tv [untitled] October 13, 2012 11:30am-12:00pm PDT
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these projects are not -- as has been there kind of argument that the more we build, then the greater -- then all of a sudden it's going to create or lift the pressure from the housing market that suddenly if we build more housing, regardless of what income level, that suddenly the rents are going to go down. and the housing prices are going to go down because we're increasing the supply, which is sort of like your econ 101 that you learned in high school. but that seems to me that has notice applied here in san francisco. the more we build, it still hasn't alleviated any pressure from the renters, rental market or from the affordable housing
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or housing market at all. so just to have more tools to assess where to go, but i would never suggest that this is the end-all/be-all, but just another tool that we can use to hopefully create better polices around making sure that the needs of all people who live in the city are met, housing needs that is. >> thank you. supervisor campos? >> i just want to make a very brief point that i don't think that this dashboard is the panacea, but as supervisor olague says is another tool. having more information is helpful and if this were jobs and you knew that you needed to create x number of certain types of jobs, as you create each job, i think you want to keep track of how you are doing in that objective. that is what this is. simply providing that tool for us to know where we are, but in the end, the answer is not the tool itself. the tool simply helps you have
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the analyses to know how you are doing. >> thank you. and i did want to thank miss campbell fort great report and the data and analysis is really useful for us. so why don't we open this up for public comment? is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? please come forward. we have sue hester. >> sue hester. i would like to start with thanking supervisor olague and supervisor campos and anyone else who sponsored this legislation. i have been pushing for this at least for ten years. it's therapeutic to have right before your eyes, when you are considering a rezoning or a project, what is our housing goals and how are we meeting them? we have gone through a lot of
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rezoning in the eastern neighborhoods for the past couple of years. and basically all south of market, the mission, the potrero hills and noe valley and rincon hill, of course. we don't know what is coming out of that. what is coming out of all of these rezonings that we are doing as the projects come through? we are now seeing a lot of implementation of the those plans and i have been saying for lo these many years it helps to have the staff reports say what the [tkpao-l/] is. there is a second problem with the pardon, crap miles per
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houresation more and modernization projects. it should be available at the touch of a computer key. but we have had the indulgence of letting dbi be the focal point in the middle of all of the permitting. and so we have dbi, and planning. and who is in control of this subdivision? everything is a subdivision. and then all of a sudden you get in the department of public works and the assessor, when they are finally sold. and all of that information at the end, tells you how many square foot, how many bedrooms
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and what the sales price is. how much of this isnen by the planning department? if they are crazy enough to do what i do, it should be a requirement that it's tracked. we have the data and it's not available and this is the greatest shame of the city. >> thank you, miss hester. >> thank you. next speaker, peter cohen. >> yes, thank you supervisors. peter cohen, council of community housing organizations and i want to thank the sponsoring supervisors for this piece. and let me give some more background. our organization actually worked quite loisly with the planning department during the repeat housing element update process and we put in a lot of
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time into that. and i know some people didn't like the housing element. but i think it's one of the best i have ever seen. i have been through three housing element cycles in san francisco, and i have seen others from other jurisdictions. i think it's a really good piece of work. we also through through these conversations with staff and realize that at the end of the day, a beautiful policy document doesn't have real significance, unless you know how you are doing in achieving that. it was through that conversation that we had said, with staff, look, we have got to kind of keep up with what is happening on the project-by-project basis as supervisor campos said. how is each project decision, how is each project review fiting into the bilge predict and the bucket picture is the housing element and yet we did didn't have the link between the policy? so the no. 1 implementation measure in the housing element, irvination no. think out of 150 is to create a housing element dashboard and this carries forward that same
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idea with more specificity. it was reforced by the lao report in january, the tracking of how we're doing along the way because we have these vexing policy issues. it doesn't attempt to solve the problems, if you will, or say how to fix it, but rather how are we doing and as an information tool, it has a tremendous value. and i think there were some changes to the ordinance as originally introduced to what we have now as a substitute. and thank the supervisor as far as finding that sweet spot if i could suggest one piece to strengthen, knowing how you are doing not om at a citywide level, but also within the planning districts or area plans is really valuable. because a lot of folks put tremendous energy into planning the future of those areas and want to have a sense of how those areas are doing on production, as well as the city
