Ballot Measure

submitted to Dept. of Elections Sept. 1.

Affordable Housing – Definition and Mandate                                     

We the people of San Francisco hereby declare a housing emergency.

Rent Control laws exist because of a lack of affordable housing within the City.

Police officers, teachers, working class people, and students are subjected to higher rents and eviction.

Developers build market-rate housing because it is profitable and there are few incentives to do otherwise.

City-defined affordable housing ($230,000.00/unit) is out of the reach of most San Francisco residents.

Some residents live in substandard single-room occupancy hotels paying high rents with no protections.

It shall henceforth be the responsibility of the City and County of San Francisco to build or cause to be built housing units affordable to all of the people who reside in San Francisco.

We the voters and taxpayers instruct our elected officials and appointed officials to do the following:

  1. Redefine the term “affordable housing” to mean: housing that can be afforded by all of the people who live within San Francisco.
  2. Reserve all publicly owned land, excluding parkland, within the City and County of San Francisco for the construction of affordable housing and affordable commercial space until such time as there is no longer a need or demand for such space.  This would include any land under the jurisdiction of the Redevelopment Agency, including Hunter Point Shipyard and Treasure Island.
  3. Assist real estate agents to put together financing packages that will allow tenants to buy their apartment buildings from the landlord and then bring the buildings up to Code for the mutual benefit of tenants, landlords, real estate agents, architects, building contractors, and the treasury of the City.
  4. Amend building and planning codes to allow housing units as small as 100 square feet to be built so as to be affordable to the poorest of San Francisco residents. Ten percent of these smaller housing units shall be included in all future multi-unit projects until there is no longer any demand for such units.
  5. The City shall seek funding and assistance from all appropriate agencies, private and public, state and federal, to assist tenants and other City residents to buy these affordable housing units.
  6. If any part of this ordinance is held to be invalid by any court , such decision shall not effect the validity of the remaining portions of the ordinance. The voters hereby declare that they would have passed the ordinance irrespective of the fact that any part is declared invalid or ineffective.

It is the intent of this measure to create a livable city that all
     San Franciscans can afford to live in.                 

Submitted by Jim Reid

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