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Residents, advocates urge supervisors to oppose BUILD Act and preserve Prop I funding
Summary
Dozens of public speakers told the Board of Supervisors during general comment March 10 to oppose the BUILD Act and any repeal of Prop I, arguing the real-estate transfer tax funds rent relief and affordable housing programs and that repeal would harm tenants and reduce revenue for social housing.
During general public comment at the March 10 meeting, dozens of residents, organizers and housing advocates urged the Board of Supervisors to oppose the proposed BUILD Act and any effort to repeal Prop I (the 2020 real-estate transfer tax).
Speakers from neighborhood groups, the San Francisco Community Land Trust and housing-advocacy organizations described Prop I as a critical revenue source for rent relief, affordable-housing preservation and land banking. Kyle Smeely, policy director for the San Francisco Community Land Trust, said that in its first two years the city allocated more than $200 million from Prop I for affordable-housing purposes and asked the board to preserve the funding stream. "In the first 2 years that Prop I was in effect, this board wisely allocated more than $200,000,000 to the intended affordable housing purposes that Prop I was made for," Smeely said.
Other public speakers recounted how Prop I funds supported rent relief that helped more than 20,000 San Franciscans avoid eviction, and warned that repealing the measure or enacting the BUILD Act as currently written would shift benefits to large property owners rather than produce new affordable housing. Anas Charlie Bodkin of San Franciscans for Social Housing read a petition and listed officials who had previously urged Prop I revenue be used for social housing. Multiple speakers urged the board to defend voter intent and to resist proposals that would reduce the city’s largest dedicated housing-revenue stream.
The public comment portion of the meeting also included speakers raising other city concerns—public-safety incidents, community-center preservation in the Fillmore, and SFPUC project accountability—but the dominant focus for the assembled commenters was preserving Prop I funding and opposing the BUILD Act.
Several supervisors later referenced the public-comment concerns during introductions and committee work; the board severed and discussed item 24 (recognition of Iranian American Heritage Month) separately and otherwise carried most consent items that day. No formal vote on the BUILD Act or Prop I repeal was recorded during the March 10 session.
