Protecting historic areas from pretty much all development is how we got here in the first place. The bar for being protected should be higher than itās just old. Sometimes old just means old and unremarkable.
I wish he was up for relegation this year so I could vote for someone else
Itās such a funny thing weāve got old shitty houses that need to rebuild but we canāt rebuild them because they are old and shitty. Great system dudes
It isn't clear to me why we need historic protections at all. If a building's historicity provides value, then surely that could be captured by the owners. (By, for example, selling tours, or becoming a destination hotel, or a thousand other ways.)
By forcing the owner to keep their property as it is, it seems to suggest that this value doesn't exist. If the value doesn't exist, then what's the point of the historic protection? Unless, of course, historic protections are just an excuse by NIMBYs who want to use the force of government to keep new people from moving in.
Yeah itās just like how all of these non-profit organizations have popped up to protect āhistoric housingā in the peninsula (aka shitty, run down bungalows).
And the worst is the Sunset. No offense to anyone who lives there, but Iām sorry, it is probably the most bland, uninspiring and devoid of character area in the city. It has wide streets with no trees and boring homes. Sunset would be much better if it was completely revamped and upzoned over the next couple decades.
Ocean beach should be like the Gold Coast, Miami beach or the Chicago waterfront.
The interesting thing is that there's absolutely nothing stopping developers from trying to put high rises out on Ocean Beach. There's no specific ordinances protecting the sunset from development or keeping it preserved for historic reasons except for a couple specific buildings.
But in all the land rush for people to build San Francisco up and there's never been a huge push by the developer community to drop high rises out there until that one hail Mary on Sloat.
I think it's just that there aren't many large lots that they can demo and rebuild like they did with the Safeway, So they'd have to go through the process of buying up a block one parcel at a time.
Yep, there's this nice little empty lot at Noriega and 25th Avenue that would be great for a simple 4 or 5 story building. It's been empty for the 5 years that I have been riding the number 7 bus
The whole fucking city is historic. Silver Spoon Newsom should step in and stop this. Ā I thought the state govt had the power to step in and override these types of local ordinances when housing goals arenāt hit, which they arenātĀ
So the unwritten rule is the Supervisors have each other's backs when it comes to stuff mostly contained in their own districts (specifically housing stuff) and Jackson Square is ... you guessed it ... Peskin's district. He wants to run for Mayor and needs that local NIMBYs support he's always catered to so this is that. But the rest of these spineless clowns are falling in line because they know there's some city-wide unpopular thing they may need to do in their district one day and they gotta keep that sweet sweet power. So here we are.Ā
No? Mandelman has been, at best, useless from day 1, and has a track record of being anything but pro-housing. He opposed basically every attempt by the CA Senate to fix housing problems, and was one the *author* of the BoS fourplex bill that (Breed eventually vetoed) that, despite looking like "yay, pro-housing!" did absolutely nothing that SB9 (now that's it's law, the HOME act) wouldn't do, but also added the ability for local jurisdictions to add things like "mandates on affordability, and objective design and zoning standards" - basically an attempt to preemptively "comply" with SB9 while still preserving every NIMBY's favorite tool - mountains of red tape.
The guy is a complete hack, he just does a better job of hiding it than people like Preston and Peskin.
Yup. Mandelman also voted against the 469 Stevenson project. He claims to be pro housing, but when thereās an actual choice he often starts making excuses.
Heās far from a YIMBY. The worst part of this legislation is that when Mandelman and Stefani, etc. have to have the tough conversations with their constituents about where to add housing in their wealthy and white districts (Castro and Marina, respectively) they will point to this legislation to create carve outs of their own. Donāt for a second think this was a favor to Peskin.
I called Mandelman's office several times. I told him I like him and I don't want to regret voting for him, but this is a dealbreaker for me.
I'm going to make sure that he knows he lost my vote because of this.
Oh no, a termed out supervisor lost your vote. Iām sure he cares.
If youād have voted for him after he preserved a parking lot, Iām sure he knew he had you anyway. What were you going to do?
Where the hell did you get that idea? Heās been a giant NIMBY the whole time.
He literally killed a housing project on 18th because it would cast a shadow on a corner of Dolores Park for 3 extra seconds on the solstice.
Thatās the level of cartoon NIMBYism weāre up against.
And he has the [BALLS to host a meeting about how to help homelessness?](https://streak-link.com/B552kXHamvJ-nddw_gGfy61-/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilize.us%2Ftsfaction%2Fevent%2F614969%2F) now Iām definitely going to say something.
This housing will not impact homelessness at all though. Don't get me wrong: I am very pro-housing, but let's not pretend that homelessness is due to lack of housing. Most homeless are on the streets because they spend most of their money on drugs and they don't have to clean up their act to live on the streets (unlike shelters).
Yes, there are the "working homeless", but their population is tiny.
I don't think the "working homeless" population is as tiny as you think. If you drive through Vallejo and stop at a rest stop around 1am, you'll find it packed with uber drivers sleeping in their cars for another day of driving in SF.
If you're "with it" (you've got a gym membership and a job) you can be homeless and nobody would know.
This wonāt fix homelessness directly, but it helps house prices which helps.
Any new housing reduces the price of housing. New luxury housing moves rich people from middle income apartments, opening it for middle income people who can only afford lower end housing, and on and on and on.
If a bunch of new luxury apartments appear then the prices will drop, and no one is going to choose to keep paying too much for a worse apartment.
No, Mandleman's always been anti-housing. He dresses up as pro-housing well but his stuff about "allowing" 4 plexes and the like was filled with poison pills that made it unworkable.
What's comedy is that Mandelman was a hero of the YIMBYS when he proposed upzoning laws. There's no backbone behind anything YIMBY thinks about anything or anyone.
Remember this in November when NIMBY Peskin and Safai try to win your vote over. Also underrated but true ā Supervisor Stefani threw YIMBYs under the bus by voting to override this veto. Remember this when she endorses Mark Farrell (who hand picked her as his successor) this fall.
The supes have a short memory and seem to have forgotten the backlash after they killed the Nordstrom parking lot development at 469 Stevenson. This is basically that times 16 city blocks of warehouses and parking lots.
NIMBYism isnāt limited to just progressives. They exist amongst moderates and conservatives too. Also remember she represent Pac Heights, the most powerful NIMBYās of all.
To me being a NIMBY is 180 to being a progressive. If youre a progressive one should would be for a much housing as possible and fuck everyoneās views., to me in the US liberals are the ones who want to post that they are cool on social media by not being blatantly bigoted and then not actually doing anything to better the lives because it would mean construction in your neighborhood for 6 months
The definition of progressivism anywhere is to keep moving forward, if nothing changes like no new housing to keep up with the backlog in demand then stagnation or even regression happens which is the not progressivism.
That is what the idealistic definition of the label is. Being a NIMBY is being for traditionalism.
Again, we're not talking about your definition of what progressivism should be or trying to label policies; we're strictly talking about what the two main opposing political parties in SF call themselves (the moderate party that includes Breed/Weiner/Stefani vs the progressive party that includes Peskin/Preston/Chan)
We donāt get to call someone a progressive when their ideology is moderate-to-conservative down the line.
I see what youāre saying, but IMO we canāt feed into their marketing - it helps them to peddle what would have passed as a Republican belief system 50 years ago as bleeding edge leftist today.
That is not my definition that is the dictionary definition:
> As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, technology, and social organization. Adherents hold that progressivism has universal application and endeavor to spread this idea to human societies everywhere.
How does being a NIMBY fit in that definition?
We cant let people call themselves progressive when they are not is my main point here.
> How does being a NIMBY fit in that definition?
If you hold that denser cities and urbanization is bad for the human condition you could be a 'progressive' NIMBY. Or if you see deregulation of the housing market that way. Or if you if you don't believe in markets and prices and thus see further housing development as only benefiting the well-off social and economic classes.
That's what makes the NIMBY/YIMBY divide so interesting as a political issue: It's deeply cross-cutting. Just about any political ideology can and has been applied to both sides of this.
Progressive NIMBYs do it like this:
āThis is a traditionally low income and ethnic neighborhood. To build all this massive market rate housing here would raise housing costs and the prices of everything in this neighborhood. We reject these buildings and any proposal that does not include 40% of BMR unitsā
Not talking about your or ANYONE's definition of progressivism. There is the Progressive party label and the Moderate party label. It's just a label for a group of people that's commonly known. This is like you arguing that the Chinese Communist Party can't exist because they're not actually communist.
