By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
San Francisco, CA – It is hard to know across jurisdictions what this all means, but HCD (Housing and Community Development) sent the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a strongly worded letter warning that they may be violating state law with an overly extensive housing permit process.
“HCD is concerned specifically that the Stevenson Project and O’Farrell Project that have been effectively denied without written findings as well as larger trends in the City/ County’s review of housing,” Shannan West, Housing Accountability Unit Chief writes.
They add, “HCD has both the authority and duty to review any action or failure to act by a city, county or city and county that it determines is inconsistent with an adopted housing elect or Government Code section 65583.”
The letter seeks information on two projects, one at Stevenson Street and one at O’Farrell Street in San Francisco where there was “effective denial of these housing projects” and in particular HCD is concerned “that the City/County’s actions are indicative of review processes that may be constraining the provision of housing in San Francisco.”
They write, “It is well known that California is experiencing a housing crisis and the provision of housing 
remains of the utmost priority.”
What is not clear from the letter is what recourse HCD has and whether this is a signal to all communities that HCD and the state are prepared to enforce housing laws much more stringently than they have previously.
In the letter, the HCD notes that the two projects cited in the letter “have sought different types of approval,” but they have a shared circumstance “of having prior Planning Commission approvals of significant housing projects being overturned by the BOS – without any documented findings.
“HCD is concerned that this represents a larger trend in the City/ County,” they write. “California’s housing production does not meet housing need. In the past ten years, housing production has average fewer than 80,000 new homes each year, far fewer than the 180,000 new homes needed.”
They continue, “The legislature has declared that housing availability is a priority of the highest order and that local and state governments have a responsibility to facilitate the development of housing for all economic segments of the community.”
They add, “As a result, the cost of housing has skyrocketed and San Francisco stands among the top two most expensive housing markets in the United States.”
HCD is asking the City and County to provide “written findings to HCD and each project applicant within 30 days, explaining the reasoning for and the evidence behind these decisions.”
They note that while the reasons were discussed in public hearings, “it is unclear what actions these project applicants are required to take to advance these projects.”
In the meantime, they point out, 811 potential housing units are in limbo.
As we have noted in recent columns, the state has taken a number of steps to strengthen their authority and attempt to facilitate new housing.
In the letter they express concern “about the significant delays in the approval of housing generally and in the City/County in particular.”
The HCD points out that the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 “imposed a strict five-hearing rule for housing projects”—hearings, under the law, include formal hearings, workshops, meetings and continuances.
The letter expresses concern that with six or seven meetings, “the City/ County may have violated the ‘5 Hearing Rule’ in the Housing Crisis Act of 2019.”
In addition, “HCD has significant concerns about the City’s compliance with the Housing Accountability Act (HAA).” Under that law, “a local government cannot disapprove or reduce the density of a housing development project that complies with applicable, objective general plan, zoning, and subdivision standards and criteria, including design review standards.”
What seems clear is that San Francisco appears to be in violation of state law on both projects, having denied them.
What is not clear is what HCD can actually do about this. This is very much worth watching because it is one thing to pass stronger state laws, but if the state has no ability to enforce the laws, the law are toothless if not ultimately useless.
The other key question is going to be—how will this affect other communities in the state. After all, San Francisco is the second largest city in Northern California. It is perhaps the highest profile city overall in the region. It is also, as noted, the second worst housing market in the country. It makes sense that HCD would crack down on San Francisco.
The question is then—what about the rest of the state and region? Is this just the start? And from the standpoint of a place like Davis, whose voters turned down a project that had 850 housing units, what will this mean?
This is exactly what these new housing laws are about: clearing away unreasonable obstructions that local governments put up to block new housing construction. This will prove to be an important test case if HCD sticks to their guns on it.
The question as to whether and how much teeth they have is critical going forward.
By my reading it says: We’re the law. We’ll tattle to the Attorney General that you (violators) aren’t following our law so the Attorney General will make you follow our law.
And also exactly what is going to cause a huge backlash by voters that will get a proposition on the ballot to limit state dictatorial overreach on local government planning.
