Not much changed for housing in San Francisco at the ballot box on Tuesday. Although a final vote count won’t be available for days, it’s clear that local voters weren’t in the mood to monkey with the way that the city plans and builds.
Prop M, which would have rearranged the operations of the city organs that promote development, trailed by almost 13 percent and 30,000 votes in the preliminary count.
Since Prop M included a “Poison Pill” that would have essentially voided Prop P and Prop U, its apparent failure left the door open for their potential success. And then they both lost anyway.
Prop P was defeated. It would have required that San Francisco get at least three competing bids before okaying any new affordable housing projects.
Prop U would have termed any unit priced for households making up to 110 percent of the city’s median income as affordable housing, making it remarkably easy for developers to satisfy their affordable housing burdens. It’s behind by 70,000 votes right now.
Voters did seem to approve Prop Q, making it illegal to pitch tents on city sidewalks. Prop X, which requires developers to replace PDR space ousted by new buildings, leads by almost 45,000 votes.
And Supervisor Scott Wiener came out just barely ahead (a bit more than 12,000 votes) of his Board of Supervisors colleague Jane Kim in their state senate race.
While this isn’t a housing issue in direct terms, Wiener has been one of the most development-friendly of local lawmakers, and his departure will certainly change the flavor of local policy.
- Preliminary 2016 results [Department of Elections]
- Making Sense of SF Housing Props [Curbed SF]