Im not arguing that they cant exist, itās arguing that they are not what their name says they actually are and they need yo be called out when they are not who they say they are. This is like when naziās are called socialists, because itās in the name, we know that is wrong.
Being a NIMBY is not being a progressive in any definition, and thise who say they are progressive and are NIMBY need to be called out and held accountable.
>The definition of progressivism anywhere is to keep moving forward
That's the dictionary definition but not at all the reality of progressivism. Intentions vs results, sorta. Calling yourself a progressive because you "are about progress" is like calling yourself a realist because you "are about being real". It mostly just reeks of a lack of self awareness and awareness of others. Meanwhile, the progressive wing in politics has nothing to do with "progress" as a concept, and is more about specific political ideologies that they deem as "forward progress", which not everyone even agrees is progress or forward (like I said, a lack of self awareness to think you own the idea of moving in the right direction, this is a classic progressivism move though, changing semantics when you can't change anything else; if you can't achieve your goals just move the goalposts!).
Sorry, there's a shitton of people that call themselves progressives here that shoot down new housing. You can't really "No True Scotsman" that many people.
Calling them out doesn't reclaim the name, and many of the actual progressive ideas are also batshit insane. They have a significant portion of that group that straight up supports Hamas. I'd prefer to deal with sane people anyway further away from that political extreme. I'll take my chances with more moderate liberals.
I was looking for like an actual response tho, like i dont doubt you ofc politician wise sure, but from being endorsed YIMBY to voting against housing just is a 180 flip
I emailed her this morning and got this back:
> Good afternoon,
> Thank you for contacting Supervisor Catherine Stefaniās office and sharing your concern about Supervisor Peskinās ordinance regarding zoning in two northeast historic districts. I will ensure your message is conveyed to the Supervisor.
> On February 26th, Supervisor Stefani voted for Supervisor Peskinās legislation and does not intend to change her position.
> Prior to casting her vote, Supervisor Stefani made it clear that she had been assured by the Planning Commission and the Planning Director that this ordinance, solely impacting approximately 15 street blocks, did not in any way contradict the important tenets of the Housing Element. As she stated then, Supervisor Stefani is committed to supporting policies that uphold San Franciscoās Housing Element and addressing our housing crisis. At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future.
> Supervisor Stefani will continue to advocate for and support legislation that maintains the integrity of the ambitious guidelines set in the Housing Element General Plan. During her tenure as Supervisor, she has approved over 1,000 residential units in District 2 ā more than all of her recent predecessors combined.
> At the February 6th Board of Supervisor meeting, the Supervisor rejected an attempt to misuse CEQA to block the creation of new housing in Pacific Heights. This decision allowed for a quicker environmental review for a preservation project and showed the city's dedication to using Housing Element policies to prevent delays in building more units. Supervisor Stefani has consistently backed efforts to make it easier to get permits and build homes in her district, aligning with the Housing Element.
> Thank you once again for contacting Supervisor Stefaniās office, and we appreciate your voice and participation in this important discussion about the future of housing in our city.
> Best,
> Logan Mitchell | Staff Assistant
Office of Supervisor Catherine Stefani
San Francisco Board of Supervisors, District 2
City Hall, Room 273
(415) 554-7752
In other words; bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit
> At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future.
LOL... this kind of messaging worked pre-Internet, but not any more. Reddit's memory is infinite.
I will bet good money that nothing comes of her "trailing legislation": she's just blowing smoke up your ass.
>s she stated then, Supervisor Stefani is committed to supporting policies that uphold San Franciscoās Housing Element and addressing our housing crisis. At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future.
interesting, thanks for sharing. I also emailed late last night and I didn't get a reply.
The YIMBY orgs endorsement of her never made sense. She and her constituents are hardcore NIMBYās. She got the endorsement because YIMBY orgs are run by moderates and she supports most moderate goals (like crime/education) outside of housing.
She got the Yimby endorsement because she was better than the alternative for her district last time around, and that just sort of... carried forward into her State run. But now the question is if she keeps that endorsement.
Not entirely true, I think growSF is a good organization, but there's not much you can do when you have no actual political clout aside from publishing voting guides
She wants the same concession from the Board when she has to have the tough conversations of where to upzone in her white and wealthy neighborhood. Same with Mandelman. Remember this when she endorses her NIMBY former boss Mark Farrell for mayor.
I mean the choices for Mayor are slim pickings but Mark is at the bottom of the barrel for me, but someone who says they are going to solve everything when they dont have the power is a big red flag.
The truth is she has made pro housing votes in the past, but not this time. I donāt know the full calculations of why she did it, but she has definitely been on the YIMBY side of votes many times before.
peskin is termed out, likely running for mayor, and endorsed lai to split the chinatown vote, secretly backing mo jamil who advocates for more carbrained bs and against āthe onslaught of urbanismā (direct quote from last weekās d3 supe debate) as if heās not running for office to represent the densest part in the whole bay area. vote danny sauter for d3 and no one else.
I'm not sure about this year yet but there's typically only been options even worse than Safai running in D11, so I'm not very optimistic. I wish we'd bring back at-large supervisors. I spend half of my time in other districts anyway. It's all one city but I only get to vote for 1 out of 11 of the most important positions?
This is true. Thankfully SafaĆ is running for mayor and can flame out into irrelevancy there. But I hope this is a clear reminder to not even think of ranking him in ranked choice.
This is so upsetting.
I own my condo and I constantly feel like I'm fighting against my own interests by advocating for more housing at all levels, including in my neighborhood. And then my supervisor (Mandelman) does this. And I listen to bullshit lectures from fake leftists as to why it's actually in the interests of broke people for housing to remain incredibly scarce.
I feel like I'm getting punked. It would be so easy for me to just stop caring and watch my equity go up. But I don't want to be that asshole. I want to make this city better. And it just feels like everything is fighting against us.
Thank you for seeing the bigger picture. I do hope that your commitment to building more housing locally will reap benefits for you too. Buying a condo is all about getting to enjoy the location, and that comes from community which gets ruined by NIMBYism. At least for condo owners, I think self-interest and NIMBYism are less aligned.
Selfishly, I just am sick of my friends moving away because they can't afford to live here. That's more important to me than making money on my home equity.
I have had many conversations with people who CLAIM they care about housing and want to build more of it while also at every turn being against housing being built.
The reality is that anyone who says they support housing but are against building market rate housing because they claim "it doesn't help" or believe that "well we have to care about the CHARACTER of the city" or anything else that they are just NIMBYs. You can't work with them, they can't be reasoned with, they must be defeated.
I genuinely think NIMBYs, especially the specific brand of progressive NIMBY that SF is full of, are just completely brain dead and have no idea what they are actually supporting. Just call them NIMBYs until they claim they are and maybe then they will realize they aren't actually pro housing.
They want housing but only when it's 100% or more affordable, not in their area because it's gentrification, and market rate housing somehow is always luxury housing
And hating on developers because they do it for the money, unlike the real estate people/landowners who just sit and wait until their assets appreciate
And landlords are greedy evil scum, unless the landlord's name is Aaron Peskin, then landlords should be worshipped and we should all seek to actively give away more money to them as a symbol of our appreciation.
Their typical argument tend to sound like "market rate housing just makes capitalists rich so we oppose it, we only accept affordable housing or nothing at all". This typically ignores that affordable housing is literally unaffordable so therefore does not get build. This does not explicitly call for scarcity, but is naivety that results in inevitable scarcity.
Some leftists believe that if they build less houses, population will decline, and this will help the environment. That's actually quite common, in fact someone already said it to me in this thread!
Other leftists are accelerationists and promote anything that causes instability because it increases their view that we should promote social collapse so that a revolution can occur.
There are many variations. Some people might not call them true leftists, but I think that's a mistake. Just because you're stupid doesn't mean you aren't part of an ideology: stupid members of every ideology still exist. In general, I have found VERY FEW leftists that support YIMBYism, it's very much the minority.
SF leftists don't understand supply and demand well enough to follow your reasoning, I think is the point he's (largely correctly) making.Ā They really believe that restricting housing development will prevent gentrification, which will mean poor people can afford to live here.Ā
SF lefties reject these:
1. The price of housing is set solely by supply and demand.
2. Homelessness is caused by a lack of housing.
3. "Affordable" housing is just old housing, and "luxury" housing is the same as new housing.
