What should San Francisco Authorities do about the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers and fulfillment demands from Sacramento?

By Mari Eliza

There are generally three options for citizens to take when they feel their will and interests are ignored by the civil servants who represent them. These actions are playing out in Washington now for the world to see, but they are also on display in Sacramento. Citizens options include:

1. Vote for new representation — Take advantage of that option and Vote Now!
2. Pass a public ballot initiative to overturn state laws.
3. File complaints and sue the responsible parties. A number of public and private entities are working on lawsuits now.

All three options are being employed in California by government officials and private citizens who are outraged over some of the actions the Sacramento politicians have taken. We will limit ourselves to one of the many issues in the state that is driving much of the anger and dismay, as reality unfolds in City Planning Departments and councils all over the state that the state has removed single family zoning and is demanding that cities build dense housing to meet a new set of impossible RHNA numbers or face lawsuits and or fines for failure to do so.

A Little Background on how we got here:

A number of density bills were passed in 2022 with happy faced journalists bestowing honor and approval on the heads of the authors of the bills who claimed they were going to solve the homeless problem by eliminating California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements for public notice (due process) and reviews.

Given the unpredictable CEQA court rulings around the state, some developers face an uphill battle that they want to quash. Sacramento politicians have been chipping away at CEQA for years, but, this year the bite they took was too big for many people to stomach.

The fact that it happened during the Governor’s State of Emergency Order during lockdown, when people were arguing over masks, vaccines, street closures, and who is to blame for the uptick in crime, makes it all the more difficult for the unsuspecting public to swallow.

Citizens and public entities filed lawsuits and considered other options to reverse the measures. A few weeks later the RHNA numbers were announced and local communities reeled from the realization that they were being railroaded into the impossible position of having to plan where to densify their communities. Some cities filed appeals to the numbers and demanded a recount based on independent studies that showed the RHNA numbers were flawed.

Newsom gets involved:

Shortly after Newsom won his recall vote, he signed SB9 and SB10 and countless other land use bills into law. The press that had largely touted the density bills as a panacea to homelessness was suddenly faced with the new economic reality when the gas and food prices skyrocketed, Wall Street tanked, and workers decided not to return to the office. Urban life has lost its charm and the cities need a reboot. What to do with all that empty office space? Newsom supports turning some empty offices into housing and is backing his plan with money in his new budget. Who will turn down the cash? And more importantly, how will new housing units be counted by the RHNA overlords? Will they count the empty units, the converted commercial units, or any of the pipeline unbuilt units toward the goals they are imposing?

Questions about the RHNA numbers and other predictions:

The press is pivoting now that we know about the loss of population in the state and exit from the cities to the suburbs. Even Heather Knight, writing a Yes on A column for the SF Chronicle, had to admit that SFMTA overemphasized big shiny overpriced capital projects like underground tunnels and BRTs, while letting the Muni system riders rely on fall into disrepair.

Single family housing is on the block and may be sold to the highest bidder to be up-zoned. At a March 7 meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, Chair Melgar said, “Potentially we are rezoning half our city.” That is what Senator Wiener had in mind when he ended single family zoning in the state. But, some things have come up that are not playing out the way they thought they would. As of a few weeks ago only one homeowner had applied to split a lot and a few applied to add one extra unit in a formally single-family zone. Just because they can build more units on a lot doesn’t mean people will. Other actions taken by other cities to fight the RHNA numbers have been playing out in the courts and in the press.

The State Auditor’s report on the RHNA process released a huge backlash against RHNA:­­

Letter to the governor from Michael S. Tilden, CPA, Acting California State Auditor — Regional Housing Needs Assessments: The Department of Housing and Community Development Must Improve Its Processes to Ensure That Communities Can Adequately Plan for Housing…

Shortly after the bills were signed and the RHNA numbers were released a number of citizen’s groups including the California Alliance of Local Electeds embarked on an effort to convince the State Controller to examine the methodology of collecting data used to arrive at unbelievably high numbers. Auditor findings on vacancy rates are consistent with the Embarcadero Institute analysis.

Where does this leave us in San Francisco?

Given the latest headlines and the media’s sudden interest in the density question, we may want to encourage our San Francisco leaders to consider joining one of the many lawsuits or at least writing some letters of request for a Housing recount, based on San Francisco’s new reality. Commerce has moved from downtown to the neighborhoods. Where people live, they now work and play. The shutdown and closed streets cut off travel between neighborhoods, forcing people to rediscover their own back yards. Given the huge fights over redistricting that probably caught some people by surprise it is evident that residents like their neighborhoods and want to keep them as they are now.

Change in this world is not the fun thing it was touted to be when tech was riding high and disruption was king. People want stability now and will move where they feel most comfortable and secure. City Hall needs to follow the lead of the people for a change. So what do we want to suggest?

RELATED:

Researchers find housing markets explain variation in homelessness among cities: One key dynamic of urban homelessness is laid bare in a new book by a pair of Seattle researchers. When they compared major cities across the country, they found that homelessness was not strongly associated with high levels of poverty in a community What it was very strongly correlated with was high levels of wealth…