In This Paper: The Bills' Merits Introduced By Sen. Scott Wi ✓ Solved

In This Paper The Bills Merits Introduced By Sen Scott Wiener

In this paper the bill’s merits introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener will be point out and will be supported by using different point and using legislative aides to support the debate on the Senate floor.

Abstract

Governments in much of the Global North have responded to dramatic increases in house prices and rents by setting supply-side targets for new housing in regional and local plans, based on calculations of need. We apply social constructionism to assess widely divergent needs assessments underlying housing strategies in San Francisco. In San Francisco, authorities use an approach required by the state government that ignores overcrowding and other ‘invisible’ criteria. We conclude by recommending that planners apply greater rigor in housing needs assessments, that can inform public debates around more equitable housing policy.

Introduction/ History

To California Sen. Scott Wiener, nothing epitomizes his state’s housing failures more than the seemingly endless fight over a five-story condo building at the corner of Valencia and Hill streets in San Francisco’s Mission District. The area is in the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, which rezoned a third of San Francisco in 2008 to increase density near transit and to make housing more affordable. The lot was formerly home to a fast-food restaurant whose neighbors included several three-story apartment buildings and the historic Marsh theater.

Shortly after the Neighborhoods Plan took effect, a developer proposed a 16-unit building with two affordable housing units on the site of the restaurant. Although it adhered to the new zoning plan, the 1050 Valencia project was to be the tallest building for many blocks, and Mission District residents moved to stop it. In addition to complaining about the project’s height, they insisted the modern building would damage the historic character of the neighborhood. This was even though the stucco and wood-shingled restaurant there at the time was neither historic nor aesthetically appealing. In addition, the Marsh theater owner was concerned that construction noise and a proposed first-floor bar would disrupt theater business.

It took years for the condos to be approved. The developer agreed to mitigate the noise impact and reduce the number of units from 16 to 12. Not satisfied, the opponents turned to the Board of Permit Appeals, which sympathized with them and lopped off the top story of the building. That reduced the number of units from 12 to nine—and eliminated the two affordable units. “Welcome to housing policy in San Francisco,” wrote Wiener, who was then a member of the city’s board of supervisors. “A policy based not so much on our city’s dire housing needs but on who can turn out the most people at a public hearing.”

After an outcry from Wiener and affordable housing advocates, the board reversed its decision a few months later, in 2014. But that still was not the end of it. In mid-2015, the project was halted when a judge suspended construction following a petition from Neighbors for Preservation and Progress. It finally opened to residents the following year. By then it had been nearly a decade since the project’s initial proposal. Wiener left local government for the California Senate in late 2016.

But he continued to push on the housing issue, as well as many others. This year, he became something of a national celebrity among urbanists by introducing S.B. 827, a bill that would override local zoning laws and allow more height and density in the areas around transit stations. The bill died in a legislative committee in April, but the issue is not going away. And neither is Wiener.

What happened to the Mission District condo project and to Wiener’s crusade reveals quite a bit about the problem of building in California. The same power struggles have repeated themselves many times and in many places. Mountain View, a wealthy South Bay suburb, is another textbook case. Housing activists who say Google worsens congestion by running buses for its employees between San Francisco and its headquarters in Mountain View have called on the company to build affordable places for its employees to live. But in 2012, the Mountain View City Council—citing a need to protect the city’s burrowing owl population—explicitly forbade Google from doing just that.

In 2016, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly approved a tax increase to provide $1.2 billion for 10,000 units of new housing for the homeless. Nearly two years later, developments have stalled because of a requirement that they receive a letter of support from the local city council member. California is awash in single-family homes. Seventy percent of San Francisco is zoned single family. Build more condos and apartments, even luxury units, most economists say, and prices will ease up. But local governments stand in the way.

S.B. 827 would have overridden most local zoning limits. It would have allowed for much higher building heights and a higher density of new projects within a half-mile radius of any transit stop. It was radical. Even its supporters believed Wiener’s effort was destined to fail. And it did, falling short on a 6-4 vote in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. But a simple solution to a complicated problem is always a hard sell—at least the first time. In the end, Wiener’s legislation died because too many groups felt as if they had been left out of the process. “There were so many different factions with so many concerns and everyone had their own pet issue,” says San Francisco-based transit consultant Jeff Wood. “The bill got killed by a thousand different cuts.”