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as a whole. i know it's not a regional goal, but to be able to track these data is a valuable piece that i think is a little soft in here as revised. lastly i would say for the suggestions that supervisor wiener that you have, if there are more layers of information to be added in here, i think that is a good idea. i think the sponsoring supervisors were not trying not to layer too many expectations on staff. but if this data on a project-by-project basis or quarterly can also show the types of units and the types of housing, and even the 120-150, and we can do that from a data standpoint. i don't see why there would be anything wrong with that. i think this is taking the data as it is now and simply projecting it forward. so we're very supportive. thank you. >> >> good afternoon again, supervisors, my name is [tp-erpd/]o from the council of community housing organizations. again, thank you supervisor olague for bringing this legislation forward and supervisor campos, mar and kim
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for co-sponsoring this. i just wanted to echo a couple of things that peter has said. you know, i think one of the things we have talked about and heard you talk about is the need for policymakers to understand the context in when they are approving projects. to me it's a diskent between the front line staff of the planning department, who are approving projects one by one. and who don't necessarily see right in front of them how those projects are part of the larger policy discussions that the long-range planners are having in a different part of the department. so one of the things that this will hopefully contribute to is creating a departmental culture, where your day-to-day work is seen in the context of how we are contributing to a better city? what is the purpose of develop in development in the city? it's codified through our housing element goals. these are the needs of our people?
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and as peter said we might want to see improved as you all consider the legislation. if you look at page 4 of the legislation, line 24. there is a housing production summary piece. what staff would create and in the legislation as presented to you this would only be for staff reports, for those probings that go to the planning commission. again thinking about this a departmental culture for every staff prime minister who files a report to see what the context is. we might add for staff reports and case files. and understand that this new project is adding this to our housing gols and our second
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goal as peter said, what is happening in our neighborhoods? so the legislation that you have before you asks for housing production report every six months. it's on page 5, line 8. you would have an understanding of what is going on in a report that you get every so often by neighborhoods. we think it's important that line staff be able to see that one by one. so that when the castro cowerior courier can say this is what this new project is contributing to our housing element gols and those would be a couple of our friendly suggestions. thank you supervisors. thank you, next speaker. >> hi. good afternoon. supervisors, my name is alisa white with the san francisco land trust and i'm also a
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former youth commissioner. i just wanted to say thank you to those of you who are sponsoring this legislation, and i think it's a really important accountability tool. and the san francisco community land trust for those who don't know, we help convert at-risk affordable rentals into vehicles corporative house ownership and we're just really grateful to have this tool. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> supervisors, brad paul again. i would like start to by thanking supervisor olague for introducing this and the co-sponsors as well. i first heard the word "dashboard," which is the shorthand for this about six or seven years ago and the word came up because people said we give people these fairly large grants sometimes for one year or two, but we don't find out for a year or two what is going
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on. maybe it would be better for us and them if we had conversations and reports and bay dashboard of indicators. so we can see what is working well. this was around housing, jobs, neighborhood improvements and schools, all of these kinds of things. so i think something that sue hester said a moment ago, a dashboard is something react before your eyes. i heard it when he got my first apple because there is a dashboard app. so i don't think it's about trying to oppose an individual project so much as getting you to focus on creating the support, the resources and the polices we're going to need. and be able to make the mid-course corrections every six months, if we have to, to gate back on track to do that. so i think that is the real intention of that. i also want to say in terms of supervisor wiener's comments that the 63% as i understand it
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is below market-rate. market-rate is affordable to meet at 180% of median. so between 10 120-180 there is a no-man's land. what do we have to do differently now so that six months ago we're not just doing well in our market-rate needs and meeting our goals in that area? so i would like to urge you to support this. i think it's not the answer to al of our questions, but it's a really important term. it's a buzzword in philanthropy and corporate america and people talk about what is on your dashboard? and hopefully in san francisco we can say meeting our housing needs is clearly on our dashboard.
