News

By Kevin Truong and Josh Koehn : sfstandard – excerpt
Mayor London Breed and Board Supervisor Aaron Peskin are opponents in the upcoming mayoral race, but teamed up to support a pro-business tax reform measure…

It’s a rare cause that can align San Francisco’s biggest private sector employers with its nonprofits and labor unions, or bring together political rivals like Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is challenging her reelection bid.

The urgent need to reform San Francisco’s perverse business tax formula is just such a cause—and, after two years of effort, a proposal to fix it could be going to voters for approval in November.

Modifying the gross receipts tax to focus on a company’s sales instead of its on-site headcount, the proposal would slash taxes for many small businesses while making it more attractive for large ones to keep their workers in town.

City officials acknowledged to The Standard that the plan, which underwent an extensive review by former City Controller Ben Rosenfield and the Treasurer and Tax Collector’s Office, will likely bring in less revenue for the city in the first few years but make San Francisco’s budget less dependent on a handful of companies over the long term. (Hardened policy wonks can delve into the specific language of the plan here.)… (more)

By Adam Shanks : sfexaminer – excerpt (includes audio)

Mark Farrell has joined the growing list of candidates delicately attempting to accede to demands for new housing in San Francisco without rankling homeowners.

The mayoral candidate introduced a set of housing policy proposals Thursday that included targeting new housing largely in areas that have already seen the greatest surge in development in recent years, including SoMa and Mission Bay…

Farrell and Peskin’s prescribed solutions to The City’s housing woes differ radically, with the former seeking to get government out of the way and the latter calling for government to be an active facilitator…

Farrell and Peskin occupy opposite ends of San Francisco’s political spectrum but share a belief that The City can address its housing crisis without radically altering the aesthetic fabric of its iconic neighborhoods…

Farrell’s focus… Farrell’s plan focuses on neighborhoods in and around downtown, or on increasing the number of units in the existing footprints of west-side buildings. Asked if the housing built in the neighborhoods he highlighted in his plan would be hospitable to families, Farrell said his vision “will include housing for all sizes of families, from the single individual to larger families.”…Farrell has also called for ending the current caps on how many units can be built into a single building, but would maintain height limits. On the surface, it offers assurance to neighborhood preservationists that new apartment towers won’t be built next door…

Peskin’s plan…Peskin announced legislation Tuesday that would allow The City to issue bonds to fund housing projects in which middle-income families would live. Rather than heading to the ballot for a sweeping bond measure, the Board of Supervisors would issue bonds directly for specific projects…Peskin argues that the revenue generated by tenants paying rent would offset the debt without affecting The City’s general fund and — unlike low-income housing projects — would not need government subsidies…“The City must lead on addressing the real barriers to housing construction, particularly for demographics the market is not able to subsidize: middle-income workers who don’t qualify for significant public subsidies but who also can’t afford market-rate rents,” Peskin said in a statement…(more)

It appears Ferrell and Peskin hold similar intentions to protect the neighborhoods, but, have different ideas on how to add housing. They are both mindful of the voters’ desire to preserve their neighborhoods and lifestyles.

YIMBY spokesperson Corey Smith seems to doubt either of them can persevere against the state intentions of overriding everyone and everything that puts a damper on the desires of the developers to build as dense and as high as they want. The corporate carpetbaggers want to push land values up and the middle class out, even though it will take a while for the economy to cooperate. This is going to be a choppy ride. We will need to rely on the current board of supervisors to get as many protections in place as fast as we can.

We shall see how well the candidates connect with the voters during this stressful season.

By Laura Waxman : sfchronicle – excerpt

Over the past year, San Francisco has slashed its building fees and cut its affordable housing requirements almost in half. The city has also come up with a plan that promises to produce thousands of new homes in the coming years.

Now, a supervisor who is running for mayor is working to create a permanent funding source for a section of the housing market that’s challenging to finance: the “missing middle.”

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin — who earlier this month promised a “Marshall plan for middle-class housing” after starting his candidacy in the November mayoral race — announced legislation Tuesday to create a way to pay for workforce housing using tax-exempt bonds…

Peskin’s proposal, called the “Missing Middle Workforce Housing Act,” aims to “produce and protect” thousands of affordable units using “little to no public funds,” kick-start stalled housing projects and “bring people to live downtown and other opportunity sites.”…

If adopted, the ordinance would authorize the city to issue two new types of tax-exempt housing revenue bonds that, according to Peskin, would not impact the city’s general fund: government bonds for publicly owned but privately developed and managed facilities and 501(c)(3) bonds to finance projects owned by nonprofits that serve a governmental purpose.

Revenue bonds are already issued by city entities to finance projects such as roads, schools and sewers.

The city would own the properties and hire nonprofits to manage them or would work with for-profit developers to build and manage them

Peskin said that the new “tools” that the proposed program provides to developers can be applied to a variety of projects. These include acquiring distressed or foreclosed rental housing portfolios, funding office-to-housing conversions and public surplus sites as well as for new construction…(more)

By J. K. Dineen :sfchronicle – excerpt

A month before Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin announced his candidacy for mayor, London Breed stood on the steps of City Hall flanked by a dozen yellow-vested carpenters and delivered a scathing assessment of her soon-to-be rival’s approach to housing.

