By JOE RIVANO BARROS : missionlocal – excerpt
Melgar, Lurie also announce immediate $70 million injection to preserve housing
Supervisor Myrna Melgar plans to introduce legislation Tuesday that would more than double San Francisco’s annual budget for affordable housing to some $125 million, part of a bargain she hammered out with Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Melgar said her proposal would vastly expand the city’s capacity to build affordable housing by allocating $125 million annually into the city’s Housing Trust Fund, up from the $52 million that goes into it today, while also extending the fund for another 30 years. That would be a total of at least $3.75 billion.
The increase would be funded by “allocating a portion of future property tax growth every year” to the fund, according to a press release sent by Melgar and Lurie.
“I cut a deal with the mayor,” Melgar said, to use property taxes “coming from the increase in the value of all properties in San Francisco” as a result of last year’s upzoning.
The proposal would take the increase in future property taxes and “put it aside” into the low-income housing fund, Melgar said.
“Housing is not getting built at the pace we need, and the consequences are all around us,” Mayor Lurie said in a statement. “Today, we’re jumpstarting affordable housing in San Francisco.”… (more)
It is good to hear someone mentioning the need to preserve the existing affordable housing as an immediate plan. Given the economic reality that we are living in, it is naive to expect new housing will be built any time soon. That is no one’s fault, unless you want to blame the national condition we are living in, but, placing the blame does not solve the problem. Giving into reality and what is possible now does.