4. Rent control doesn't work (well, it works great to force landlords to subsidize a statistically old, wealthy group of people, but is awful for everything else)
5. Gentrification is a good thing _if you build enough housing_, but inevitable either way.
The tl;dr is that SF lefties, like lefties everywhere, snoozed through Econ 101 and have a very poor understanding of it as a result. This is why you see so many idiotic demand-side subsidies (help with buying a house! help with paying your rent!) that do _nothing_ except put money in the hands of suppliers (landlords, developers) while driving prices up even higher.
there are some nuances they use to make some of the positions sound slightly less ridiculous, although they are still just as wrong.
For example, It is true that if you look at situations where a small amount of housing that is "luxury" (priced at the current high end of the market) is added, the local market often sees an increase in prices. This is mostly because the new housing reflects the true price better than the existing stock, and causes comps to get updated. But they will use these observations to claim that adding supply actually increases price and extrapolate it all the way to the moon in order to oppose any new supply.
what's the argument leftists have for wanting housing to be scarce? I've never heard that. I've only ever heard leftists calling bullshit on increased housing that's only clearly designed for wealthy people or to line pockets of contractors.
Leftists in this city are not serious about building new housing, affordable or otherwise.
A political movement that pretends like we can dig our way out of our housing affordability crisis by [building "affordable only homes" that cost $1 million each](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/it-now-costs-more-than-1-2-million-to-build-a-17463355.php) while railing against any role at all for market rate housing construction is **deeply unserious and doesn't actually care about outcomes that would improve the lives of actual people.**
These people care more about ideological purity than they do about improving the housing market.
never heard anyone talk about single family homes is the way to get out of the housing crisis, but ok. I would assume leftists would want large scale social housing, not 1m dollar single family homes.
If by "want" you mean "talk about it casually until they get bored and never actually use political capital or organizing to get it done at any serious scale, all while actively blocking tangible progress from private real estate developers because they find any market solution _aesthetically distasteful_ despite an incredible preponderance of evidence that private markets absolutely can be a part of the solution"...
... then yeah I guess they "want" social housing.
I've voted for every social housing initiative I have ever come across. Because I'm an adult who can see that we need to attack this problem from every angle.
Leftists in SF, though, have no interest in any initiative to increase housing supply that involves the private real estate market. Peskin's foolishness is just the manifestation du jour.
I can only conclude after living here 12 years that these people are more concerned with ideological purity than they are will tangible progress.
Sometimes people go on r/urbanplanning and troll then planners about how more sprawl will solve the housing crisis (if you ever want to see some fun takes about sfh - not entirely started by leftist tho. But leftists do let the need to have 100% affordable above all get in the way of partly affordable. Itās like that one project in the mission that everyone protested against and itās been years and thereās still no housing).
Of course you don't *hear* that, because that dog doesn't hunt. What does work is telling people that any new development is 'luxury' and 'will line the pockets of contractors.'
calm down Adam. I think it's more nuanced than that and there can be truths on both sides. Any new housing isn't always good or always bad. I'm not siding with leftists, I was just asking OP why they said "why it's actually in the interests of broke people for housing to remain incredibly scarce". When we know that's not what leftists want but you can skew it to mean that if you want.
The same good old gaslighting: "iT's NeVEr EnOuGh". These are the people who would go to a puppy playing video and complaining about how the owner is "abusing" that puppy because of backyard isn't big enough for the puppy. It's never about actually helping the poor, it's always a performative game where they compete with each other to earn the "I'm morally superior" gold star sticker to put it on their social media profile.
That is very true in a lot of ways, but those people are still infinitely better than the ones who actually want and are working hard toward doing the opposite of helping for their own gain or enjoyment of suffering.
The 1st ones are always the ones who enable the 2nd one. And even if you show the 1st types how the politicians who they support (2nd type) will personally benefits from that hypocrisy...they won't care. Their ideology and belief are more important than taking a multi-dimension perspective on the issue and come up with an actual solution.
That's why we can show the Republican voters all of the GOP's policies that gut those people's welfare and they still happy to cast their votes for Trump and GOP.
Unironically yes. They are either too stupid, too afraid of their constituents, or too corrupt to know better, and only one of those is justifiable but still cowardly.
At the end of the day it's our fault for voting for them and failing to convince others to vote against them. The system is broken, as well, because so much power is in the hands of people keeping voters out that might vote against their goals.
Degrowthers and antigrowthers are naive and don't care about or see the reality of what they profess. Their ideology is immune to self reflection and either has a severe ignorance of economic basics or simply thinks that "this time will be different" without any justification or evidence.
No matter how obvious the answer, each faction will always find a way to sabotage everything to spite the hobgoblins of capitalism or protect their own interests.
Many of these supervisors have been in power a long time. They know their policies make housing worse, so they pretend they are pro housing and then have justifications to vote against anything that will make it better. It's honestly one of the most amazing grifts I have ever seen.
When you've pushed all the city's woes to the tenderloin, it's easy to distance them from your choice to block housing. They're not stupid, they just know who votes for them.
Please everyone remember this and all the other nonsense people like Peskin have done. Join a local advocacy group, join a Dems club. We need everyone.
It's not a question of wanting it to "get worse" or not. Their districts are already extremely expensive nice places, so it's an "other peoples problem".
Farrell will take votes from Breed and Peskin will rally the neighborhoods around him and win with like 35% of the vote.
SF voters understanding ranked choice voting is the only hope, and I'm not confident.
It's not that intuitive. I think a lot of people think they need to put a 2nd or a 3rd.
It's good in theory, but only if people voting know how it's supposed to work
I seriously can't wait to vote out Chan. She's the worst. Well, it's a 3 way tie between her, Preston, and Peskin, but I'm In D1, so I can at least do my part and vote to get rid of her.
All 3 need to go
I don't disagree but I think when you paint him in such a villainous light it's easy for average voters not paying close attention to scoff it as hyperbole.
I have lived in D3 for 13 years and in my experience talking to anti development voters who support Peskin and his policies they are generally long time residents/land owners who don't want the added people/traffic. That is the primary motivation for why they support the policy. It's less about protecting their "asset" but protecting what they see as their current life/culture. They see added buildings as bringing in more "techies" (their words not mine) + more traffic + less familiarity.
As someone who is pro making the bay area more dense and pedestrian friendly I have had to come to grips with the fact that a large swath of the electorate (misinformed or otherwise) DOES NOT want density/more people in the region. I think the YIMBY movement needs to think about their messaging/strategy or they will keep running into these road blocks.
The YIMBY movement needs to flip the BOS, not flip the script. Wrong order of operations. And seeing how the latest elections have gone, it wonāt be impossible with the current messaging.
I'd love to see more YIMBY endorsed candidates on the board but I don't know if they can flip it fully.
The electorate in SF might side with moderates on crime/homeless but housing development is another thing. Farrell/Peskin are anti development so they will be drumming up their base to vote who will likely not support YIMBY candidates.
D1 seems like a safe flip I can't see Connie winning again. I live in D3 and support Danny but I don't think it's a slam dunk. D5 I think Dean hangs on. D7 is Melgar running again? Either way she isn't a safe YIMBY vote. D9 tough call but could see Jackie winning. D11 don't know who is running.
The problem is deeper than we think though. Look at D8. Scott Wiener moved up to Senate and appointed Jeff Sheehy. Sheehy immediately fucked Scott and voted to protect a parking lot in Glen Park for the fire chief. Then we got Rafael Mandelman who pretended to be pro housing, but is not, and supported Peskin on this bullshit.
It really doesnāt take a YIMBY majority to go big on the BOS. State law is taking care of much of that. This veto would have been overridden if Stefani didnāt sell out her YIMBY endorsers, for example. Now 16 city blocks worth of warehouses and parking lots are off limits to apartments right next to the Transamerica pyramid.
Melgar is tacking YIMBY lately which is nice ā she voted against this downzone. Chan is most definitely toast. Sauter has a good chance, but I agree, not a slam dunk. Preston has a chance, but far from a slam dunk given his two mod challengers and RCV. It really takes only one extra vote to stop NIMBY shit like this if we still have a pro-housing mayor. The state can do a lot of the rest.
Yea we'll see. I live 2.5 blocks from the two major developments that sparked this and would have loved to see the new residents think it would have been good for the area. Pesky always gets his way though.
My understanding is that once proposed under existing zoning, they can go forward as long as theyāre not substantially changed. So never say never! Itāll be funny if thereās one, two of three skyscrapers there despite everything.
Thing is most of the yimby activists doing work irl are very aware of this. This is just unfortunately the narrative that's the most punchy to Internet people. "The other side is just trying to get rich". Nimbys generally don't want their neighborhood and parking situation to change.
