In December, San Francisco Chronicle Housing Reporter JK Dineen wrote an article titled “S.F. has the same housing goals as New York City — which is 10 times its size.” The piece covers how New York recently passed a plan to encourage the construction of 82,000 new housing units over the next 15 years.

Learn how housing policy is climate policy and what you can do to bring about positive change.

Learn how the Housing Action Coalition is holding San Mateo County for their bogus housing plan.

With HAC's coverage of this annual event, you can learn:

• How we can decrease rent costs in the Bay Area

• The policy amendments needed to jumpstart housing production

• Why homebuilders, elected officials, and labor leaders need to work together

• How we can make San Francisco a more inclusive city

• And more!

May is Affordable Housing Month! While this month provides an opportunity to celebrate the progress the pro-housing community has helped achieve, May is also a stark reminder of the challenges our region and state still have to overcome.

On February 26th, Daly City City Council voted to approve Jefferson Union High School District’s (JUHSD) proposal to introduce 1,235 new homes and a Head Start child care facility at the Serramonte Del Rey site.

The last few years have posed significant challenges to homebuilders. Inflation, soaring interest rates, and high construction costs have made it increasingly difficult to finance housing projects. 

While the state of the market is out of our control, we can reform state and local housing policies to help create more favorable conditions for housing production.

As someone who cherishes the time they’ve spent in Rockridge, the prospect of making the neighborhood more affordable and accessible to families of all income levels means a lot to me. There are far too many wealthy enclaves in the Bay Area with anti-housing laws and regulations that create barriers to access for middle and lower-income residents. Upzoning will lead to more affordable housing opportunities while preserving the essence and charm of a neighborhood that I and so many other Oakland residents hold dear. 

In June of 2023 the San José City Council moved to adopt their housing element prior to state certification from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). HAC, alongside our coalition partners, firmly advocated against the city’s decision. However, San José’s staff felt confident that the housing plan they drafted met the state’s requirements and would be certified by HCD; if revisions were needed, they would be minor. Yet on August 28th, HCD sent the city a 9-page rejection letter, highlighting a number of issues with the housing element draft they sent.

With the overwhelming success of the latest legislative session, getting multifamily housing entitled and permitted will soon be faster and easier than ever. HAC is proud to be one of the driving forces behind these recent wins as our ongoing efforts to collaborate with state and local elected officials to break down critical barriers to housing production are starting to pay off.

As the California Legislative Session concludes today, it’s safe to say that pro-housing advocates came out on top. 

In terms of the bills HAC sponsored this session, all three have been approved by the Legislature and now await Governor Newsom’s signature.

For HAC, the year 2031 is significant. As Northern California enters a new RHNA cycle, the question at the top of our minds is, in eight years, will cities, towns, and counties across the state meet their state-mandated housing goals? It’s more than fair to ask the question because for decades Housing Elements have been more of an idealistic dream than a realistic expectation. Every eight years the state would “mandate” cities to increase their housing supply, and every eight years a majority of California cities would build only a fraction of the number of homes the state expected them to build.  The state did nothing in response. 

Housing elements are no longer just a paper exercise. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has made it clear that in order to meet the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cities need to do more than just plan to build, they also need create the zoning and financial feasibility conditions that will help the Bay Area reach its ambitious housing goals.

In California, students are one of the demographics most affected by the state’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. This is especially true for San Francisco-based students as they must grapple with living in one of the country’s most expensive and inaccessible housing markets.

Among the myriad obstacles facing California home builders one of the most frustrating is the long and arduous process to get a housing project built. In San Francisco, a city infamous for its laborious approval and permitting process, it can take as long as 10 years for an affordable housing project to have people move in. These inordinate delays substantially drive up building costs and can often derail a project.  

The California Legislature recently approved  a critical bill designed to speed up California’s lagging housing production by addressing inefficiencies in the permitting process – AB 2234 (Rivas) Planning and zoning: housing: post entitlement phase permits. This common-sense legislation brings certainty to the building permit acquisition process after local housing developments are approved.

As San Francisco’s housing crisis has grown progressively worse, so too has our city’s discourse around housing. Having spent the past six years working to advance evidence-based solutions to SF’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis, it’s been alarming to watch housing conversations become increasingly devoid of facts. What’s worse, much of the inaccuracy is coming directly from SF Supervisors themselves. 

Last month, I wrote about the Affordable Homes Now ballot measure backed by Mayor Breed and led by HAC and a coalition of pro-housing, labor, and environmental organizations that will make it faster and easier to build new homes in San Francisco that are affordable to low and middle-income San Franciscans and teachers.

While HAC started as a San Francisco based organization focused on supporting homebuilders to get their projects approved, over the past couple of years the breadth and scope of our work have expanded immensely. 

All of us at HAC were excited to host a very interesting and practical June 16 panel on how to implement upzoning with success starring Professor Karen Chapple (UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project), Stefan Pelligrini (Opticos Design), Nikki Beasley (Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services), and Rachel Tanner (San Francisco Planning Commission).