As housing continues to be the most urgent issue defining San Francisco, lawmakers have responded with various pieces of legislation at the local and state level to rein in evictions and address the overall lack of affordable and middle class housing. Thursday (March 6), one of those local ordinances heads to the San Francisco Planning Commission, where it has been recommended for approval.
The commission should approve it and send it on to the Board of Supervisors.
The proposal, by District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, would amend the planning code to allow for construction of an additional dwelling unit within the existing envelope of a residential building or auxiliary structure on the same lot on any parcel in the Castro Street Neighborhood Commercial District (with a few exceptions). It would also authorize the zoning administrator to waive density and other planning code requirements in order to create the accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, more commonly known as in-law units. The proposed ordinance would also amend the administrative code to provide that an in-law unit constructed with a waiver of code requirements shall be subject to provisions of the San Francisco Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance if the existing building, or any existing dwelling unit, is already subject to rent control. For buildings with 10 units or less, one in-law unit would be allowed; for buildings with 10 or more units, 2 would be allowed. Height or bulk increase would not be allowed.
The planning department estimates that there are 1,506 parcels in the Castro that have the physical space to accommodate an in-law unit. Of those, 30 percent have 10 or more units and could potentially accommodate two in-law units (78), while the remaining 1,467 parcels could only each add one unit. There is a theoretical maximum potential of 1,545 additional units in the project area. The planning department estimates that about 25 percent of the parcels would utilize this new provision and build an in-law unit, or about 390 new units. That's nearly 400 new housing units that could be created, with the potential for more. While that increase would affect the density of the Castro, we believe the neighborhood could accommodate such growth, especially given the reality that not all of these units will be completed at the same time. There are also potential ownership issues with regard to tenancy-in-common and condominiums that the property owners would have to sort out, as well as the cost to property owners in constructing the units, estimated by planning staff to be $100,000 or more, excluding permit fees.
Wiener's proposal is not the only attempt to address the city's housing shortage, as he readily acknowledged in an op-ed he wrote last fall. But he is correct in that we need to think differently about housing issues and make adjustments to housing policy to meet the new reality. His in-law unit proposal does just that. The units could be accessible for seniors and others with mobility challenges; as we see with this week's coverage on the report soon to be released by the San Francisco LGBT Aging Policy Task Force, housing is the number one need, and preventing LGBT seniors from being evicted is a top priority.
The planning department recommends that a report be compiled a year after the effective date of the ordinance to evaluate the types of units being developed and their affordability rates. That would inform decision makers and the public with regard to the success of the ordinance and whether people are responding to it.
In the meantime, the Board of Supervisors, which will first discuss the proposal at the land use committee later this month, should approve this innovative plan that is one piece of the housing puzzle.