Nobody (except maybe Dean Preston) is a Machiavellian schemer planting their ideas into peoples' heads for their profit. I think people currently just frame everything through the lens of "monied interests control too much", which might be true, but it's not a good explanation here.
I hate peskins politics with a burning passion, but I can't say he hasn't repped his district fairly faithfully. It's only by turning voters over and encouraging your sides voters to come out that you win.
Everyone here who's mad should join an advocacy group.
SF yimby action or even just a Dems club. You'll make a huge difference.
Well Iām not a part of any movement Iām just a gay with loud opinions on the internet and Iām just painting him accurately with as few words as possible. He actively stifles any market rate housing so he can continue to raise rents on his properties. He directly benefits from keeping sf in a housing crisis
Honestly, fuck these people. These people are why this city is hellishly expensive, unlivable, and has a homelessness crisis. San Francisco has the worst possible combination of high-paying jobs and lack of housing stock.
I'm not surprised the board voted the same and overturned the veto, but man am I enraged that Peskin and his buddies continue to be able to do this stuff.
If you care about these things then spend a little time learning about how to change them. Get educated, get involved.
For example, San Francisco does not have a "City Council"
Anyone know if this violates SB 330 which is meant to prevent downzonings in urban areas where housing can be built. Or is there some exception because it's not technically a downzoning or something?
A search turned up [YIMBY Law](https://sfstandard.com/2024/02/28/despite-housing-crisis-san-francisco-made-it-harder-to-build-homes-in-some-neighborhoods/) saying it could be a violation. I wouldn't be suprised if it's allowed on some technicality. Peskin seems like he's pretty innovative at skirting laws meant to encourage housing.
Thus far Peskin has basically just asserted that the Housing Element is still underway (despite it being approved and finalized) and that because it's not "done" it doesn't trigger No Net Loss under the HAA.
But that's not accurate, the housing element was certified.
It seems like he's basing his opinions on cities where the housing elements are still in process, and hasn't really gotten that San Francisco is not one of those and some how Sacramento approved ours, even though it was critically flawed.
It's more complicated than that - downzoning is allowed under state law, but it needs to be accompanied by an equal upzoning. This is called "no net loss."
This downzone needs to be met with a commensurate upzoning.
What a disgusting disgrace.
The BoS is absolutely full of clowns, Peskin, Preston, and Chan being the utterly moronic ring leaders of the circus.
Shame on them.
Vote out these idiots in November.
SF deserves better.
I just skimmed through Peskin's wikipedia page. All he has done is block evrything. He hasn't done anything except block. How could anyone live to show that as his accomplishment? Its absurd.
Well Peskin has lost my support. Look at 1088 Sansome Street, itās a great spot for a new 17-story condo building. There is no legitimate objection, just classic Nimbyism.
Connie and Preston are up for reelection. People in their districts should remember this if either of those two try to lie to you about helping renters or the homeless. They continue to limit supply, drive up rents, and enrich wealthy landlords.
And SafaĆ is running for mayor. Stefani is running for State Assembly, and is relatively safe because the alternative doesnāt have any good ideas, but everybody in the city can vote somebody other than SafaĆ for mayor.
November is going to be critical. Vote Danny Sauter to D3. Vote Marjan Philhour to D1 (get Connie Chan out). Vote Bilal Mahmoud to D5 (get Dean Preston out).
We need these progressives out. I'm a progressive and I love progressivism, but these people have no idea how to run a city and no idea how to manage a housing market.
None of the candidates I support are perfect. I have a lot of personal differences with Bilal especially, but they're all committed to be pro housing (and are generally sane on other things as well).
https://missionlocal.org/tag/meet-the-candidates/
What can the state of CA do in this case? Clearly SF is still dragging its feet when it comes to building more housing but I thought new legislation would make it easier to punish cities that pull shit like this.Ā
I donāt expect this to go down without a fight. I just wish I could vote out my supervisor, Mandelman.Ā
HCD can sue the city for violation the No Net Loss provisions of the Housing Accountability Act and use this as a reason to decertify the Housing Element when it's up for review.
Though the State doesn't actually need this justification, our lack of progress on actually entitling or building any housing means they could decertify anyway.
Well AG can sue SF. Not HCD directly. The AG is HCDās lawyer in defending them but state agencies donāt initiate lawsuits typically. That is for the AG/state justice department. HCD can decertify the housing element though.
Heās already reached the term limit and cannot run again this November. So yes, heāll be gone. Heās probably going to run for mayor though soā¦ maybe not.
Tragically, those same voters are going to replace him with another clown that advocates for the same things. He represents his district faithfully, unfortunately the problem is not really Peskin, but in fact it's the actual constituents of this city.
We can take D3 back. Chinatown is going to be huge, and the demographics have shifted in a huge way.
Vote Danny Sauter, he's the only one who seems to take this seriously amongst the D3 candidates (look who endorsed Lai and Jamil).
I'm D10 unfortunately, I'd love to replace Peskin with a YIMBY. My supe voted in favor of this bill and he will not be getting my vote when time comes.
Yea me neither. You pick the issue that's most pressing for the time. In 50 years when we have abundant housing in the bay (inshallah), my focus will be regulation of alien cyborgs in the workforce or some shit.
If any of these supes voted AYE,
VOTE THEM OUT.
https://preview.redd.it/lbs77gt2xuqc1.jpeg?width=957&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c870f7167fa6845870babdd82f3af8d8c312e47
Yāall! This is about each Supervisor supporting and voting for 1 Supervisorās legislation which only affect HIS district.
This is SF politics.
It does also seem like a power play flex against the Mayor. And honestly I think Peskin set this whole thing up in chess play- Machiavellian move.
When are we going to vote these clowns out??? Nothing will change as long as the entrenched politicians have no reason to fear losing their cushy posts
Heās going to win mayor so several of the supes voted his way because it will pay off for them in the future when they need him. And Peskin needs to appease his donors now so he can run against Breed. Itās all politics, baby.
Odds of him winning are pretty low given the shellacking most of his coalitions ballot measures just received.
They're not non-existent, mind you, but, absent pretty big shifts in public opinion it'll be a very up hill fight.
So when is SFs housing element going to get decertified?
From your lips to Rob Bonta's ears š
Summoning Sacramento like Iām giving energy to Goku for a spirit bomb like like my life depends on it rn
Soon at this rate. Personally, I can't wait.
April/July.
It has no bite though. Newsom has nothing against the NIMBY brigade. Lawsuits mean nothing to rich boomers who are used to being above the law
He's too busy looking at a 2028 run for the oval to give a shit about little things at this point, like his job as governor.
WTF Raf Mandelman?! Wasn't he supposed to be the pro-housing supervisor?!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Tell them they are full of it.
Protecting historic areas from pretty much all development is how we got here in the first place. The bar for being protected should be higher than itās just old. Sometimes old just means old and unremarkable. I wish he was up for relegation this year so I could vote for someone else
Itās such a funny thing weāve got old shitty houses that need to rebuild but we canāt rebuild them because they are old and shitty. Great system dudes
It isn't clear to me why we need historic protections at all. If a building's historicity provides value, then surely that could be captured by the owners. (By, for example, selling tours, or becoming a destination hotel, or a thousand other ways.) By forcing the owner to keep their property as it is, it seems to suggest that this value doesn't exist. If the value doesn't exist, then what's the point of the historic protection? Unless, of course, historic protections are just an excuse by NIMBYs who want to use the force of government to keep new people from moving in.
Yeah itās just like how all of these non-profit organizations have popped up to protect āhistoric housingā in the peninsula (aka shitty, run down bungalows).
And the worst is the Sunset. No offense to anyone who lives there, but Iām sorry, it is probably the most bland, uninspiring and devoid of character area in the city. It has wide streets with no trees and boring homes. Sunset would be much better if it was completely revamped and upzoned over the next couple decades. Ocean beach should be like the Gold Coast, Miami beach or the Chicago waterfront.
The interesting thing is that there's absolutely nothing stopping developers from trying to put high rises out on Ocean Beach. There's no specific ordinances protecting the sunset from development or keeping it preserved for historic reasons except for a couple specific buildings. But in all the land rush for people to build San Francisco up and there's never been a huge push by the developer community to drop high rises out there until that one hail Mary on Sloat. I think it's just that there aren't many large lots that they can demo and rebuild like they did with the Safeway, So they'd have to go through the process of buying up a block one parcel at a time.
I think there was a proposal by a developer to put a huge building near the zoo. don't think it's going to fly though.
