San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar has put the wheels in motion to establish a new city department, according to plans shared with Mission Local.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The forthcoming legislation would establish the Department of Housing Development and Preservation \u2014 the name is not set in stone \u2014 which would support affordable and market-rate housing production and preservation of existing housing units.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think housing is our most challenging issue as a city,\u201d said Melgar, who represents District 7<\/a>, which covers the Inner Sunset, West Portal, Ingleside and other neighborhoods on the city\u2019s west side. However, she added, \u201cwe don\u2019t have a structure to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I would like to see is one agency where the planning, financing and policy around housing is coordinated and happens. That doesn\u2019t mean they have to run all the programs \u2014 but it should be centralized and coordinated,\u201d she added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Presently, the closest thing the city has to a housing department is the Mayor\u2019s Office of Housing and Community Development, a wing within the mayor\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n The proposed Department of Housing Development and Preservation would promote the mayor\u2019s housing office to a bonafide department, similar to New York City\u2019s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Melgar\u2019s office shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n Melgar said she has been working in tandem with the mayor\u2019s office on the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n She is also planning to introduce future legislation that would create a program to develop, finance and support housing co-ops, and she is exploring ways to mandate cooperation between the Department of Public Works and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to speed up the rollout of bike lanes outlined in the city\u2019s \u201cBike and Rolling Plan<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Melgar plans to announce her legislative priorities, including the bike lane plan, at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, though the co-op and new department legislation are still being drafted by the city attorney\u2019s office.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The legislation creating a new department seeks to consolidate different housing functions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Right now, the mayor\u2019s housing office is not a full-fledged department and has a narrow scope, said Melgar. The office is focused on affordable housing and generally oversees the city\u2019s affordable housing portfolio, rather than shaping the city\u2019s housing policy as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city\u2019s current housing programs are scattered across other offices, including the Housing Authority, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure. Melgar said it\u2019s still to be determined how the new department would interact with those offices.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the legislation would move the current housing office out from under the mayor\u2019s office, the future head head of the new housing department would be appointed by the mayor.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal is not to take power away from the mayor,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n New co-op legislation<\/p>\n Co-op housing is relatively rare in San Francisco, but Melgar hopes to see more of it built soon.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really great model that we could be looking at to build new construction, and we haven\u2019t done that in forever,\u201d said Melgar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Limited equity housing co-operatives, or co-ops, are an ownership model through which residents can own a share of a corporation that owns their building rather than buying the property itself. Generally, co-ops are a more affordable pathway to homeownership, and some residents who might not qualify for a mortgage on their own may be able to through a co-op.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are some 1,600 co-op units in San Francisco, most of which were built between the 1960s and 1980s and located in the Fillmore, Bayview and Diamond Heights neighborhoods, according to a 2022 city report<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the city report, the federal government, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, financed many of the co-ops in San Francisco. But after tax cuts in the 1980s co-op development subsidies dried up.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve left them all on their own,\u201d Melgar said. \u201cMany of the co-ops are doing great. A couple of them are not doing so great.\u201d<\/p>\n