(2)]”
This was a major concession to both home rule and reality. It acknowledged that planning for housing and producing it are different things. Accordingly, the state qualified its expectation that housing production would equal each jurisdiction’s RHNA.
That qualification was eliminated in 2018 by Wiener’s SB 828. Besides absurdly inflating the RHNAs (for a rundown of Wiener’s legislative antics, see Michael Barnes’ primer), SB 828 erased the distinction between planning for housing and producing it, by amending the passage cited above so that it reads: “It is the intent of the Legislature that cities, counties, and cities and counties should undertake all necessary actions to encourage, promote, and facilitate the development of housing to accommodate the entire regional housing need, and reasonable actions should be taken by local and regional governments to ensure that future housing production meet, at a minimum, the regional housing need established for planning purposes. [California Government Code, Section 65584(a)(2)]”… (more)
SACRAMENTO — In nationally televised interviews and viral social media posts, Gov. Gavin Newsom has aggressively criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to send federal troops into Los Angeles and other Democratic-led cities. Less publicized have been Newsom’s own initiatives to clear homeless encampments and deploy state police to deal with high crime rates — a continuation of work that began before Trump took office.
The dynamic illustrates a tightrope that Newsom is walking as he eviscerates Trump’s policies even as he highlights his own, fundamentally similar approach to crime and homelessness.
Both Newsom and Trump are calling for widespread homeless encampment sweeps and deploying law enforcement to local communities to crack down on crime, though neither man acknowledges the similarities. Trump argues that Newsom is doing nothing to address problems in California, while Newsom contends it’s Trump’s approach that won’t produce results and lacks compassion.“We are trying to be responsive to the people we serve,” Newsom told reporters at a news conference last month. “As it relates to the president in particular, he’s doing things to people, not with people. It’s a point of profound, consequential contrast.”
The moves by Trump and Newsom reflect a yearslong shift in California politics and across the country toward pro-law enforcement, punitive criminal justice policies.
“There’s definitely been a swing toward harsher penalties and lots of resources, lots of dollars going toward law enforcement strategies,” said Tinisch Hollins, who leads the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice, which advocates for crime victims.
Sending police into communities: Newsom, who declined to be interviewed for this story, says his recent actions are not in reaction to Trump, but are rather the latest iteration of long-standing policies the governor has embraced. But they are happening in the wake of Trump’s deployment of thousands of federal troops to Los Angeles over the summer, repeated warnings from Newsom and other Democratic politicians about the president’s authoritarian moves, and Trump’s actions this weekend to deploy federal troops to Portland, Ore… (more)
Houses in San Francisco’s Sunset District on July 12, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Imagine you’ve finally taken your car to the mechanic to investigate that mysterious warning light that’s been flashing on your dashboard for the past week and a half.
The mechanic informs you that your car’s brake fluid is too low. Dangerously low. Your brake fluid supply, he says, has reached “crisis” levels, which sounds both scary and very expensive.
Naturally, you would prefer that your car have a non-critical amount of brake fluid. “How much more do I need?” you ask.
“A quart,” the mechanic responds. “No, actually, three quarts. Or maybe seven gallons — but only routed to your rear brakes. Actually, let’s settle on half an ounce.”
Such is the situation with California’s housing shortage.
For nearly a decade now, the Legislature has been churning out bills, Attorney General Rob Bonta has been filing lawsuits and Gov. Gavin Newsom has been revamping agencies, dashing off executive orders and quoting Ezra Klein with the explicit goal of easing the state’s chronic undersupply of places to live.
California simply doesn’t have enough housing and this shortage is the leading cause of our housing affordability concerns — virtually everyone in and around the state government, along with the vast majority of academics who have studied the issue, seems now to agree on this point.
This consensus was on display this year when lawmakers passed two sweeping changes to state housing law, one that shields apartment developments from environmental litigation and the other that would permit denser development near major public transit stops in big cities. Both were legislative non-starters just a few years ago. These days even the opponents of these bills have accepted the premise that the state faces a “housing shortage,” a term evoked at least 30 times in committee hearings and floor speeches this year.
Now, if only anyone could agree on how big the housing shortage actually is.
Plenty of people have tried to put a number on the problem.
In 2015, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which serves as a policy analysis shop and think tank for the Legislature, took an early crack at quantifying the state’s shortage by calculating how many additional units major metro areas would have had to build over the prior three decades to keep housing cost inflation on par with that of the rest of the country.
It came up with 2.7 million missing units.
A year later, consulting giant McKinsey one-upped the LAO, putting the state’s “housing shortfall” at 3.5 million houses, apartments and condos, a number Newsom campaigned on.
Not all estimates hit seven digits. In 2024, the housing policy nonprofit Up For Growth published the more modest estimated shortfall of 840,000 units, which comes pretty close to the 820,000 Freddie Mac put forward a few years earlier.
California Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, has counted the deficit at 1.3 million units — but not just any units. That’s how many homes the state needs to add that are affordable to people making under a certain income.
Then, this summer, a group of housing analysts including an economist at Moody’s Analytics, came up with the strikingly low figure of just 56,000 — though the authors acknowledged that it’s probably an underestimate.