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thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm sarah shourd with the housing rights community. we're also a member of chu chu and we're here to express our support for the housing dashboard. being one of the fewish people, i imagine that read the legislative analyst's office's report, this seems to be a sensible step in the right direction towards addressing a lot of issues that were brought up in that report, which is basically that different departments are not talking to each other. and that the supervisors as well are sometimes outstanding of the loop in ways that they shouldn't be. and that that the idea behind it is to basically increase communication, and therefore, create more effective policy. so i think it's again, just a really commonsense idea that will be a good resource for all
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of the folks involved in producing affordable housing and making the decisions about individual projects. so i think that again, secretary of like seven saying it's not go to solve our affordable housing problem, but we have to take small steps in the right direction to even get to the point where we can, you know, tackle the whole larger issue. this is a really good, practical measure, that i think will at least get us further towards that overall goal. and help us therefore, actually produce the type of housing that our city needs by having more information about those needs and also about what we're producing. so i thank supervisor olague for sponsoring this. and we definitely support it. thanks. bye. >> thank you. next speaker.
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>> good afternoon, supervisors. i can almost see you all. i'm jessica layman with senior action network and planning for elders. first i want to thank four bringing up this issue and considering it today. we really think that the dashboard is an important step for meeting affordable housing goals in the city. we of course represent seniors and people with disabilities and housing is one of our biggest issues. i talk to people literally every single day struggling with affordable housing. i remember in april seeing how much market-rate housing is being built and some of the imbrance in the housing had a we're building and especially as that compares with the people that we know so desperately need housing in san francisco. it would be wonderful not to look at it end of the year or every other year, but as every project is considered to be able to say,
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wait a minute, maybe there is a problem here. as people have pointed out. of course it's not in a easy to say there is a problem and let's fix it, but to be continually aware of it and to always be on people's radar and say where else can we find resources? maybe we need to put this probing on hold a little bit while we look into this other project? let's look at erg that we can possibly do to make sure that we're meeting our affordable housing goals. thank you. >> thank you. is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. so let me just ask for remarks? supervisor olague? >> i was just wondering if staff or anyone had any additional comments at this point? >> sure. good afternoon, chair mar and supervisors. the planning commission heard this item june 28th. and proposed modifications. and we have worked really
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closely with supervisor olague's office to look into those modifications. and her office accepted most of all of those modifications. we worked closely together with the planning department director as well to make a couple more changes. and the last version that was introduced on tuesday, we reviewed it and we only have one minor change to that that i'm going to talk about. but before that, just to make had a general reference to all of the questions that were asked. i just wanted to make this clear that we are -- that these reports are being plannedate at the the department right now. we're doing most of these reports already without being provided voluntarily, and we have three types of reports regarding housing production. one is the housing element progress report, which is
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state-mandated and we provide it annually. and one is annual housing inventory. and the other is the quarterly pipeline report. and what this legislation does is that it adds the comparison of housing production and regional goals to these analyses. so for example, for the size of the unit that supervisor wiener mentioned. we're addressing this in the annual report already. we're covering a lot of these and this will be the mandated part of these reports. the other parts are going to remain, in the reports and provide them national anthemly annually or quarterly. >> as far as the minor modification goes. it's on page. >> many this is amendment that
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supervisor olague? >> yes, this is an amendment, we're changing the title of no. 2 will be "quarterly housing production reports." and we are requesting this change. and then on line no. 5, we are requesting that this reads, "the planning commission with quarterly housing production report every three months." so lines 4 and 5 we're requesting to be changed. thank you. >> thank you so much. i had a quick question to supervisor olague. i know she made a reference to the aging population. and the need for housing for people, especially 60 years old and above. and i know that supervisor olague and i fit into the
