San Francisco teachers allowed to request residential parking permits

It’s a small but important step in helping the city’s teaching force. Today the MTA Board will make changes to transportation code, which will give teachers in smaller San Francisco schools the chance to apply for residential parking permits.

As the law currently stands, schools with 15 or more teachers can access residential parking permits, but those with fewer than the required number (e.g., preschools) are out of luck. With restrictive parking in the city, and a lot of schools located in residential areas a good distance from public transit, this could prove a small yet effective move.

“We need to do everything we can—big and small to support our teachers,” said mayor Mark Farrell, who helped enact this change while supervisor. “This is one change, but for a teacher working in a neighborhood school with limited access to mass transit, this makes a difference. An $84 ticket for not having a residential parking permit is an economic hardship for a teacher making less than $70,000 a year.”

According to a MTA report, there are 141 facilities within residential parking permit areas. “Of these, 30 have been issued a total of 202 permits.”

This is just one of several efforts to keep teachers in San Francisco. And in a city where even doctors cannot afford real estate, it’s a tough crawl. In 2017, San Francisco coughed up $44 million for San Francisco’s first teacher housing development in the Outer Sunset. The complex, which will reportedly come with 130 to 150 below-market-rate rental units, will be completed by 2022.

Later this year, a measure will be put forth to June voters that, if passed, would raise teachers’ salaries.

• Doctors can’t afford 58 percent of homes in San Francisco, says report [Curbed SF]
• Amend the Transportation Code, Division II [MTA]
• Ed Lee ponies up $40 million and site for city’s first teacher housing [Curbed SF]