Be an interesting battle if that happens. People will vote to make housing more expensive and exacerbate the housing crisis. I don’t think enough people have actually been impacted yet by this to get such a measure on the ballot.
“Yet” is the key word. Give it time. I used to live in San Mateo and you should hear the uproar in that community for the huge amount of dense apartment complexes being built.
People like . . . 80+% of Davis voters?
I think people can see what has happened in places like Tustin, Elk Grove, ad infinitum . . .
There are two factors here – one is that the state regs haven’t gone far enough to really impact people’s lives… yet. And second, there really isn’t money to back an initiative of this sort. At some point, maybe. But not yet.
So I guess my HTML skills have faded? I couldn’t insert an image.
This obviously refers to the earlier DISC proposal.
Given that the city has already submitted a housing element, it has no meaning this time.
Had the proposal been approved, it would very likely mean that RHNA numbers would be higher in future rounds, given that the development claimed to produce a greater demand for housing than would be accommodated by its own on-site housing. This is also disclosed in the EIR itself (as pointed out at least a dozen times on here), and is also true of a smaller proposal.
It becomes tiring to continue having to correct purposefully-misleading claims by the Vanguard, on a daily basis.
“It becomes tiring to continue having to correct purposefully-misleading claims by the Vanguard, on a daily basis.”
I find this comment ironic.
I’m not the one who repeatedly makes misleading claims regarding DISC (and its relationship to RHNA requirements).
In fact, I don’t believe I’ve made any misleading claims on here at all.
Down the road, maybe a few decades or so, people in Davis likely will be looking around asking whatever happened to their nice, quaint community and wondering what it was that caused this? Some might call it progress, some might call it social equity and some might call it a huge mess of mass sprawl.
Tricky issue.
For one thing you have a 40,000 student university here, so how this was going to remain as it was. Just look at the change from 1970 to 1995 and 1995 to now.
Also the home costs are so high now, you’ve basically changed that quaint community anyway.
Change happens whether you want it or not.
Bill M
Bingo! More mythologizing about the past from reactionaries. Long time residents who have lived here since the early days of UCD lament the loss of their small town too. If we’re smart about how we manage our growth we can maintain the core character of our city. Other college towns such as Eugene, Ann Arbor and Bellingham (all that I have visited recently and have a multi decade relationship with) have maintained their attractive characters despite growing 47% to 72% since 1990.
When Keith has a viable proposal to address the inequities created by our historic housing policies (we know that “supply side” and “trickle down” were miserable counter productive failures), then we can start listening to him.
Why did you yell ‘bingo’ ? We weren’t playing bingo.
That some communities suck more after they’ve been paved over? That’s hardly a myth. And ‘reactionaries’ ? Define ‘reactionaries’.
Ok . . . and that means more loss of a larger small town is ‘good’. Got it.
Smart . . . like building a senior-friendly, exclusionary one-story suburb by Measure J vote on the periphery of Davis? Like extending two downtown alcohol businesses into the street with tents and concrete barricades. That’s the Davis way: Smaaaaaaaaaaaart.
I doubt they had the state government telling them that no longer had control over their own land-use planning and were being forced to build projects they didn’t want.
“We” again ? People need to define their “we”. I am not part of your “we”. Who exactly is your “we” ? And when someone posts, we all ‘can’ listen to them. We can also choose to disagree with them. But why tell people they are part of a “we” they are not a part of and imply that one shouldn’t listen to them?
Keith E
Why do you use the pejorative word “tattle”? HCD working with the AG to enforce state laws is how it works. Here’s the definition of tattle: to utter or disclose in gossip or chatter. Tattling is about either revealing secrets or reporting a peer who did not expect exposure to an authority. None of HCD’s actions fit this description–the agency is doing the task that it was assigned by the Legislature.
Because I found it amusing. I post here solely for my own amusement.
You amuse me. Your attempt at trying to define and critique one line that I tried to write for amusement in an otherwise informative post says a lot about you. What do the kids call it? “triggered”?
What’s most amusing is that your use of “pejorative” to describe my use of “tattle”. Again that says more about you. Why you interpret my use of “tattle” as a pejorative in relation to this subject is really amusing.
