Long-Awaited Affordable Housing Bonus Program Introduced

The SF Housing Action Coalition strongly supports the SF Planning Department’s newly proposed housing policy, the Affordable Housing Bonus Program. This sensible new program not only provides affordable housing for low income residents, but incentivizes the construction of new middle-income housing, too!

The long awaited Affordable Housing Bonus Program (AHBP) will:

1. Build on-site the standard 12% low-income homes plus 18% middle-income homes for a total of 30% on-site permanently affordable homes!
2. Build these homes along transit corridors or mixed-use commercial districts, the most logical places to increase density.
3. Make unusable lots more feasible for new housing when the density limits are eliminated.
4. Require 40% of the affordable homes 2-bedrooms, so they are built with families in mind.

In exchange for building 30% on-site affordability, a developer may increase the height of the building by up to 2 floors only to accommodate the additional new homes. (see image below). The best news? The City estimates that up to 5,000 new affordable homes are possible through this new program! Here’s a short 3 minute video that explains it all. 

Sounds great, right? Well, not everyone thinks so. . . .We need people like you to weigh in if you think this is a good housing policy.

3 easy things you can do to make this policy into law:

1. Sign the I support the AHBP petition that we’ll send to the Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors and the Mayor.
2. Join us on Thursday, November 5th at the AHBP Planning Commission hearing. RSVP here (scroll down beyond the petition)
3. Spread the word amongst your friends and colleagues. Share on Facebook and Twitter using #SupportAHBP

The SF Housing Action Coalition is hearing negative reactions among some neighbors who think this new policy will drastically harm neighborhood character, or that we should only be incentivizing very-low and low-income housing, and not housing for our middle-income earners. The SF Housing Action Coalition believes the AHBP is a common-sense way to build new low-income AND middle-income housing in neighborhoods. This program also addresses the concern that 90% of our housing construction is taking place in 20% of our city. The AHBP would encourage new homes to be built along transit corridors in the Sunset, Richmond, Marina, Excelsior, etc. (see map below).

Sign the Petition

Where will the AHBP apply? (250 parcels in the blue areas only)

Via San Francisco Planning Department