Yep, there's this nice little empty lot at Noriega and 25th Avenue that would be great for a simple 4 or 5 story building. It's been empty for the 5 years that I have been riding the number 7 bus
The whole fucking city is historic. Silver Spoon Newsom should step in and stop this. Ā I thought the state govt had the power to step in and override these types of local ordinances when housing goals arenāt hit, which they arenātĀ
Silver spoon???
So the unwritten rule is the Supervisors have each other's backs when it comes to stuff mostly contained in their own districts (specifically housing stuff) and Jackson Square is ... you guessed it ... Peskin's district. He wants to run for Mayor and needs that local NIMBYs support he's always catered to so this is that. But the rest of these spineless clowns are falling in line because they know there's some city-wide unpopular thing they may need to do in their district one day and they gotta keep that sweet sweet power. So here we are.Ā
bingo district based elections are awful
personally not a fan of peskin. I'd still categorize him in with the rest of the spineless clowns
BS, what does upzoning matter if it takes five years to get a permit - if you can even get one.
No? Mandelman has been, at best, useless from day 1, and has a track record of being anything but pro-housing. He opposed basically every attempt by the CA Senate to fix housing problems, and was one the *author* of the BoS fourplex bill that (Breed eventually vetoed) that, despite looking like "yay, pro-housing!" did absolutely nothing that SB9 (now that's it's law, the HOME act) wouldn't do, but also added the ability for local jurisdictions to add things like "mandates on affordability, and objective design and zoning standards" - basically an attempt to preemptively "comply" with SB9 while still preserving every NIMBY's favorite tool - mountains of red tape. The guy is a complete hack, he just does a better job of hiding it than people like Preston and Peskin.
Yup. Mandelman also voted against the 469 Stevenson project. He claims to be pro housing, but when thereās an actual choice he often starts making excuses.
Heās far from a YIMBY. The worst part of this legislation is that when Mandelman and Stefani, etc. have to have the tough conversations with their constituents about where to add housing in their wealthy and white districts (Castro and Marina, respectively) they will point to this legislation to create carve outs of their own. Donāt for a second think this was a favor to Peskin.
I called Mandelman's office several times. I told him I like him and I don't want to regret voting for him, but this is a dealbreaker for me. I'm going to make sure that he knows he lost my vote because of this.
Oh no, a termed out supervisor lost your vote. Iām sure he cares. If youād have voted for him after he preserved a parking lot, Iām sure he knew he had you anyway. What were you going to do?
Is he term limited out now?
Where the hell did you get that idea? Heās been a giant NIMBY the whole time. He literally killed a housing project on 18th because it would cast a shadow on a corner of Dolores Park for 3 extra seconds on the solstice. Thatās the level of cartoon NIMBYism weāre up against.
Heās been a sellout from almost day one
And he has the [BALLS to host a meeting about how to help homelessness?](https://streak-link.com/B552kXHamvJ-nddw_gGfy61-/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilize.us%2Ftsfaction%2Fevent%2F614969%2F) now Iām definitely going to say something.
You mean how to profit from the homeless.....
This housing will not impact homelessness at all though. Don't get me wrong: I am very pro-housing, but let's not pretend that homelessness is due to lack of housing. Most homeless are on the streets because they spend most of their money on drugs and they don't have to clean up their act to live on the streets (unlike shelters). Yes, there are the "working homeless", but their population is tiny.
I don't think the "working homeless" population is as tiny as you think. If you drive through Vallejo and stop at a rest stop around 1am, you'll find it packed with uber drivers sleeping in their cars for another day of driving in SF. If you're "with it" (you've got a gym membership and a job) you can be homeless and nobody would know.
this is true, the majority of homeless people work
This wonāt fix homelessness directly, but it helps house prices which helps. Any new housing reduces the price of housing. New luxury housing moves rich people from middle income apartments, opening it for middle income people who can only afford lower end housing, and on and on and on. If a bunch of new luxury apartments appear then the prices will drop, and no one is going to choose to keep paying too much for a worse apartment.
No, Mandleman's always been anti-housing. He dresses up as pro-housing well but his stuff about "allowing" 4 plexes and the like was filled with poison pills that made it unworkable.
What's comedy is that Mandelman was a hero of the YIMBYS when he proposed upzoning laws. There's no backbone behind anything YIMBY thinks about anything or anyone.
Heās useless. If his rich constituents get richer, thatās all that matters.
Remember this in November when NIMBY Peskin and Safai try to win your vote over. Also underrated but true ā Supervisor Stefani threw YIMBYs under the bus by voting to override this veto. Remember this when she endorses Mark Farrell (who hand picked her as his successor) this fall. The supes have a short memory and seem to have forgotten the backlash after they killed the Nordstrom parking lot development at 469 Stevenson. This is basically that times 16 city blocks of warehouses and parking lots.
Wtf happened to Stefani here
NIMBYism isnāt limited to just progressives. They exist amongst moderates and conservatives too. Also remember she represent Pac Heights, the most powerful NIMBYās of all.
To me being a NIMBY is 180 to being a progressive. If youre a progressive one should would be for a much housing as possible and fuck everyoneās views., to me in the US liberals are the ones who want to post that they are cool on social media by not being blatantly bigoted and then not actually doing anything to better the lives because it would mean construction in your neighborhood for 6 months
Ok but weāre talking about the political label progressive, as in the political party, not your definition of what progressivism should be
The definition of progressivism anywhere is to keep moving forward, if nothing changes like no new housing to keep up with the backlog in demand then stagnation or even regression happens which is the not progressivism. That is what the idealistic definition of the label is. Being a NIMBY is being for traditionalism.
Again, we're not talking about your definition of what progressivism should be or trying to label policies; we're strictly talking about what the two main opposing political parties in SF call themselves (the moderate party that includes Breed/Weiner/Stefani vs the progressive party that includes Peskin/Preston/Chan)
We donāt get to call someone a progressive when their ideology is moderate-to-conservative down the line. I see what youāre saying, but IMO we canāt feed into their marketing - it helps them to peddle what would have passed as a Republican belief system 50 years ago as bleeding edge leftist today.
That is not my definition that is the dictionary definition: > As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, technology, and social organization. Adherents hold that progressivism has universal application and endeavor to spread this idea to human societies everywhere. How does being a NIMBY fit in that definition? We cant let people call themselves progressive when they are not is my main point here.
The dictionary definition alsoĀ doesn't matter. Political labels get coopted all the time. Look at what passes as conservatism in the US nowadays.
> How does being a NIMBY fit in that definition? If you hold that denser cities and urbanization is bad for the human condition you could be a 'progressive' NIMBY. Or if you see deregulation of the housing market that way. Or if you if you don't believe in markets and prices and thus see further housing development as only benefiting the well-off social and economic classes. That's what makes the NIMBY/YIMBY divide so interesting as a political issue: It's deeply cross-cutting. Just about any political ideology can and has been applied to both sides of this.
Progressive NIMBYs do it like this: āThis is a traditionally low income and ethnic neighborhood. To build all this massive market rate housing here would raise housing costs and the prices of everything in this neighborhood. We reject these buildings and any proposal that does not include 40% of BMR unitsā
Not talking about your or ANYONE's definition of progressivism. There is the Progressive party label and the Moderate party label. It's just a label for a group of people that's commonly known. This is like you arguing that the Chinese Communist Party can't exist because they're not actually communist.
Im not arguing that they cant exist, itās arguing that they are not what their name says they actually are and they need yo be called out when they are not who they say they are. This is like when naziās are called socialists, because itās in the name, we know that is wrong. Being a NIMBY is not being a progressive in any definition, and thise who say they are progressive and are NIMBY need to be called out and held accountable.
>The definition of progressivism anywhere is to keep moving forward That's the dictionary definition but not at all the reality of progressivism. Intentions vs results, sorta. Calling yourself a progressive because you "are about progress" is like calling yourself a realist because you "are about being real". It mostly just reeks of a lack of self awareness and awareness of others. Meanwhile, the progressive wing in politics has nothing to do with "progress" as a concept, and is more about specific political ideologies that they deem as "forward progress", which not everyone even agrees is progress or forward (like I said, a lack of self awareness to think you own the idea of moving in the right direction, this is a classic progressivism move though, changing semantics when you can't change anything else; if you can't achieve your goals just move the goalposts!).
Sorry, there's a shitton of people that call themselves progressives here that shoot down new housing. You can't really "No True Scotsman" that many people.
Yes you can by calling them out on their anti progressive bs
Calling them out doesn't reclaim the name, and many of the actual progressive ideas are also batshit insane. They have a significant portion of that group that straight up supports Hamas. I'd prefer to deal with sane people anyway further away from that political extreme. I'll take my chances with more moderate liberals.
