Battle Over New Housing Policy Heats Up
Supervisor resurrects plan to legalize 'granny' units

By Carol Dimmick

In a city where land-use fights are a blood sport, the battle over San Francisco's skyline is expected to heat-up over the summer when the SF Board of Supervisors considers new guidelines for residential development and legislation to promote the building of secondary units.

In May, the City inched a step closer to finalizing a 246-page document called the "Housing Element," a set of guidelines for residential development, when an amended version was adopted by the SF Planning Commission. But it took the intervention of Mayor Gavin Newsom to make it happen.

Newsom jumped into the fray after the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods, an organization comprised of more than 40 neighborhood associations, threatened to file a lawsuit when the SF Planning Department approved new guidelines without a full environmental review.

"When you rezone an entire city you do an EIR (Environmental Impact Report). That's the basis for our appeal. This is the controlling document for the City and any zoning changes that are made are based on and rationalized by the controlling document," said Barbara Meskunas, president of the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, in the SF Examiner.

Newsom took action to avoid a prolonged court battle that could have set the process back another 18 months and cost the city millions of dollars in state housing funds.

San Francisco has already missed out on $2 million in state affordable housing funds and could lose another $15 million in redevelopment funds because it does not have a plan in-place to meet a state requirement to build 2,500 units of housing each year.

At Newsom's request, Interim Planning Director Larry Badner agreed to make key changes in the document to satisfy the coalition, including keeping parking requirements, striking new language that encouraged the building of secondary units, and adding a requirement that the City seek neighborhood approval for new height and density limits along transit corridors.

However, the watered-down version frustrated many proponents for increasing the city's housing stock and set the stage for the first of several uphill fights which are expected to erupt this summer over shape of the city's skyline.

Supervisor to Reintroduce Legislation
In addition to the skirmish over the Housing Element, temperatures are sure to rise when SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin resurrects a two-year-old ordinance that would allow property owners to convert 750 feet of space in existing buildings near transit corridors into secondary, or "granny," units.

As of presstime, an aide confirmed Peskin was set to reintroduce his legislation, which would change the zoning laws to allow secondary units to be built in existing buildings within one-quarter mile of transit corridors. That change would come after the Board of Supervisors passes the Housing Element.

Peskin, who withdrew the ordinance shortly after it was introduced in 2002, says it will open up a new source of affordable housing without changing the character of the neighborhood.

But residents in the western part of the City say if Peskin's legislation is adopted, it will mean the end of single-family neighborhoods in San Francisco.

"In-laws all have cars. We don't have any way to put more cars in the West Portal area now. It sounds like to me that RH-1 (single-family zones) is about to die," said Nancy Wuerfel, a Sunset resident and a member of the Sunset Parkside Education and Action Committee (SPEAK).

State Bill Would Fast-track Legislation
A bill currently winding its way through the California legislature could put even more pressure on local officials to pass their own secondary unit legislation.

Assembly bill AS2702 (Steinberg), which was passed in the Assembly May 27, would strip San Francisco of the current exemption it enjoys from a state law enacted several decades ago that promotes secondary units as a way to close the housing gap.

The bill sets a minimum standard of 550 square feet for secondary units, does not allow Discretionary Review hearings at the planning commission on permit applications and would require San Francisco to enact its own ordinance within 120 days.

"The elimination of the exemption would allow the fast-tracking of secondary units without the proper environmental reviews," said Assemblyman Leland Yee.