Wiener\u2019s law, combined with economic trend data, contributed to San Francisco seeing in 2021 its housing-production goal tripled<\/a>. Its target went\u00a0from 28,869 for the 2015-2023 period to 82,069 homes for the 2023-31 period, plus a 15% buffer, bringing the total to 94,300 homes.<\/p>\n Based on the new number, The City had a projected gap of about 36,200 homes that could reasonably be expected to be built under The City\u2019s existing regulatory framework.<\/p>\n The plan, which aims to promote denser residential development \u2014 largely in The City\u2019s northern and western neighborhoods \u2014 was adopted under the threat that failure to account for the required housing units by Jan. 31 could, due to various state rules, result in San Francisco losing local development control and roughly $100 million per year in state funding.<\/p>\n \u201cThat used to be kind of a toothless piece of legislation, and now it has a lot more teeth,\u201d said Ruby Bolaria Shifrin, chief investment and partnership officer at Oakland nonprofit Terner Labs for Housing Innovation, about the process that Wiener\u2019s SB 828 law reformed.<\/p>\n No longer could locales disinclined to welcome more residents take measures such as citing past slow growth to influence future projections, the law said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing places realize that they have to build a legitimate plan, and that the state is watching in terms of your ability to fulfill that plan,\u201d said Shifrin, who described herself a self-described \u201cfan of Sen. Wiener\u2019s leadership\u201d on housing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt provides political cover for San Francisco to make tough decisions,\u201d Shifrin said. \u201cAll of those things add up to forcing local jurisdictions, like a San Francisco, to actually do something versus just letting the status quo keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps not surprisingly, since his election to the state Senate in 2016, the prolific and persistent Wiener has become a lightning rod on growth issues through a series of laws that have asserted state authority over local land-use planning matters. Critics say SB 828, for one, established high housing-production numbers that have set up local entities for failure.<\/p>\n Wiener\u2019s work on housing has the potential to influence multiple elections next year, including his own.<\/p>\n Two appointed San Francisco supervisors who voted in favor of Lurie\u2019s Family Zoning Plan \u2014 Stephen Sherrill in District 2\u00a0and Alan Wong in\u00a0District 4 \u2014 face June elections to serve out the remainder of their terms. Matt Dorsey in District 6, another supporter, is up for reelection in November, while Rafael Mandelman is termed out in District 8.<\/p>\n So too is District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, one of four supervisors to vote against the Family Zoning Plan.<\/p>\n Chan said in a recent interview that Wiener has \u201cput San Francisco in an impossible position.\u201d<\/p>\n A signature issue<\/p>\n Laws authored by Wiener, a Harvard Law School-trained attorney, include measures requiring ministerial approval of housing projects when local jurisdictions don\u2019t meet their housing goals, enabling state fines for cities violating housing laws, and allowing mid-rise residential buildings around major public-transit stops.<\/p>\n Wiener in April hailed the first draft of San Francisco\u2019s Family Zoning Plan as \u201can ambitious step forward\u201d in addressing a shortage of housing and the lack of affordability in The City, and he cited in part the effect of SB 828.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud of our working to make housing more affordable, which has helped build thousands of below market rate homes in San Francisco,\u201d Wiener said in a statement his office provided Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes all the sense in the world that the state would set basic standards for housing the way we set state standards for education,\u201d Wiener said. \u201cYou have to teach math in schools and you have to allow homes near transit and jobs \u2014 standards are how we make progress on affordability while allowing many important decisions to be made at the local level.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiener\u2019s assertive legislating has made him a superhero to those who say local government has blocked housing development and reduced affordability \u2014 and a nemesis to those who say he is running roughshod over local communities and facilitating displacement of tenants and small businesses.<\/a><\/p>\n One charge leveled at Wiener is that he serves real-estate interests that hurt affordability.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just continue to see that Scott is pulling the strings to displace San Franciscans \u2014 especially working-class San Franciscans \u2014 for luxury housing,\u201d said Christin Evans, a co-owner of a Haight-Ashbury bookstore who spoke against the Family Zoning Plan before the Board of Supervisors. \u201cHe\u2019s always been beholden to the wealthiest real-estate development interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiener\u2019s spokesperson, Erik Mebust, countered that Wiener has consistently backed rent control and other tenants\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n California housing laws authored by Scott Wiener<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0SB 35<\/a>\u00a0(2017) created a streamlined approval process for housing approvals when cities don\u2019t meet Regional Housing Needs Assessment goals.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0SB 423<\/a>\u00a0(2023)\u00a0expanded the scope of the SB 35 streamlining law and extended a sunset provision to 2036.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0SB 4<\/a>\u00a0(2023) allowed faith institutions such as churches, synagogues and mosques, as well as nonprofit colleges, to build certain affordable housing on their properties by right, even if local zoning prevents it.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0SB 1037<\/a>\u00a0(2024),\u00a0sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta, enabled enforcement of state housing laws with fines against\u00a0offending cities going into affordable-housing funds for use in those cities.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0SB 79<\/a>\u00a0(2025) will, starting in July, allow mid-rise homes within a half-mile of major transit stops, and let local transit agencies develop land they own. Buildings can be up to nine stories, with phased implementation over a period of years. Governments can come up with qualifying alternative plans, however.<\/p>\n Marina Safeway melee<\/p>\n A recent colorful point of conflict centers on a hotly contested proposal to build a 25-story, 790-unit residential complex on the site of a Safeway on Marina Boulevard along The City\u2019s northern waterfront.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Multiple merchants take pride in going all out with decor and special menus<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The senator stopped in SF to promote proposal to invest $15 billion in new housing\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