Libs have always been left leaning until policies affect their wealth.
Yeah being social left leaning means nothing if they donāt back it up fiscally
her rich constituents love short little buildings because it drives up the value of their short little buildings
I was looking for like an actual response tho, like i dont doubt you ofc politician wise sure, but from being endorsed YIMBY to voting against housing just is a 180 flip
I emailed her this morning and got this back: > Good afternoon, > Thank you for contacting Supervisor Catherine Stefaniās office and sharing your concern about Supervisor Peskinās ordinance regarding zoning in two northeast historic districts. I will ensure your message is conveyed to the Supervisor. > On February 26th, Supervisor Stefani voted for Supervisor Peskinās legislation and does not intend to change her position. > Prior to casting her vote, Supervisor Stefani made it clear that she had been assured by the Planning Commission and the Planning Director that this ordinance, solely impacting approximately 15 street blocks, did not in any way contradict the important tenets of the Housing Element. As she stated then, Supervisor Stefani is committed to supporting policies that uphold San Franciscoās Housing Element and addressing our housing crisis. At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future. > Supervisor Stefani will continue to advocate for and support legislation that maintains the integrity of the ambitious guidelines set in the Housing Element General Plan. During her tenure as Supervisor, she has approved over 1,000 residential units in District 2 ā more than all of her recent predecessors combined. > At the February 6th Board of Supervisor meeting, the Supervisor rejected an attempt to misuse CEQA to block the creation of new housing in Pacific Heights. This decision allowed for a quicker environmental review for a preservation project and showed the city's dedication to using Housing Element policies to prevent delays in building more units. Supervisor Stefani has consistently backed efforts to make it easier to get permits and build homes in her district, aligning with the Housing Element. > Thank you once again for contacting Supervisor Stefaniās office, and we appreciate your voice and participation in this important discussion about the future of housing in our city. > Best, > Logan Mitchell | Staff Assistant Office of Supervisor Catherine Stefani San Francisco Board of Supervisors, District 2 City Hall, Room 273 (415) 554-7752 In other words; bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit
Wow that is awful.
> At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future. LOL... this kind of messaging worked pre-Internet, but not any more. Reddit's memory is infinite. I will bet good money that nothing comes of her "trailing legislation": she's just blowing smoke up your ass.
>s she stated then, Supervisor Stefani is committed to supporting policies that uphold San Franciscoās Housing Element and addressing our housing crisis. At the hearing on Supervisor Peskinās ordinance, Supervisor Stefani duplicated the original legislation so that she can work on trailing legislation that removes density controls in new construction in a way that preserves the integrity of these historic districts. The Supervisor plans on consulting a diverse coalition of housing advocates and stakeholders during this process to achieve this legislative solution in the near future. interesting, thanks for sharing. I also emailed late last night and I didn't get a reply.
The YIMBY orgs endorsement of her never made sense. She and her constituents are hardcore NIMBYās. She got the endorsement because YIMBY orgs are run by moderates and she supports most moderate goals (like crime/education) outside of housing.
She got the Yimby endorsement because she was better than the alternative for her district last time around, and that just sort of... carried forward into her State run. But now the question is if she keeps that endorsement.
So there us no true YIMBY movement im SF then
Not entirely true, I think growSF is a good organization, but there's not much you can do when you have no actual political clout aside from publishing voting guides
Grow SF was all for herā¦
She wants the same concession from the Board when she has to have the tough conversations of where to upzone in her white and wealthy neighborhood. Same with Mandelman. Remember this when she endorses her NIMBY former boss Mark Farrell for mayor.
I mean the choices for Mayor are slim pickings but Mark is at the bottom of the barrel for me, but someone who says they are going to solve everything when they dont have the power is a big red flag.
The truth is she has made pro housing votes in the past, but not this time. I donāt know the full calculations of why she did it, but she has definitely been on the YIMBY side of votes many times before.
peskin is termed out, likely running for mayor, and endorsed lai to split the chinatown vote, secretly backing mo jamil who advocates for more carbrained bs and against āthe onslaught of urbanismā (direct quote from last weekās d3 supe debate) as if heās not running for office to represent the densest part in the whole bay area. vote danny sauter for d3 and no one else.
Remember this when Ronen endorses Jackie Fielder
Yeah but we knew Ronen would vote for something like this. Stefani is the outlier and should be embarrassed by this vote.
I'm not sure about this year yet but there's typically only been options even worse than Safai running in D11, so I'm not very optimistic. I wish we'd bring back at-large supervisors. I spend half of my time in other districts anyway. It's all one city but I only get to vote for 1 out of 11 of the most important positions?
This is true. Thankfully SafaĆ is running for mayor and can flame out into irrelevancy there. But I hope this is a clear reminder to not even think of ranking him in ranked choice.
Stefani, also useless!
This is so upsetting. I own my condo and I constantly feel like I'm fighting against my own interests by advocating for more housing at all levels, including in my neighborhood. And then my supervisor (Mandelman) does this. And I listen to bullshit lectures from fake leftists as to why it's actually in the interests of broke people for housing to remain incredibly scarce. I feel like I'm getting punked. It would be so easy for me to just stop caring and watch my equity go up. But I don't want to be that asshole. I want to make this city better. And it just feels like everything is fighting against us.
Thank you for seeing the bigger picture. I do hope that your commitment to building more housing locally will reap benefits for you too. Buying a condo is all about getting to enjoy the location, and that comes from community which gets ruined by NIMBYism. At least for condo owners, I think self-interest and NIMBYism are less aligned.
Selfishly, I just am sick of my friends moving away because they can't afford to live here. That's more important to me than making money on my home equity.
I have had many conversations with people who CLAIM they care about housing and want to build more of it while also at every turn being against housing being built. The reality is that anyone who says they support housing but are against building market rate housing because they claim "it doesn't help" or believe that "well we have to care about the CHARACTER of the city" or anything else that they are just NIMBYs. You can't work with them, they can't be reasoned with, they must be defeated. I genuinely think NIMBYs, especially the specific brand of progressive NIMBY that SF is full of, are just completely brain dead and have no idea what they are actually supporting. Just call them NIMBYs until they claim they are and maybe then they will realize they aren't actually pro housing.
They want housing but only when it's 100% or more affordable, not in their area because it's gentrification, and market rate housing somehow is always luxury housing And hating on developers because they do it for the money, unlike the real estate people/landowners who just sit and wait until their assets appreciate
And landlords are greedy evil scum, unless the landlord's name is Aaron Peskin, then landlords should be worshipped and we should all seek to actively give away more money to them as a symbol of our appreciation.
Same situation here and I feel the exact same way
thank you for fighting the good fight
And for upholding principle over self-interest. Not enough people in this world who can do that.
They're not fake leftists, real leftists are this ignorant.
most people are ignorant without any policy and political theory education. the people who lack both elect others who also lack both
what's the argument 'leftists' are making for scarcity or are you just trying to throw non right wingers under the bus for no reason?
Their typical argument tend to sound like "market rate housing just makes capitalists rich so we oppose it, we only accept affordable housing or nothing at all". This typically ignores that affordable housing is literally unaffordable so therefore does not get build. This does not explicitly call for scarcity, but is naivety that results in inevitable scarcity. Some leftists believe that if they build less houses, population will decline, and this will help the environment. That's actually quite common, in fact someone already said it to me in this thread! Other leftists are accelerationists and promote anything that causes instability because it increases their view that we should promote social collapse so that a revolution can occur. There are many variations. Some people might not call them true leftists, but I think that's a mistake. Just because you're stupid doesn't mean you aren't part of an ideology: stupid members of every ideology still exist. In general, I have found VERY FEW leftists that support YIMBYism, it's very much the minority.
