Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Housing Balance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Planning department presents housing balance report as supervisors press for equity data
Summary
The Planning Department presented the biannual housing balance and related reports, showing 2019 net additions near 4,700 units and a 21.5% cumulative housing balance (expanded 28.6%). Supervisors and many callers urged more disaggregated data on race, displacement, permit occupancy and 'jobs-housing fit.' Committee forwarded the housing balance report to the full board and continued the hearing on housing needs.
Planning Department staff on July 27 presented multiple housing-monitoring reports to the Land Use & Transportation Committee: the annual housing inventory, quarterly pipeline snapshot, and the biannual Housing Balance Report number 10. Staff said San Francisco added roughly 4,700 net units in 2019 — an 82% increase over the prior year — and that about 31% of last year’s production was affordable (roughly 1,456 units). The housing balance report’s cumulative measure over a 10-year period was 21.5% affordable; an expanded calculation that counts certain rehabs and acquisitions showed 28.6%.
Planning staff told supervisors the city is working on a new Jobs-Housing Fit report to better align housing production with local wage and job trends. Staff acknowledged capacity constraints in data analytics exacerbated by COVID-19 deployments and hiring freezes and pledged follow-up analysis on occupancy, regional comparisons and disaggregation by race and neighborhood.
Supervisors and many public commenters pressed for more precise, neighborhood-level breakdowns, stronger tracking of units removed from protected status (e.g., condo conversions, Ellis Act removals), and clearer reporting of how market-rate production affects rents and displacement. Several speakers urged prioritizing extremely low-income and deeply affordable preservation and recommended permanent protections for rent-controlled units.
Committee action: The committee voted to forward the housing balance resolution to the full Board and continued the related hearing on housing affordability and stability to the call of the chair so planning staff could return with additional analysis and data clarifications.
Why it matters: The housing balance metrics are the underlying data that help supervisors decide how much public funding and what policy tools are needed to meet the city’s affordable housing targets and to shape the 2022 housing element. Several supervisors emphasized that meeting RHNA goals for above-moderate units has outpaced production of units for low and moderate incomes, and that the city must align future budgets and strategies accordingly.
Ending: Planning staff committed to provide additional district-level charts, jobs and wage disaggregation and updates to the Jobs-Housing Fit schedule; the committee sent the official housing balance report to the full Board and scheduled continued hearings for the companion analysis.