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80-120 and are we in need of more analysis? it's something that we would obviously like to work on with you all, because you understand your capacity. i wouldn't dismiss anything that either of you have said. so i don't know if you can address what was raised? >> so this summary report is the main purpose of it is the comparison. >> it rena is the regional housing needs -- our regional goals? >> our regional goals with abag and collaboration with the department of housing, they provide every five years. and anything else that we want to add we can discuss for further information. we can do it in the reports that we're doing that are not mandated, i guess. >> thank you. any concluding remarks,
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supervisor olague or campos? >> go for it and i will go afterwards. >> just a quick question, the way it works the report happens every quarter then? it's not going to be every six months? it's going to be every quarter? okay, thank you. >> supervisor wiener? >> thank you, mr. chairman. so i am a supporter of public investment in affordable housing. i was active in the formulation of prop c, the housing trust fund before we put it on the ballot and have been an allege advocate for that ballot measure and, in fact as some affordable housing developers will tell you, i sometimes
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pester them to build more affordable housing in the market area. he have been supportive of the projects that have come before this boor, for example for transition-aged youth. so i am a strong supporter of that and that is part of the solution for our affordability crisis. but it is one piece of the puzzle. it is not the entire puzzle. the market does matter when it comes to housing. you know, supervisor olague referred to supply and demand before and econ 101. and supply and demand does matter with housing. and the fact that is that we haven't produced much housing in the city. we have quite a bit in the pipeline coming up, but in terms of actually producing market-rate housing, we have not produced very much.
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and then when we do, we sometimes do things, like create "family-sized housing." which is only affordably wealthy families. so we haven't been doing our part in terms ever actually creating all of the housing that we need. and we know there is enormous demand, because we live in the best city on earth. we also produce almost no new rental housing. it's very exciting in the upper market area now we actually do have a couple of long-term rental projects in the pipeline. but that is the exception, not the rule. so supply and demand does matter and we have not been doing what we need to do in terms of supply. size of units matters as well. in terms of determining affordability and whether somebody can actually pay a rent check or not pay a rent check. so my view, if we're going to have a dashboard, it needs to take into account the big picture of housing
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affordability, not just one piece of it. if we're going to ask our planning commissioners to say in determining whether to approve this project, look at whether this is going to help us with our housing affordability crisis? i don't think that it works to try to convey the impression, whether it's intended or not, that the only thing that really matters is that they need to focus on is whether it is 0-50 or 50-00 or 80-120? i believe this dashboard will not present a full picture of our housing crisis and what our needs are and assumes that public investment is enough and it isn't. it doesn't even include, as i mentioned before, 120-150% and i have asked for that over and over and over again in hearings and otherwise and it's still not in there.
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you know, when the fact is that unless we have some sort of major change in washington, d.c., and we have a huge influx of investment in affordable housing from the federal government, most people in this city are never going to live in subsidized formerly below market-rate housing. they are just not going to and in my district the upper market area, the number of people who are living alone and hanging on by their fingernails to stay in this city and they will not qualify for affordable housing. but they need housing, too. and i think if we're going to do this, it needs to meet the needs of those kind of people, too. because that is a significant slot of our population. i do believe that what this will do is, as market rate projects come to the planning commission, this will be useds a club to say do not approve
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this project, because look, we're doing so poorly in meeting the needs of formerly subsidized housing for 0-50, 50-80, 80-120. and that incomplete picture will be presented, but it will appear that that is the whole picture. and that is what it will be used for and that is my concern. information is important. i think we do net get a lot of information as planning said, these reports are produced. i do not think this is the right pam and i will not be supporting this legislation today. >> thank you, supervisor campos or was it olauge? >> olague. >> i'm sorry. >> i think that supply and demand do matter and i think part of the problem over the past few years is that the supply has been skewed and inordinate number -- we have suppled plenty -- at least
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