“What Supervisor Peskin is trying to do is what he’s always done, the NIMBY that he is, and that is to destroy housing production,” Breed charged. “I am sick of his shenanigans.”…

Yet Peskin’s record is more nuanced than critics are likely to admit. As board president, he shepherded through the rezoning of the eastern neighborhoods, which has resulted in thousands of units in Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, the Mission and Showplace Square. He supported and was instrumental in negotiating neighborhood plans for Market-Octavia, the Transbay Transit District, Rincon Hill and Central SoMa, as well as development agreements for mega-projects such as Potrero Power Station and Balboa Reservoir…

Peskin has also shown an independent streak on big housing decisions, voting against his progressive allies to support large projects. That was the case with the several key votes, including the a 2006 rezoning that set the stage for the approval of the redevelopment of Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point, which came after Peskin had left office. Then-Bayview Supervisor Sophie Maxwell needed one more vote to push through 13,000 housing units and millions of square feet of commercial space in one of the poorest corners of the city…

Over his many years in office, Peskin said he has supported neighborhood plans, development agreements and other approvals that have led to 80,000 units, of which 37,000 are affordable. He has worked to put three housing bonds on the ballot, totaling $1.1 billion, including the recent $300 million bond for which Peskin led fundraising.

“We don’t build things. We create conditions for things to get built. We approve development agreements. We approve zoning changes. We grant money for affordable housing. We put measures on the ballot for affordable housing,” Peskin said. “Put that up against any other supervisor in modern San Francisco, and that is an unbeatable record.”…

Peskin said he now supports the [Tresure Island] island development, where 1,000 units are either recently completed or under construction. “I went out there on a tour with Chris Meany a year ago,” he said. “It’s impressive — they are sinking a billion dollars of infrastructure into that piece of Jell-O.”

Peskin’s clash with Wiener has only escalated over the years. Peskin called California’s most prominent pro-housing legislator “a senator who hates his own Senate district.” Wiener says Peskin is committed to preserving a housing system that is “structurally broken” and “designed to fail.”…

Architect Mark Hogan said he has disagreed with some of Peskin’s positions, but they have worked together on legislation to allow more granny flats, making it easier for multifamily building owners to convert basement storage spaces and other common areas into units.

More than anything, Hogan said he has been struck with Peskin’s willingness to tackle the byzantine world of development — skills that fans and critics agree make him a force in the politics of housing and land use.

“Aaron’s knowledge of the planning code and development and land use is pretty exceptional,” said Rahaim, the former planning director, “Probably better than mine.”…(more)

By Julie Johnson : sfchronicle – excerpt

North Beach resident Serena Satyasai never thought much about her utility bill, but that was before February when California’s electricity prices rose to become the highest in the contiguous United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Satyasai’s Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bill jumped by about $100 compared with the same month last year. Like many of PG&E’s 5.5 million customers, she’s having to rescript her monthly budget around these rising costs…

“Everyone is getting squeezed,” Satyasai said.

Propelled in large part by PG&E, which hiked residential electricity rates by 20% for about 16 million Californians in January, the state’s high electricity prices are second only to Hawaii, which is always an expensive outlier because of the costs of shipping oil to the far-flung archipelago…(more)

By Josh Koehn and Gabe Greschler : sfstandard – excerpt

How close is too close in the famously incestuous world of San Francisco politics?

One political operative is testing those boundaries.

Jay Cheng, the executive director of the moderate political action committee Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, apparently spent time earlier this year moonlighting as a recruiter for the mayoral campaign of Mark Farrell.

Text messages shared with The Standard—first reported in a San Francisco Chronicle story on moderate political influence in the city—show that Cheng attempted to facilitate the hiring of a Farrell campaign staffer for a tidy $15,000 a month salary about two weeks after Farrell declared his candidacy.

“The offer is open!” Cheng wrote. “We’ll hold the position for you as long as you need.”… (more)

By Patrick Hoge : sfexaminer – excerpt (includes audio track)

TogetherSF Action, a group backed by billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, said Tuesday it would stop trying to qualify a measure for the November ballot that would increase the San Francisco mayor’s authority after people expressed concerns that it might give newfound powers to the wrong person if a candidate they did not favor were to win the mayoral race.

“It’s disappointing to put something out there and have to pull it back, but I think ultimately, we have to make the decision that is best for the city, for our community, for everybody that’s involved in the effort,” said Kanishka Cheng, the group’s founder and CEO, saying she did not want to waste resources on an unsuccessful campaign…(more)

I wonder if someone from the group saw this video that describes the mayor’s powers and realized how powerful the mayor is already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBb_UM4xm4U.

In my opinion, a political system works best with a balance of powers, something we are missing lately. It is particularly good when the balance favors the public will, not the will of government officials who are supposed to serve us. I look forward to a mayor who understands that.

By Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt

Entities tied to the legendary Apple designer have spent tens of millions buying up nearly a city block in Jackson Square.

You can call legendary iPhone designer Sir Jony Ive something of a Jackson Square superfan—so much so that the famously private figure once penned an ode to the roughly six-block micro-neighborhood in the Financial Times.

Now appreciation has morphed into a mini-empire, as entities tied to Ive have spent the last four years accumulating the better part of a block in the neighborhood, bordered by Columbus and Pacific avenues and Jackson and Montgomery streets.

Consider it the Ive Hive, if you will…(more)