Behind the housing hype – SF Bay Guardian
The Guardian has a piece this week about their perceived shortfalls in Mayor Newsom’s plan to create more affordable housing.
“The new initiative, dubbed Home 15/5, calls for the construction of 15,000 housing units over the next five years, with a little more than a third (5,400) to be affordable to low- and moderate-income households – currently defined as those earning up to $76,000 (low) to $114,000 (moderate) a year for a family of four.”
“But the city needs another 12,637 affordable units by next year, according to projections included in the General Plan’s Housing Element, a 250-page policy guide developed by the Planning Department and approved by the Board of Supervisors and state officials last year.”
“Not all housing is good housing,” Julie Leadbetter, of Homeless Advocates of the Mission, told the crowd gathered on the steps of City Hall that day. “We have to ask, who’s this housing good for?”
I know Julie personally, and although she means well, I completely disagree with her. We need to continue to create deed-restricted (affordable/low-income/no-income) housing, but we need housing at ALL LEVELS to prevent what they are really worried about: evictions.
Look at it this way: most TICs units are what buyers are looking for… They are 2-4 bedrooms, large square footage, original details (Victorian, Edwardian, etc), great locations, and the list goes on. If that’s what the free market wants to buy, then the free market will find a way to buy those units. But, realistically, if there were sufficient units available in other types (read: new) buildings in other locations, people would move to those locations where prices would likely be more reasonable. That would take pressure off of the current rental units.
One other thing that is lost in this media battle: affordable for-sale housing is DEED RESTRICTED. If you buy at a reduced price, you will not make ANY money on that unit when you sell. You will gain the benefits of a mortgage tax write-off, but you will not be able to take advantage of market appreciation. This is not the American dream that most buyers are expecting. They just assume that they get a good deal and they sell and make money.
We need this housing as much as market-rate housing, but why not build enough market rate housing (while increasing housing density along transportation corridors, too!) to bring prices down? That’s what this is all about. Supply and demand. Econ 101.
This debate should not be about making money, but unfortunately it is. And it’s all about that supply/demand equation. If you can shift that balance, you solve the problem (or at least begin to solve the problem).
“Supervisor Maxwell has already been holding Land Use Committee hearings on the discrepancy between definitions of affordability, and on affordable-housing development scenarios. Supervisor Mirkarimi wants to see developers include more low-income units with their projects. “We need a greater inclusionary rate, so we don’t have to continue fighting these fires,” Mirkarimi told us. “And we need to create more opportunities for middle- and working-class families to own their own homes.”"
Activists, Supervisors and attorneys can continue to fight about this (and the above-mentioned ‘fires’) till the cows come home, but all it will do is distract everyone from the real solution and cost both sides a lot of time and energy.