Estimates of the nation’s overall housing supply are similarly all over the place: From as high as 8.2 million to 1.5 million (and, in one controversial paper, zero).
What even is a housing shortage?
The concept of a “housing shortage” is, in theory, pretty simple, said Anjali Kolachalam, an analyst at Up For Growth.
“It’s basically just the gap between the housing you have and the housing you need,” she said.
In practice, defining and then setting out to quantify the “housing you need” is an exercise fraught with messy data, guestimation and an inconvenient need for judgement calls.
Most estimates begin with a target vacancy rate. In any reasonably well-functioning housing market, the logic goes, some houses and apartments sit empty, either because they’re between renters, they’ve just been built or sold, they’re being fixed or renovated or they’re someone’s second home. A modest vacancy rate is what allows you to pull up Zillow or Craigslist and not get a “No Results Found” error. A very low one suggests there aren’t enough homes to go around.
But choosing a “healthy” vacancy rate — one that reflects a functional housing market — and then backing out the number of additional homes needed to hit it, is more art than science. Most estimates turn to historical data to find some level when supply and demand weren’t completely out of whack. Whether that halcyon period of relative affordability is 2015 or 2006 or 2000 or 1980 varies by researcher and, likely, by the region being considered.
“This notion of ‘pent up demand’ is necessarily in an economist’s judgment call.”
Elena Patel, fellow, Brookings Institution
Beyond that, many researchers have tried to put a value on what is sometimes called “pent up” demand or “missing households.” Those are all the people who would have gone off and gotten their own apartment or bought their own place, but, because of the unavailability of affordable places to live, have opted to keep living with housemates, with parents or, in more extreme cases, without shelter of any kind.
Absent a survey of every living person, there’s no way to precisely measure how many people fall into this camp.
“This notion of ‘pent up demand’ is necessarily in an economist’s judgment call,” said Elena Patel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who helped put together a nationwide shortage estimate last year (4.9 million).
These variations in methods help explain some of the differences in the shortage estimates. Other differences pop-up thanks to the vagaries of data.
The Moody’s Analytics-led report, for example, calculated a national shortage of roughly 2 million units by adding together both the number of new units needed to raise the overall vacancy rate and the homes needed to backfill their measure of “pent up” demand. But for its California-specific estimate, the data wasn’t available to do the latter, potentially leaving out a big chunk of the statewide shortage.
Then some estimates differ because the analysts are defining the shortage in a completely different way.
The California Housing Partnership looks at the difference between the number of households deemed by federal housing guidelines to have “very” or “extremely” low incomes and the number of units that those households could conceivably rent with less than 30% of their incomes.
That gap of 1.3 million gets at a problem totally distinct from an overall shortage of homes.
Finally, there’s the question of scale. Housing markets are, on the whole, local. A national shortage is going to add together San Francisco and Detroit, masking the extremes of both. A shortage estimate for a state as large and diverse as California may have the same problem.
“It is like looking for a weather forecast for a trip to the beach and being told that the average temperature nationwide is likely to be 67 degrees,” the authors of the Moody’s-led analysis wrote.
Why estimate a shortage?
What might be more valuable than fixating on any one shortage estimate, said Daniel McCue, a researcher at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, is to look at all the estimates together and appreciate that, by and large, they’re all huge.
“Whether it’s one-and-a-half million or five-and-a-half million, these are big numbers,” he said. That leads to an inescapable takeaway, he said. “There’s so much to do. There’s so far to go.”
Patel, from Brookings, said trying to put a precise tally on what is ultimately the somewhat nebulous concept of a “housing shortage” is still a worthwhile exercise because it gives lawmakers and planners a benchmark against which to measure progress.
How much additional taxpayer money should a state throw at affordable housing development? How aggressive should a locality be in pursuing changes to local zoning? “The more concrete you can be in policy making land, the better,” she said.
The State of California does in fact have its own set of concrete numbers.
Every eight years, the Department of Housing and Community Development issues planning goals to regions across the state — a number of additional homes, broken down by affordability level, that every municipality should plan for. These are, effectively, California government’s official estimates of the state shortage.
To cobble together these numbers, state regulators look at projections of population growth to accommodate the need for future homes and then tack on adjustments to account for all the homes that weren’t built in prior periods, but perhaps ought to have been. If a region has an excess number of households deemed overcrowded, it gets more units. If vacancy rates are below a predetermined level, it gets more units. If there is a bevy of people spending more than 30% of their incomes on rent, more (affordable) units.
It’s a process that the state regulators have come to take somewhat more seriously in recent years, engendering an ongoing political backlash from density-averse local governments and neighborhood activists.
In the state’s last estimate, the topline total was 2.5 million units.
This coming cycle, which has already begun in the rural north and will slowly roll out across the state in the coming years, will produce yet another number. That will be one more estimate for state lawmakers of how much brake fluid the car needs.
Neighborhoods United San Francisco – westsideobserver – excerpt
Not Compliant with the City’s State-Approved Housing Element or General Plan
This week, Neighborhoods United SF (NUSF) has put the City of San Francisco on notice that Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Family Zoning Plan” is not compliant with the City’s own 2022 Housing Element or its General Plan.
