by Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt
With a bang of the gavel, a last-ditch effort by the Board of Supervisors to override a veto by Mayor London Breed and finally pass a long-debated “fourplex” bill failed at their meeting Tuesday afternoon.
But just like a game of whack-a-mole, political defeat of the measure could mean the resurrection of an alternative that had been previously shelved.
The veto override, which required eight votes to pass, failed with a 7-4 vote. Board President Shamann Walton and Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Matt Dorsey and Ahsha Safaí voted against the initial legislation and also voted against overriding the mayor’s veto.
Championed by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the vetoed legislation initially sought to build on the state’s Senate Bill 9 by allowing four units on every lot in San Francisco and six on corner lots. But in its long road to passage, supervisors tacked on amendments—such as a requirement that landlords must have owned the building for five years prior to developing it—that meant it would yield very little new housing…(more)