Nothing that comes out of the Board of Supervisors surprises me anymore. Especially when it comes to housing or real estate.

But this one makes very little sense to me. And it obviously made very little sense to at least one ‘normally progressive’ supervisor, as their usual 8-4 vote ended up 6-5, with one supervisor (not sure who it was) skipping the vote. And the odd man out this time (voting against the legislation)? Sandoval. The same guy who laments the construction of high rises as he drives into town from his district (Excelsior, Ingleside, Crocker Amazon, Outer Mission)…

From today’s SFGate,

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors narrowly approved legislation today that would require property owners to obtain special approval before demolishing any residential structure in the city.

In a close 6-5 vote, the board adopted the measure proposed by Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who argued it is needed to save affordable housing from being knocked and redeveloped for sale at prices out of reach of most San Franciscans.

“The majority of market-rate homes for sale in San Francisco are priced out of the reach of low and moderate-income households,” Maxwell said.

The measure was opposed by property owners and developers, including the Residential Builders Association.
Voting against the ordinance were Supervisors Bevan Dufty, Sean Elsbernd, Ed Jew, Gerardo Sandoval and Michela Alioto-Pier.

The legislation is a six-month interim measure to require Planning Commission approval in the form of a conditional use permit for demolition of any residential dwelling — but both foes and supporters said it could be extended or made permanent.

Decisions by the Planning Commission to issue a conditional use permit for a residential demolition could be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

So now the ‘supes want to be planners. Note that last sentence. If the Planning Commission lets a demolition permit go through, the ‘supes can still hear the case (at the request of ANYONE OR THEIR UNCLE) and shoot it down.

I see nothing but gridlock out of this one.

And once again, who loses? It’s less-often that a low-income family occupies one of these buildings. Usually what gets torn down are places that have been abandoned, or owner-occupied places where the owners are moving out of town, etc. And when a small single family home comes down, what replaces it? MULTIPLE UNITS. That’s right, Wilbur, more housing units than existed before. Who’s losing now? Those same folks that the legislation pretends to protect.

So again, I’m not in the least bit surprised, but this is yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Supervisor Maxwell probably wanted to help out a couple of her constituents without truly understanding what this means for the city as a whole.

You can already hear the buzz of another dozen pickup trucks heading out of town as those contractors and developers go in search of friendlier climates to build housing…

As an aside, let’s look at the straight economics of this legislation. If you have a 1000sqft single family home on a 2500 sqft lot, it’s entirely possible that a demolition of that house will result in 4 units being built, EACH with nearly the same living area as the original house. At the same time, the cost of building new construction is DRAMATICALLY lower than the cost of remodeling, so you’re actually keeping costs LOWER by demolishing that little house. And don’t even get me started on the heating or other inefficiencies of these otherwise tear-downs…

Where you previously housed one family of two or three, you can now house FOUR families of two or three. But as usual, that’s just crazy talk!

So while it seems possible to the uneducated bystander (or a Supervisor) that restricting demolition permits will somehow ‘save’ housing, you’re actually keeping badly needed housing units from being built at lower costs, thereby screwing your neediest constituents even more!

One option is for the city to start building more some any affordable housing. But we all know the likelihood of that happening in our lifetimes.

C’mon ‘Supes! What about all of that surplus property?!?

SF OKs law on demolition of residential structures [SFGate]
Surplus property ordinance may soon bear fruit [SFHomeBlog]
NITBY: a new category of obstructionist? [SFHomeBlog]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 2:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.