In its letter to Planning Commission President Lydia So, attorney Richard Drury, of Lozeau Drury, LLP, on behalf of NUSF states:
“The Rezone is flatly inconsistent with the General Plan. The 2022 Housing Element Amended the General Plan.The Rezone creates new building heights, density and development intensity that is flatly inconsistent with the 2022 Housing Element. Since zoning must be consistent with the General Plan, the Rezone creates an unlawful General Plan inconsistency.”
Further, Drury adeptly points out that:
“The proposed Rezone is vastly different from the zoning studied in the 2022 Housing Element and its associated 2022 EIR. Nevertheless, the Planning Department proposes to rely on the 2022 EIR. A rezoning of this magnitude requires thorough environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) so that the City’s residents and decision-makers can be aware of its impacts, can consider all feasible mitigation measures and alternatives, and can have a robust and open discussion prior to making irreversible changes to San Francisco’s landscape for all time.”
This plan would reshape San Francisco for generations without clear predictability on what gets built or where. San Franciscans deserve full transparency about the land‑use decisions that will shape every neighborhood.”
NUSF contends that the Rezone includes significant additional areas of the city, including areas within the so-called protected “Priority Equity Geographies,” vastly taller height allowances, density decontrol and excessive development that was not envisioned in the 2022 Housing Element or its associated EIR. The City has not thoroughly assessed the impacts of these actions on key environmental factors such as Air Quality, Wind, Historic Resources, and Biological Resources. Further, in its limited Addendum, the City has not fully analyzed how its Rezone would greatly increase tenant and small business displacement. Lastly, the Rezone would significantly impact transit lines and this has not been given enough credence in the minimal EIR Addendum issued by the City.
Lurie’s proposed Rezone would change the face of our city forever and thanks to 2019 legislation SB-330 supported by State Senator Scott Wiener, the so-called “Housing Crisis Act” once San Francisco upzones, it can’t downzone. The Rezone would be permanent and irreversible. NUSF is asking the Planning Commission and Mayor Lurie to listen to our over 60 neighborhood and community groups and organizations. The Mayor should pull back on the proposed extreme heights and density that would be allowed in the Rezone. Additionally, a vast number of San Franciscan’s are not aware of this proposal. Unfortunately, the proposed Rezone has no guarantees of affordability and will in fact only fuel speculative, luxury development that will not solve our affordability crisis.
“This plan would reshape San Francisco for generations without clear predictability on what gets built or where. San Franciscans deserve full transparency about the land‑use decisions that will shape every neighborhood.” says Lori Brooke, Co-founder of NUSF… (more)
NUSF Supports:
Context-fit housing: Build new homes at a reasonable, human scale that complements surrounding blocks.
Real height limits: Set reasonable, enforceable caps, no routine waivers. Extreme increases would erode neighborhood livability and fabric.
Responsible density decontrol: Allow added units only where height limits remain unchanged and the State Density Bonus does not apply.
True affordability plan: SF Planning must publish a realistic, fundable plan with timelines to meet affordable housing goals.
Protect historic resources: Safeguard designated landmarks and surveyed-eligible sites.
Impact first: Require a comprehensive infrastructure and environmental analysis for the projected 20–25% population growth tied to the mandate.
If you live in SF, or in the state of California you have probably heard something about Upzoing plans. If you are confused about the maps and the plans, you are not alone. See the September meetings listed on the calendar for where you may go to learn more: https://csfn.net/csfn-events/
People who try to follow it are constantly finding themselves running down another rabbit hole that leads back to Sacramento and our most controversial State Senator Wiener. After Wiener and Newsom removed the authority of the California Coastal Coastal Commission to control development on the California coast, Wiener is pushing SB 79 to remove single family zoning from the entire state. See the map below that attempts to illustrate the effects of SB 79 on the SF Zoning map
This iMap is supposed to indicate he targeted areas for SB 79
Wieners enemies may outweigh his friends, but his friends hold a huge, powerful purse and they are shifting him toward Washington. Some would like to see him go just to get him out of Sacramento, but others want him permanently out of politics. Given his close ties to the most unpopular SF Supervisor in SF, and the disdain hundreds of cities and communities around the state have for him, Scott may need more than money to win the Washington post he covets. But we are here to look a the maps.
The SF Planning Department has created many maps and overlays and new ones are popping up all the time. Everyone appears to be confused.
The below map that indicates where density decontrol may be applied is perhaps the most disturbing as it covers the entire city, including those neighborhoods that were already up zoned in the Eastern Neighborhoods.
Density decontrol is a new term that applies to the minimum size of a unit. It appears there is no minimum requirement where destiny decontrol is applied.
We understand the height limits along the pink areas are also open to density decontrol.
Given all the various maps and re-zoning at the state and local levels, the one question no one can answer is, how do all the state and local density laws affect each other? Can developers apply state density bonuses on top of city height limit increases? No one seems to know the answer.
Find out more by attending one of the September meetings where discussion will be held and SF Planning explains the plans and the public gets to ask what is means to them.
