Breed-supes spat shows housing can divide SF political allies

When the Board of Supervisors voted last month to override a mayoral veto and scale back the recent upzoning of San Francisco’s North Waterfront , Mayor London Breed was apoplectic.

The mayor, whose difficult path to reelection has the strong support of pro-housing groups, decried the legislation as “anti-housing,” making good on her promise to stand against any bill that worsens The City’s housing crisis .

But to those outside the mayor’s office, her outrage was baffling, given that her own appointees to the Planning Commission and Department raised no significant objections to the bill, which walked back parts of a recent measure to encourage housing development.

Breed’s veto of the bill forced a split with her usual allies on the Board of Supervisors — including Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Rafael Mandelman — and demonstrated Breed’s unwavering commitment to being a pro-housing mayor as she jockeys for position in a crowded field of moderate mayoral candidates.

“They picked an unnecessary fight for political reasons,” Mandelman told The Examiner. “Having been swept up in that, I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not pleased. I don’t think it was something necessary to do to your allies.”

The waterfront zoning bill, led by rival mayoral candidate and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin , revealed fissures that housing can create between friends in San Francisco’s political landscape, a dynamic exacerbated by the upcoming November elections .

The brouhaha began earlier this year when Peskin, who represents the area, maintained that a section of the northeastern waterfront district is historic and deserves to be protected from wanton development. Housing advocates, on the other hand, view the area as underbuilt and ripe for additional construction.

A proposal for a 200-foot-tall housing project on Sansome Street revealed to Peskin that pro-housing legislation adopted in 2023 with his support had allowed for “unintended and unanticipated consequences.”

The waterfront rezoning bill he proposed established density limits in the historic districts and closed the “loophole” his previous law had created, which had effectively allowed developers to tap into state law to engage in “‘density doubledipping’ to supersize massive luxury towers.”

The move drew outrage from housing advocates, and Breed joined them. But when it came time to marshal support from board members, Breed fell short. Eight members voted to override her veto, the minimum necessary to do so.

The moves were notable — Breed rarely vetoes legislation, and the board had never successfully voted to override her.

In an interview with The Examiner this month, Breed shrugged off the loss, stressing that she has not wavered from her promise to veto anti-housing legislation — regardless of whether she has the necessary votes at the Board of Supervisors.

It’s unclear how heavily the mayor’s office lobbied supervisors to prevent a veto override.

Jeff Cretan, the mayor’s spokesperson, said that administration officials “constantly are in conversations with offices around these issues to express concerns or needs for amendments at different points in the legislative process. This legislation was no different.”

Mandelman told The Examiner he was not lobbied by the mayor’s office on the bill but didn’t expect to be, given his clear position on it. Stefani declined to respond to questions about the bill posed by The Examiner.

Breed, whose approval ratings have plummeted after the pandemic , has embraced a housing movement that focuses on clearing bureaucratic and policy barriers to new development.

Housing is the path to victory for Breed in a crowded field of challengers, according to Todd David, a political consultant for Abundant SF, a pro-housing group backing Breed and preparing to pour money into the mayoral race.

Though “polling certainly, clearly still shows that public safety is the top concern, the polling also shows that is starting to recede a little bit and housing is starting to come back,” David said.

But in a mayoral race crowded with moderate candidates laser-focused on public safety, the issue “doesn’t differentiate the candidates,” he added. “Housing differentiates the candidates.”

Mandelman said he is less certain that housing is key to victory but believes that it will depend “whether people trust the candidates to handle a host of issues that include housing, but also probably higher up are economic climate, homelessness, drugs, public safety.”

Still, symbolism matters in an election year, even when it comes to a piece of legislation that Mandelman argued is not a “defining piece of housing legislation.”

“It was symbolism they chose, they didn’t need it,” Mandelman said, noting that Breed doesn’t veto everything she doesn’t believe in or support.

But the mayor’s supporters lauded her for forcing supervisors to take a stance.

“They made the six-year incumbent mayor the change agent, so in some ways I would make the argument that politically, the more the Board of Supervisors opposes the mayor, the more she’s given the opportunity to run [with] ‘I am the change agent,’” David said.

The fracas over Peskin’s bill could portend difficult debate over an imminent process to “upzone” much of The City to allow for more housing — a mandate under the Housing Element it adopted last year, which requires The City to build more than 80,000 new homes by 2031.

An initial upzoning proposal from The City’s Planning Department has already been shot down and sent back by Breed.

The draft plan would have allowed for new housing developments of eight stories along many of the west side’s corridors, but left height limits far lower in residential neighborhoods. Breed sent it back for revisions, asking the planning department to devise a strategy to allow for more development of six-to-eight story buildings across The City, not just along main drags such as Irving Street or Geary Boulevard.

Breed told The Examiner her request to city planners was based on simple math and the assumption that six-to-eight story buildings are economically viable, while those taller are not.

“The economics that go with making a decision have to be taken into consideration when we talk about rezoning,” Breed said.

Mandelman stopped short of drawing a connection between Peskin’s waterfront legislation and The City’s broader upcoming efforts to upzone.

“It’s a math problem, and in that math problem you can also accommodate protecting the waterfront, protecting historic districts, [and] protecting vulnerable communities at risk of displacement,” Mandelman said.

Editor’s note: This story was changed on April 24, 2024 to correct the height of potential housing developments under a draft proposal from the San Francisco Planning Department. ashanks@sfexaminer.com