by Randy Shaw on November 6, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
“Moderates” helped kill housing at 8 Washington
Setting San Francisco History Straight
A revisionist (i.e. false) history of San Francisco claims that progressives and particularly Supervisor Aaron Peskin are solely to blame for blocking housing for over two decades. The facts say otherwise.
From moderate Mayor Diane Feinstein’s massive residential downzoning to the unanimous Board defeat of a nearly 25% affordable SOMA project in 2019, moderates and conservatives joined progressives in blocking new apartments. San Francisco did not get build enough housing because elected officials across the city wanted it that way (as did the voters that elected them).
Consider some high-profile examples since district elected Board members returned in 2001.
Newsom’s Workforce Housing Initiative (2004)
Gavin Newsom was a YIMBY before any politician associated with that term.
After taking office as San Francisco’s mayor in January 2004 Newsom quickly pushed a massive upzoning measure for the March 2004 ballot. Newsom’s “Workforce Housing Initiative”(Prop J) was the most sweeping residential upzoning proposal in San Francisco history.
Newsom made the case for Prop J: “The diverse San Francisco we know and love will be lost unless we can forge sensible housing policies that give the working people of San Francisco affordable housing options.” Yet the measure, which opened the doors to massive housing development in Downtown and the Central Waterfront, lost by 70% across the city.
Why did it lose? As I wrote in 2019, “this was not a left/right conflict. Prop J also drew fierce opposition from the primarily homeowner groups affiliated with the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods. Tony Hall, the Board’s most conservative supervisor, also opposed the initiative.
The Residential Builders Association (RBA), San Francisco’s largest builders of multi-family housing, opposed Prop J. They felt it unfairly favored large developers. I joined with the RBA in raising alarms among conservative and moderate Westside voters. We claimed that if Prop J passed they should expect large apartment buildings to soon come to their neighborhoods.
I regret this line of attack but Prop J was seriously flawed. Newsom never got builder input before putting it on the ballot. Had voters not overwhelmingly rejected it we could have assembled a different upzoning measure or ordinance that could have won—but there simply was no push for this among progressives, moderates or conservatives.
The zealously pro-housing RBA saw the Board’s two most left members, Chris Daly and Matt Gonzalez, as strong allies. The RBA went all out to elect Gonzalez over Newsom in the 2003 mayor’s runoff.
The RBA has backed the allegedly anti-housing Peskin in all of his races after he was first elected. This includes his 2016 race when he ran against Mayor Lee’s appointee.
Lower Potrero Hill Downzoning (2004)
In 2004 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell authored a sweeping plan to kill future housing in lower Potrero Hill. She claimed to want to preserve the area for production, distribution and repair (PDR). Despite the San Francisco Bay Guardian going all out to secure the necessary votes, the Board’s two leading progressives– Gonzalez and Daly—joined the 6-5 majority against the legislation (as did progressive Gerardo Sandoval).
Stopping Discretionary Review Reform (2011)
In Generation Priced Out I criticize what has since become a well-publicized complaint — the notorious and outrageous misuse of Discretionary Review to delay or even stop housing. I describe how in 2011 the Board had a chance to end this outrageous practice. But David Chiu, Peskin’s successor, opposed it as did an ideological cross section of the Board. The debate again showed that its not progressive primarily blocking housing but homeowners from throughout the city.
8 Washington (2012-13)
In July 2012, the Board of Supervisors approved a 134-unit condominium project at 8 Washington by an 8-3 vote. Supervisor David Chiu, a “moderate” as San Francisco politics defines the term, voted against the housing. And Chiu didn’t let the supervisors vote stop him from trying to block the housing. He helped lead a referendum campaign to kill the project. Two measures to stop the housing appeared on the November 2013 ballot. San Francisco voters across the city rejected the housing by over 60% margins.
The Board’s two most progressive members, Jane Kim and Ross Mirkarimi, both supported 8 Washington.
City Stops Housing in Russian Hill (2014)
I describe in my book how the city had a unique opportunity to build sixty units of housing on the long closed Francisco Reservoir in upscale Russian Hill. But “moderates” used their political influence and fundraising abilities to secure $ 9 million from the city to convert what should have been housing to open space.
I don’t recall any progressives opposing the Russian Hill housing.
60 Units Killed in SOMA (2015 and 2019)
In 2015 60 housing units planned for Folsom and Russ were killed by the city’s Recreation and Park Commission because of concerns they would shade a SOMA park. As then Chronicle columnist CW Nevius put it, “the six-story, 60-unit building would only increase shade by 0.07 percent a year. At most it would cast a shadow over part of the park for 42 minutes on some summer evenings. (Of course, that’s assuming the summer fog hasn’t already blocked out the sun).”
The Commission was controlled by “moderates” appointed by “moderate” mayor Ed Lee.
The developer then revised the project to reduce the shade. Under the new plan, “the shadow wouldn’t reach the southern half of the park, where the baseball field and batting cages are. On the longest day of the year, June 21, a shadow would be cast for 100 minutes, starting between 5:46 and 6 p.m. It would cover an additional 18.24% of the park, above the 30% of the park covered at that time by existing shading.”
The new project had 15 of the 63 units affordable. It won approvals at Park and Rec and the Planning Commission. But it was defeated by a 10-0 Board of Supervisors vote. Among those voting to kill the project was Supervisor Matt Haney, who represented SOMA and has since become a powerful housing champion
Forest Hill Christian Church (2016)
Efforts by a church to convert its land to affordable housing encountered massive opposition at a community meeting on November 14, 2026. I detail some of the testimony in Generation Priced Out—opposition did not come from “progressives.” The city withdrew funding for the project in March 2018 but Mission Housing has gotten funding and building an affordable project.
A Broad Anti-Housing Coalition
As I describe in my book, since the late 1970’s San Francisco’s anti-housing coalition united conservatives, moderates and progressives. Residents across political lines did not want apartments built in their neighborhoods and elected supervisors who agreed.
I primarily blame progressives in my book and other writings because I see their support for exclusionary housing policies as inconsistent with their stated values. You can’t say you want housing for the working and middle-class and then prevent this from happening. Moderates and conservatives have not historically prioritized inclusion though that has changed with the city’s rising YIMBY movement.
All political factions caused San Francisco’s housing shortage. And it will take a broad political coalition for the city to finally build the housing it needs.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
