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A $64 Million Vote for Social Housing Passes in San Francisco

Additionally, mass-produced ADUs and St. Louis can impose fines for deconversion.

$ 64 million for San Francisco council housing vote

A measure to provide US $ 64 million for social housing was approved by the city’s board of directors 8-3 on Tuesday. after 48 hills. As part of the measure, the money will be channeled into a municipal program called the Small Sites Housing Acquisition Program, which will buy apartments whose tenants are at risk of eviction and keep the building affordable over the long term. Mayor London Breed rejected the measure on the grounds that the Small Sites program was problematic. Breed has yet to approve spending on the program, but approving the measure gives advocates more leverage. Once the move was passed, Breed announced a plan to reform the small site program by adding an additional $ 10 million in funding, possibly a sign that she will work with the board of directors to spend the money.

The money was raised through a property transfer tax on property sales valued at more than $ 10 million confirmed by voters last year. The money from this tax goes to the city’s general fund, and the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, has been reluctant to use it for affordable housing. Proponents of the development disagree with spending on social housing, saying that given the city’s supply problem, money should be put into building, not renovating, housing. Proponents of the measure assume, however, that the city could use the income from an expanded housing stock in the long term to eventually build new units.

The vote, supported by a coalition of tenants, workers’ and community organizations, was a huge win for proponents of housing. The program’s ability to buy property on a large scale, keep it affordable and build new units will be a test of the viability of social housing as a sustainable solution to current housing pressures.

In one tweeted, wrote the council of municipal housing organizations: “Next step: quickly acquire apartments in each neighborhood and secure the political commitment to permanent allocation of the annual income.”

Developers are building more mass-produced “granny apartments”

In response to new statewide laws making it easier to build additional housing units on private land, some property developers are experiencing a boom in the production of mass-produced “granny flats”. A company that makes mass-produced homes, HomeQuest, tThe old OC register had increased its business by 300 percent after the legal changes. ADUs do not always contribute to the housing stock – it can be home offices or guest houses, but ADUs that are operated as rental apartments are usually cheaper than market-driven apartments in an apartment building.

California Flunks Housing ‘Report Card’

Downsizing California’s Housing Landscapes: The Southern California News Group released a “Housing Permit Report” showing the state is lagging behind in affordable housing. According to the OC Register – owned by the News Group – the state’s cities and counties combined issued 109,000 housing permits in 2020, 73 percent of which were for building units for high-income earners and only 16 percent for low-income earners. This does not correspond to the demand, which, according to the News Group, is around 41.5 percent for low and high earners and the remaining 17 percent for middle earners. According to the certificate, only 20 of the state’s 538 jurisdictions are on track to fulfill their housing mandate for each income bracket.

St. Louis may charge a conversion fee to obtain apartment buildings

A St. Louis city council is working on a bill to impose a fee on developers converting apartment buildings into single-family homes St. Louis Public Radio. The city lost 400 residential units as a result of these renovations. Although the legislation has not yet been written, it is based on the legislation passed in Chicago, which only applies to the Pilsen district and the area of ​​hiking trails 606. Chicago’s legislation was enacted this April and expires in April 2022; The cost of demolishing an apartment building to be replaced by a single family home is $ 5,000 per unit and demolishing a two-family or townhouse is $ 15,000. It’s unclear whether such a low markup would deter deconversion in Chicago, which hasn’t released data on the ordinance’s success, or in St. Louis, but lawmakers are under increasing pressure to try different tactics to deliver apartment buildings in.

Roshan Abraham is Next City’s Housing Correspondent and a former Equitable Cities Fellow. He is based in Queens. Follow him on Twitter at @roshantone.

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