Thanks to national coverage, Wiener’s bill exposed not just California but the whole country to the divisions that exist on housing. That attention has opened or expanded a conversation in many cities about their own approach to meeting housing demands. The failure of S.B. 827 is a reminder that fear, vulnerability, and history often render one-stroke solutions dead on arrival. Wiener knows this.

Property Values

Concerns that multifamily rental housing will lower the value of their single-family houses has driven many residents to oppose new apartment developments in or near their neighborhoods. Proposals for low-income apartments are especially likely to trigger property value concerns, but even market rate rental housing can give rise to arguments that apartments lower property values and damage the community’s reputation. Local officials often echo these property value claims, either because they believe lower property values will injure their communities tax base or reputation or because they want to sound responsive to constituent concerns. The fear that housing density will hurt property values seems to be primarily based on anecdotes. By contrast, most research has come to a different conclusion: in general, neither multifamily rental housing, nor low-income housing, causes neighboring property values to decline.

Two studies have taken a macro look at home values and house appreciation near multifamily housing properties. One study focused on “working communities” throughout the nation – neighborhoods of predominantly low- and moderate-income working households. The study looked at data from the 2000 US Census and compared house values in those communities with the share of multifamily housing in those communities. The conclusion: working communities with multifamily dwellings have higher property values than other types of working communities. In other words, the average value of owner-occupied houses was highest in working communities with the most multifamily units.

In fact, among working communities, “the high multifamily areas had the highest home values, the mixed-stock areas the next highest, and the single-family areas had the lowest.” The study also noted a similar phenomenon with respect to income: among working communities, higher household income was positively associated with the share of multifamily housing.

“We find that large, dense, multi-family rental developments…do not negatively impact the sales price of nearby single-family homes.” “We find that if located properly with attractive landscaping and entranceways, adverse price effects can be minimized and sometimes can add value. In the long term, such apartment complexes probably raise the overall value of detached homes relative to their absence.”

“To this point, our results for Wisconsin are generally consistent with results in other studies: we have not been able to find evidence that Section 42 developments cause property values to deteriorate. The exception is Milwaukee County, where properties that are distant from the developments seem to appreciate more rapidly, although the magnitude of the effect is small. We have found no evidence of an impact in Waukesha and Ozaukee and find evidence that properties in Madison near Section 42 developments appreciate more rapidly.”

“In sum, assisted housing of various types: (i) had positive or insignificant effects on residential property values nearby in higher-value, less vulnerable neighborhoods, unless it exceeded thresholds of spatial concentration or facility scale; (ii) evinced more modest prospects for positive property value impacts in lower-value, more vulnerable neighborhoods, and strength of frequently negative impacts was directly related to the concentration of sites and scale of the facilities.” “In sum, the presence or proximity of subsidized housing made no difference in housing values as measured by relative price behavior in a dynamic.”

Conclusion

The tension between housing affordability and community interests exemplifies the ongoing debate surrounding housing policy in California. Senator Scott Wiener’s initiatives, particularly S.B. 827, represent an earnest effort to address the issues of housing shortages and affordability. However, it is evident that the solution is not straightforward. As communities grapple with the complexities of development, it becomes increasingly clear that collaboration and inclusive dialogue are essential in crafting policies that not only expand housing but also respect the fabric and needs of existing neighborhoods.

References

• Housing need assessments in San Francisco: normative science or neoliberal alchemy? Palm, June 2020.
• Inclusionary affordable housing program monitoring and procedural manual. October 2011.
• Scott Wiener Thinks He Knows to Fix California’s Housing. Liz Farmer, June 2018.
• Cash, A., Zuk, M., & Carlton, Ian. (2019). Upzoning California. Urban Displacement Project.
• New Livable California. (n.d.). How SB 50 Works to Destroy Thriving Neighborhoods.
• Misra, T. (2016). Mapping America's Appalling Affordable Housing Deficit.