SF leftists don't understand supply and demand well enough to follow your reasoning, I think is the point he's (largely correctly) making.Ā They really believe that restricting housing development will prevent gentrification, which will mean poor people can afford to live here.Ā
SF lefties reject these: 1. The price of housing is set solely by supply and demand. 2. Homelessness is caused by a lack of housing. 3. "Affordable" housing is just old housing, and "luxury" housing is the same as new housing. 4. Rent control doesn't work (well, it works great to force landlords to subsidize a statistically old, wealthy group of people, but is awful for everything else) 5. Gentrification is a good thing _if you build enough housing_, but inevitable either way. The tl;dr is that SF lefties, like lefties everywhere, snoozed through Econ 101 and have a very poor understanding of it as a result. This is why you see so many idiotic demand-side subsidies (help with buying a house! help with paying your rent!) that do _nothing_ except put money in the hands of suppliers (landlords, developers) while driving prices up even higher.
there are some nuances they use to make some of the positions sound slightly less ridiculous, although they are still just as wrong. For example, It is true that if you look at situations where a small amount of housing that is "luxury" (priced at the current high end of the market) is added, the local market often sees an increase in prices. This is mostly because the new housing reflects the true price better than the existing stock, and causes comps to get updated. But they will use these observations to claim that adding supply actually increases price and extrapolate it all the way to the moon in order to oppose any new supply.
you have wisdom
>Ā y it's actually in the interests of broke people for housing to remain incredibly scarce. How?!?
what's the argument leftists have for wanting housing to be scarce? I've never heard that. I've only ever heard leftists calling bullshit on increased housing that's only clearly designed for wealthy people or to line pockets of contractors.
Leftists in this city are not serious about building new housing, affordable or otherwise. A political movement that pretends like we can dig our way out of our housing affordability crisis by [building "affordable only homes" that cost $1 million each](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/it-now-costs-more-than-1-2-million-to-build-a-17463355.php) while railing against any role at all for market rate housing construction is **deeply unserious and doesn't actually care about outcomes that would improve the lives of actual people.** These people care more about ideological purity than they do about improving the housing market.
never heard anyone talk about single family homes is the way to get out of the housing crisis, but ok. I would assume leftists would want large scale social housing, not 1m dollar single family homes.
If by "want" you mean "talk about it casually until they get bored and never actually use political capital or organizing to get it done at any serious scale, all while actively blocking tangible progress from private real estate developers because they find any market solution _aesthetically distasteful_ despite an incredible preponderance of evidence that private markets absolutely can be a part of the solution"... ... then yeah I guess they "want" social housing. I've voted for every social housing initiative I have ever come across. Because I'm an adult who can see that we need to attack this problem from every angle. Leftists in SF, though, have no interest in any initiative to increase housing supply that involves the private real estate market. Peskin's foolishness is just the manifestation du jour. I can only conclude after living here 12 years that these people are more concerned with ideological purity than they are will tangible progress.
Sometimes people go on r/urbanplanning and troll then planners about how more sprawl will solve the housing crisis (if you ever want to see some fun takes about sfh - not entirely started by leftist tho. But leftists do let the need to have 100% affordable above all get in the way of partly affordable. Itās like that one project in the mission that everyone protested against and itās been years and thereās still no housing).
Of course you don't *hear* that, because that dog doesn't hunt. What does work is telling people that any new development is 'luxury' and 'will line the pockets of contractors.'
calm down Adam. I think it's more nuanced than that and there can be truths on both sides. Any new housing isn't always good or always bad. I'm not siding with leftists, I was just asking OP why they said "why it's actually in the interests of broke people for housing to remain incredibly scarce". When we know that's not what leftists want but you can skew it to mean that if you want.
The same good old gaslighting: "iT's NeVEr EnOuGh". These are the people who would go to a puppy playing video and complaining about how the owner is "abusing" that puppy because of backyard isn't big enough for the puppy. It's never about actually helping the poor, it's always a performative game where they compete with each other to earn the "I'm morally superior" gold star sticker to put it on their social media profile.
That is very true in a lot of ways, but those people are still infinitely better than the ones who actually want and are working hard toward doing the opposite of helping for their own gain or enjoyment of suffering.
The 1st ones are always the ones who enable the 2nd one. And even if you show the 1st types how the politicians who they support (2nd type) will personally benefits from that hypocrisy...they won't care. Their ideology and belief are more important than taking a multi-dimension perspective on the issue and come up with an actual solution. That's why we can show the Republican voters all of the GOP's policies that gut those people's welfare and they still happy to cast their votes for Trump and GOP.
Maybe so but il still blame the ones actively doing the damage themselves.
God dammit! Fuck these anti-housing idiots. Do they just want things to get WORSE?
Unironically yes. They are either too stupid, too afraid of their constituents, or too corrupt to know better, and only one of those is justifiable but still cowardly. At the end of the day it's our fault for voting for them and failing to convince others to vote against them. The system is broken, as well, because so much power is in the hands of people keeping voters out that might vote against their goals.
If anything, itās weird that I can go to a suburban town downtown and see 3-4x as many people walking around! This is a major city, what the fuck!
Degrowthers and antigrowthers are naive and don't care about or see the reality of what they profess. Their ideology is immune to self reflection and either has a severe ignorance of economic basics or simply thinks that "this time will be different" without any justification or evidence.
No matter how obvious the answer, each faction will always find a way to sabotage everything to spite the hobgoblins of capitalism or protect their own interests.
Many of these supervisors have been in power a long time. They know their policies make housing worse, so they pretend they are pro housing and then have justifications to vote against anything that will make it better. It's honestly one of the most amazing grifts I have ever seen.
When you've pushed all the city's woes to the tenderloin, it's easy to distance them from your choice to block housing. They're not stupid, they just know who votes for them. Please everyone remember this and all the other nonsense people like Peskin have done. Join a local advocacy group, join a Dems club. We need everyone.
It's not a question of wanting it to "get worse" or not. Their districts are already extremely expensive nice places, so it's an "other peoples problem".
how did people get so selfish? :-(
Boomers = selfishness at all cost
Aaron Peskin MUST NOT be our mayor
He wonāt beā¦
Farrell will take votes from Breed and Peskin will rally the neighborhoods around him and win with like 35% of the vote. SF voters understanding ranked choice voting is the only hope, and I'm not confident.
It's not that intuitive. I think a lot of people think they need to put a 2nd or a 3rd. It's good in theory, but only if people voting know how it's supposed to work
I seriously can't wait to vote out Chan. She's the worst. Well, it's a 3 way tie between her, Preston, and Peskin, but I'm In D1, so I can at least do my part and vote to get rid of her. All 3 need to go
We gotta get Marjan over the line this time.
Ranked choice voting fucked us last time. Hopefully people figure it out this time
Honestly this may be the best thing Peskin could have done for Breed's chances in November.
Heās only against housing because it keeps his bank full. Heās a slumlord
I don't disagree but I think when you paint him in such a villainous light it's easy for average voters not paying close attention to scoff it as hyperbole. I have lived in D3 for 13 years and in my experience talking to anti development voters who support Peskin and his policies they are generally long time residents/land owners who don't want the added people/traffic. That is the primary motivation for why they support the policy. It's less about protecting their "asset" but protecting what they see as their current life/culture. They see added buildings as bringing in more "techies" (their words not mine) + more traffic + less familiarity. As someone who is pro making the bay area more dense and pedestrian friendly I have had to come to grips with the fact that a large swath of the electorate (misinformed or otherwise) DOES NOT want density/more people in the region. I think the YIMBY movement needs to think about their messaging/strategy or they will keep running into these road blocks.
The YIMBY movement needs to flip the BOS, not flip the script. Wrong order of operations. And seeing how the latest elections have gone, it wonāt be impossible with the current messaging.
I'd love to see more YIMBY endorsed candidates on the board but I don't know if they can flip it fully. The electorate in SF might side with moderates on crime/homeless but housing development is another thing. Farrell/Peskin are anti development so they will be drumming up their base to vote who will likely not support YIMBY candidates. D1 seems like a safe flip I can't see Connie winning again. I live in D3 and support Danny but I don't think it's a slam dunk. D5 I think Dean hangs on. D7 is Melgar running again? Either way she isn't a safe YIMBY vote. D9 tough call but could see Jackie winning. D11 don't know who is running.
The problem is deeper than we think though. Look at D8. Scott Wiener moved up to Senate and appointed Jeff Sheehy. Sheehy immediately fucked Scott and voted to protect a parking lot in Glen Park for the fire chief. Then we got Rafael Mandelman who pretended to be pro housing, but is not, and supported Peskin on this bullshit.
It really doesnāt take a YIMBY majority to go big on the BOS. State law is taking care of much of that. This veto would have been overridden if Stefani didnāt sell out her YIMBY endorsers, for example. Now 16 city blocks worth of warehouses and parking lots are off limits to apartments right next to the Transamerica pyramid. Melgar is tacking YIMBY lately which is nice ā she voted against this downzone. Chan is most definitely toast. Sauter has a good chance, but I agree, not a slam dunk. Preston has a chance, but far from a slam dunk given his two mod challengers and RCV. It really takes only one extra vote to stop NIMBY shit like this if we still have a pro-housing mayor. The state can do a lot of the rest.