This week\u2019s highlights include pop-up marketplaces, concerts, tree-lighting ceremonies and block parties<\/p>\n The developer\u2019s preliminary application cites a state density-bonus law from 1979, as well as a 2022 law written by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who represents the East Bay, and supported by\u00a0Wiener that provides for streamlined ministerial approval of projects on certain commercial lands.<\/p>\n Critics from varied quadrants are attacking the plan, with some laying blame at Wiener\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Marina Safeway luxury-tower proposal is a direct result of Senator Wiener\u2019s [yes-in-my-backyard] deregulation agenda,\u201d said Lori Brooke, a co-founder of a coalition of neighborhood groups called Neighborhoods United SF, in a text message. Brooke, a vocal opponent of Lurie\u2019s Family Zoning Plan, is a candidate for District 2 supervisor in next June\u2019s election.<\/p>\n In a humor-tinged post on social media<\/a>, Wiener responded to the criticism. He said that it was actually the Board of Supervisors that voted to upzone the property dramatically while he was in his first year as a state senator.<\/p>\n Wiener said people sometimes point to him and the state as \u201cthe bogeyman, like we\u2019re responsible for everything. And while I am extremely flattered by that attribution of power to me, and while I am proud of our state housing work, that\u2019s not what happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n He called out Aaron Peskin, a former president of the Board of Supervisors and an outspoken critic of Wiener.<\/p>\n Peskin \u201cvoted to do this, and now he\u2019s complaining about it, and he\u2019s grandstanding about it, because he\u2019s organizing NIMBYs all over The City, but he voted for this,\u201d Wiener said, referring to construction opponents known colloquially by the acronym standing for \u201cnot in my backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you don\u2019t like this project, you can ask Aaron Peskin why he voted to massively upzone the Marina Safeway, and if you do like the project, next time you see Aaron Peskin, tell him, \u2018Thank you,\u2019\u201d Wiener said.<\/p>\n In an interview, Peskin called Wiener\u2019s commentary \u201cjust simply ludicrous\u201d and said it \u201creeks of desperation of someone who wants to cover up his culpability in this disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Peskin faulted Wiener for carrying and supporting laws that have taken away local land-use control from cities.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Scott Wiener wants to point the finger, the only place he should be pointing it is at himself,\u201d he said, echoing the charge that Wiener serves real-estate interests. \u201cHe\u2019s running from the fact that he created this entire scheme, and now it\u2019s coming home to roost \u2014 and San Franciscans think it\u2019s a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Politics or protection?<\/p>\n Peskin called Wiener \u201ca master of the politics of punishment,\u201d citing Wiener\u2019s SB 423, a 2023 bill that updated one of Wiener\u2019s earlier laws. The measure expanded and extended until 2036 the ministerial approval for qualifying housing projects in cities not meeting their state-mandated housing targets.<\/p>\n The law singled out San Francisco<\/a> \u2014 which the state Department of Housing and Community Development in 2023 said had the longest timelines in the state<\/a> for advancing housing projects from submittal to construction \u2014 to report housing production numbers in 2024, two years earlier than The City otherwise would have.<\/p>\n Yet regarding the Family Zoning Plan, Annie Fryman, director of special projects at the urban-planning think tank SPUR and a former Wiener legislative staffer, said Wiener\u2019s housing-allocation legislation essentially set standards for cities but not penalties.<\/p>\n Fryman said it did not establish the dreaded \u201cbuilder\u2019s remedy.\u201d That\u2019s the colloquial name for a situation in which San Francisco could lose the ability to apply any kind of local zoning rules and be forced to approve any proposed projects that meet basic life-safety standards, no matter the height, according to the planning department.<\/p>\n \u201cSen. Wiener\u2019s legislation set the bar that The City had to clear,\u201d Fryman said.<\/p>\n She said Wiener\u2019s role is sometimes \u201cwarped\u201d by people who have \u201ca preexisting belief about his work without being familiar with it, for better and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Fryman also emphasized that Wiener\u2019s legislation did not dictate the form of the mayor\u2019s Family Zoning Plan, which is designed to satisfy \u201ca giant patchwork\u201d of state regulations and mandates.<\/p>\n At the same time, Fryman said, laws like Wiener\u2019s SB 423 make housing production more predictable and certain, which helps The City get more credit for zoned areas.<\/p>\n The City also faced the potential effects of SB 79 in the Family Zoning Plan proceedings. The Wiener bill, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, will allow mid-rise homes within a half-mile of major transit stops and let local transit agencies develop land they own starting next July.<\/p>\n SB 79 could allow buildings of up to nine stories \u2014 higher than in the Family Zoning Plan \u2014 with implementation phased in over a period of years.<\/p>\n
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