What’s even more amusing is that your attempt to explain my use of “pejorative” as incorrect. According to the Oxford Dictionary, “Tattle” when used as a verb means: “report another’s wrongdoing.”
Does the Attorney General have any idea about San Francisco’s Housing Element issues? No. They won’t act unless the HCD tells them to act.
Thanks Captain Obvious!
“Does the Attorney General have any idea about San Francisco’s Housing Element issues? No. ”
He did used to work for the SF City Attorney’s office.
You think Housing Element enforcement is enough high priority for the Attorney General that he’d be aware of a couple infractions from those two projects?
Also, the AG himself would not handle it, he would assign a Deputy to it. The AG’s office has already had a housing press conference, so housing is on his radar.
I have pulled a bunch of comments and will continue to do so as needed.
The conversations on the Vanguard need to be civil and productive.
Stay on topic and stop attacking others.
We will simply close comments on this thread and others if this situation doesn’t improve.
Not knocking the moderators, but I’m reminded of the apocryphal sign in a business establishment that reads “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
This article raises the question of what the remedy will be? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The idea of a backlash may happen but it seems that predicting it is premature. Another interesting possibility would be a split between the environmental wing of the California Democrats and the working class and poor wings of the Dems. Some voices on the right have suggested Republicans should run on trying to appeal to poor Californians that haven’t been the beneficiaries of current housing underproduction. It will be interesting to see if any Republicans will try or if they could run such a campaign.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-cities-rush-to-limit-new-law-16647764.php
This was entirely predictable, by the way. Davis is not the type of city that would take the lead, on this. Other, wealthier cities (in better locations) are the type that will do so.
Davis may indirectly benefit from the effort put forth by other cities. Davis is nowhere near the top of the “slow-growth” list of cities/locales, in regard to community will.
Here’s another link to that same article:
https://sandiegodailytribune.com/california-cities-rush-to-limit-new-law-increasing-density-of-single-family-neighborhoods-san-francisco-chronicle/
It’s SB 35 that is the real contentious law. Check out Sand Hill properties development of the Valco shopping mall in Cupertino for 2000 new residential units. 51% of it was affordable housing so it went through the ministerial process which pretty much bypassed local review. You can imagine how well that went over in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Excellent example. Spurious lawsuits by growth opponents, delays and obstruction by city officials, and they lost in court big time.
https://cupertinotoday.com/2020/05/07/vallco-redevelopment-wins-big-in-court/
You’re probably right, Keith. Thought I’d take a look at what SB 35 says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Senate_Bill_35_(2017)
Probably depends upon whether or not you’re one of the owners of the companies that support politicians like Wiener.
So in Cupertino will they be priced at @ one million and still be considered affordable?
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Everyone-s-Moving-to-Texas-Here-s-Why-16644002.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight
Personally, I’d probably try to move to someplace like Idaho or Montana, if I was starting out (as I like the outdoors, mountains, cooler weather, etc.). But Texas (Austin) is where the tech companies are going, and seems like a great place if you’re starting out in a career.
Of course, prices in nice mountain towns have been skyrocketing, as well – due to permanent telecommuting.
So how long will it be before the liberals and their policies ruin it?
There’s really two separate, but perhaps related impacts:
Californians moving into other areas have long-been despised, probably more so for the second reason (along with rising housing prices, displacing the locals). Including in places like Idaho. (That was true even 30-40 years ago, in places like Oregon.)
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-10/go-back-to-california-wave-of-newcomers-fuels-backlash-in-boise
But I get the feeling that Texas is not at that point, regarding impact #2. It’s a big state, and the natural environment doesn’t strike me as all that appealing in most areas.
I remember watching an episode of The Simpsons, in which the Texas character stated that they “got rid of the environment” in Texas, to avoid problems. Something like that.
Of course, I used to view the entire Sacramento area like that (including Davis), as well. Almost everyone I know in the Bay Area STILL views it that way, to some degree. (While acknowledging that Davis and the foothills are kind of nice.)
I’m sure that a lot of people from the Bay Area wish that they could avoid the entire valley, when traveling to Tahoe.