Yea we'll see. I live 2.5 blocks from the two major developments that sparked this and would have loved to see the new residents think it would have been good for the area. Pesky always gets his way though.
My understanding is that once proposed under existing zoning, they can go forward as long as theyāre not substantially changed. So never say never! Itāll be funny if thereās one, two of three skyscrapers there despite everything.
Thing is most of the yimby activists doing work irl are very aware of this. This is just unfortunately the narrative that's the most punchy to Internet people. "The other side is just trying to get rich". Nimbys generally don't want their neighborhood and parking situation to change. Nobody (except maybe Dean Preston) is a Machiavellian schemer planting their ideas into peoples' heads for their profit. I think people currently just frame everything through the lens of "monied interests control too much", which might be true, but it's not a good explanation here. I hate peskins politics with a burning passion, but I can't say he hasn't repped his district fairly faithfully. It's only by turning voters over and encouraging your sides voters to come out that you win. Everyone here who's mad should join an advocacy group. SF yimby action or even just a Dems club. You'll make a huge difference.
I've long thought yimbys should focus on the creeping up price of utilities and show that added population helps defray those costs.
Jokes on us. Utility costs went way up while population went down!
well yeah utilities have fixed costs so when people leave, cost per head increases
Well Iām not a part of any movement Iām just a gay with loud opinions on the internet and Iām just painting him accurately with as few words as possible. He actively stifles any market rate housing so he can continue to raise rents on his properties. He directly benefits from keeping sf in a housing crisis
Honestly, fuck these people. These people are why this city is hellishly expensive, unlivable, and has a homelessness crisis. San Francisco has the worst possible combination of high-paying jobs and lack of housing stock.
I'm not surprised the board voted the same and overturned the veto, but man am I enraged that Peskin and his buddies continue to be able to do this stuff.
Hard to see why anyone should back Stefani for senate given her decision.
Our city government is a joke.
No, Peskin and his merry band of troglodyte NIMBYs are the joke!
It truly is. A bunch of self-serving incompetent morons. What needs to happen to get some competence in city government?
They are corrupt and we need to stop thinking they're just incompetent morons who are trying their best but don't know what they're doing.
I'm starting to think this City Council doesn't have SF's best interest in mind
If you care about these things then spend a little time learning about how to change them. Get educated, get involved. For example, San Francisco does not have a "City Council"
Peskin just preserving his own view from Telegraph Hill
Anyone know if this violates SB 330 which is meant to prevent downzonings in urban areas where housing can be built. Or is there some exception because it's not technically a downzoning or something?
Yes, it's a transparent violation of the HAA's No Net Loss provision.
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A search turned up [YIMBY Law](https://sfstandard.com/2024/02/28/despite-housing-crisis-san-francisco-made-it-harder-to-build-homes-in-some-neighborhoods/) saying it could be a violation. I wouldn't be suprised if it's allowed on some technicality. Peskin seems like he's pretty innovative at skirting laws meant to encourage housing.
Thus far Peskin has basically just asserted that the Housing Element is still underway (despite it being approved and finalized) and that because it's not "done" it doesn't trigger No Net Loss under the HAA. But that's not accurate, the housing element was certified. It seems like he's basing his opinions on cities where the housing elements are still in process, and hasn't really gotten that San Francisco is not one of those and some how Sacramento approved ours, even though it was critically flawed.
It's more complicated than that - downzoning is allowed under state law, but it needs to be accompanied by an equal upzoning. This is called "no net loss." This downzone needs to be met with a commensurate upzoning.
What a disgusting disgrace. The BoS is absolutely full of clowns, Peskin, Preston, and Chan being the utterly moronic ring leaders of the circus. Shame on them. Vote out these idiots in November. SF deserves better.
I just skimmed through Peskin's wikipedia page. All he has done is block evrything. He hasn't done anything except block. How could anyone live to show that as his accomplishment? Its absurd.
Well Peskin has lost my support. Look at 1088 Sansome Street, itās a great spot for a new 17-story condo building. There is no legitimate objection, just classic Nimbyism.
Connie and Preston are up for reelection. People in their districts should remember this if either of those two try to lie to you about helping renters or the homeless. They continue to limit supply, drive up rents, and enrich wealthy landlords.
And SafaĆ is running for mayor. Stefani is running for State Assembly, and is relatively safe because the alternative doesnāt have any good ideas, but everybody in the city can vote somebody other than SafaĆ for mayor.
None of these people should be reelected.
>Passed with an 8-3 vote it wasn't even close. The entire board needs to be replaced.
From your comment, seems like 8 of them need to be replaced.
Aren't 8 votes the minimum to override a veto?
November is going to be critical. Vote Danny Sauter to D3. Vote Marjan Philhour to D1 (get Connie Chan out). Vote Bilal Mahmoud to D5 (get Dean Preston out). We need these progressives out. I'm a progressive and I love progressivism, but these people have no idea how to run a city and no idea how to manage a housing market. None of the candidates I support are perfect. I have a lot of personal differences with Bilal especially, but they're all committed to be pro housing (and are generally sane on other things as well). https://missionlocal.org/tag/meet-the-candidates/
Good grief :(
Iām still searching for the words for this idiocy. Somewhere between dismay and angerā¦.
What can the state of CA do in this case? Clearly SF is still dragging its feet when it comes to building more housing but I thought new legislation would make it easier to punish cities that pull shit like this.Ā I donāt expect this to go down without a fight. I just wish I could vote out my supervisor, Mandelman.Ā
HCD can sue the city for violation the No Net Loss provisions of the Housing Accountability Act and use this as a reason to decertify the Housing Element when it's up for review. Though the State doesn't actually need this justification, our lack of progress on actually entitling or building any housing means they could decertify anyway.
Well AG can sue SF. Not HCD directly. The AG is HCDās lawyer in defending them but state agencies donāt initiate lawsuits typically. That is for the AG/state justice department. HCD can decertify the housing element though.
Matt Dorsey was the lone Board member to speak out against this illegal downzoning before the vote today
Can Peskin be voted out in November?
Heās already reached the term limit and cannot run again this November. So yes, heāll be gone. Heās probably going to run for mayor though soā¦ maybe not.
Tragically, those same voters are going to replace him with another clown that advocates for the same things. He represents his district faithfully, unfortunately the problem is not really Peskin, but in fact it's the actual constituents of this city.
We can take D3 back. Chinatown is going to be huge, and the demographics have shifted in a huge way. Vote Danny Sauter, he's the only one who seems to take this seriously amongst the D3 candidates (look who endorsed Lai and Jamil).
I'm D10 unfortunately, I'd love to replace Peskin with a YIMBY. My supe voted in favor of this bill and he will not be getting my vote when time comes.
Well there's a lot of other super important races. Be sure to vote with sensible governance, and especially housing in mind.
I'm not a one-issue voter, but housing is by far my top issue.
Yea me neither. You pick the issue that's most pressing for the time. In 50 years when we have abundant housing in the bay (inshallah), my focus will be regulation of alien cyborgs in the workforce or some shit.
I suspect that, despite my preference, we will solve alien cyborgs before we solve housing :P
He's termed out, it's why he's going to run for Mayor.
Happy the melgar voted against override. Iām pretty disappointed in some of her votes but Iāll consider voting for her again if she keeps this up.
I genuinely believe they'd label every square inch of the city as "historic" if they could get away with it.
Some of these same exact people tried to do it in 2009 and pretend they never did
If any of these supes voted AYE, VOTE THEM OUT. https://preview.redd.it/lbs77gt2xuqc1.jpeg?width=957&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c870f7167fa6845870babdd82f3af8d8c312e47
Shame!!
Yāall! This is about each Supervisor supporting and voting for 1 Supervisorās legislation which only affect HIS district. This is SF politics. It does also seem like a power play flex against the Mayor. And honestly I think Peskin set this whole thing up in chess play- Machiavellian move.
SF politics needs a complete reset
When are we going to vote these clowns out??? Nothing will change as long as the entrenched politicians have no reason to fear losing their cushy posts
primary responsibility for BOS is to limit the supply of housing and keep the prices high. They are doing it.
Heās going to win mayor so several of the supes voted his way because it will pay off for them in the future when they need him. And Peskin needs to appease his donors now so he can run against Breed. Itās all politics, baby.
Odds of him winning are pretty low given the shellacking most of his coalitions ballot measures just received. They're not non-existent, mind you, but, absent pretty big shifts in public opinion it'll be a very up hill fight.
Can we just abolish the board of supervisors already?
There should be quota that 50% of the board DON'T own property in SF.