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Planning Commission hears housing-balance report showing declining affordable share; Mayor’s office outlines production progress
Summary
Planning Department staff presented the third biannual housing balance report showing a citywide 10‑year housing-balance of 18% (net affordable housing stock) with declining recent trends; Sophie Hayward of the Mayor’s Office said production has achieved about 31% of the mayor’s 10,000‑unit by‑2020 goal and emphasized funding and land costs as constraints.
San Francisco Planning Department senior planner Teresa Ojeda briefed the Planning Commission on the third statutorily required housing balance report, explaining the ordinance (Ordinance 53‑15) and the methodology that counts net affordable housing stock over a 10‑year period and subtracts units removed from rental protection (Ellis Act, condo conversions, demolition).
Ojeda said the net affordable housing stock totaled about 5,930 units in the 10‑year reporting period and that, citywide, the cumulative housing balance over that period measured roughly 18%. She emphasized that the housing balance differs from the mayor’s production tally because the balance factors in losses from removals of protected units as well as acquisitions and rehabs that bring units into permanent affordability.
Sophie Hayward of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development told commissioners the mayor has committed to bringing 10,000 new or rehabilitated affordable units online by 2020 and that the office has completed 8,303 units (market‑rate and affordable combined) in 2014–2015. "Since 2014 we've completed 1,828 acquisitions/rehabs and 1,260 new affordable units," Hayward said, adding that the mayor’s production figure is a different measure because it counts units when they are complete and ready for occupancy.
Commissioners and members of the public pressed staff on methodological choices and implications for policy. Commissioners asked how projected balances were calculated, whether the housing balance should exclude certain kinds of unit losses, and whether in‑lieu fees and pending entitlements should be counted as likely future production. Ojeda said the projected balance (about 15% in the pipeline) is a "soft" projection based on entitlements that have not yet reached permitting and that the report does not include the full universe of potential affordable housing.
Public comment focused on displacement in the Mission and other neighborhoods. Speakers including Spike Khan and Peter Cohen urged stronger preservation measures, questioned whether the department’s subtraction of rent‑controlled units overstates losses of affordability, and called for more aggressive actions to stem evictions and OMI conversions.
The Planning Commission did not take regulatory action on the report itself; staff said the report will be transmitted and that the Board of Supervisors will hold the annual hearing required by the ordinance. The board-level hearing and how MOHCD allocates in‑lieu funds to projects remain next steps.
