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Good morning.
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My colleague Conor Dougherty wrote this dispatch about an effort to get affordable housing built in San Francisco:
London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco and a strong supporter of liberalizing development in her city and California, has not had much luck pushing new housing ideas through the city’s board of supervisors.
Three times the board has voted to oppose a statewide bill that would allow taller buildings near transit, and which Ms. Breed supported. The mayor’s proposal to streamline construction of affordable housing and new homes for teachers never made it out of legislative committee, while the full board rejected a 63-unit project in the South of Market neighborhood on account of excessive shadowing.
Ms. Breed is now taking her case to voters. On Wednesday, the mayor is expected to submit a ballot measure that would amend the city’s charter so that buildings with a substantial amount of affordable housing — somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of units, depending on size — could sidestep the legislative process as long as they conform to local zoning codes.
[Read more about how a proposal aimed at building more housing failed — again.]
There’s no guarantee that the proposal will even make the ballot, let alone be passed by voters. The initiative’s backers would need to collect the signatures of 50,000 registered voters to be included on the November ballot. In a city of about 900,000 people, this would be an expensive undertaking, requiring an army of volunteers and paid signature collectors that charge several dollars per signature.
“We are never going to make housing more affordable in San Francisco if we keep doing things the same way over and over,” Ms. Breed said. “I’ve seen too many of the people I grew up with leave because there’s nowhere for them to live, and there definitely isn’t any housing for their kids.”
Unlike most major cities, where development that conforms to local rules is largely allowed without going before a legislature, San Francisco has a complicated process in which even ordinary projects are subject to a gantlet of votes and commissions that takes years to navigate. It also creates a culture in which essentially every new building becomes highly politicized.
The ballot measure Ms. Breed is backing would attempt to rectify that by creating an “as of right” process for certain buildings that significantly add to the affordable housing supply.
At the heart of the proposal is a belief that regulation has a cost, and that developers would be willing to volunteer to take lower rents on more units in exchange for the certainty of a faster and more predictable approval process.
There was a similar philosophy behind a state law that was passed by the California Legislature in 2017, which has in some cases caused developers to rejigger their projects to add affordable housing solely to take advantage of the law.
Backing an initiative drive is an extraordinary measure for the mayor, who despite being popular with voters has continuously sparred with supervisors over housing.
“This is basic, zoning-compliant housing that provides badly needed affordable housing,” Ms. Breed said. “No height increases, no special districts — just housing that meets the already approved rules.”
Here’s what else we’re following
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“Those are old rules.” Michael Bloomberg said in a presidential campaign stop in Compton on Monday that he was encouraged by muddled results of the Iowa Democratic caucuses and intended to ramp up spending in big states like California. [The New York Times]
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See what the latest filings say about the California presidential campaign cash race in six graphics. [CalMatters]
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President Trump gave his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Among the president’s guests was Jody Jones, a Farmersville man whose brother was killed by an undocumented immigrant who the authorities said enacted a “reign of terror” across Tulare County. Mr. Trump used his story to rail against so-called sanctuary cities. [Visalia Times Delta]
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Some Latino lawmakers, including from California, brought asylum seekers and others hurt by the Trump administration’s immigration policies. [NBC News]
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Also, watch Mr. Trump snub Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to shake his hand and Ms. Pelosi tear up her copy of the speech. [The New York Times]
Read about what it was like for a California Dreamer to attend the event last year. [The New York Times]
And read a fact check of the speech. [The New York Times]
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Orange County’s district attorney announced plans to drop charges against a former Newport Beach doctor and his girlfriend who were accused of drugging and sexually assaulting seven women. [The New York Times]
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Two planes full of American citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, arrived in California on Wednesday. [The New York Times]
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The Bay Area has 27 transit agencies that don’t play well together. A state lawmaker wants to fix that. [The San Francisco Chronicle]
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Two dozen historically black colleges and universities offered students in the Lynwood Unified School District as many as 381 on-the-spot admissions and $5.8 million in scholarship awards. [The Los Angeles Times]
Late last month, I wrote about an effort to officially clear the name of Bayard Rustin, a civil-rights leader and confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose legacy, California lawmakers said, had long been unjustly tarnished by a 1953 conviction under laws that targeted L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Mr. Rustin, who was gay, spent 50 days in Los Angeles County jail and was registered as a sex offender after being discovered having sex in a parked car.
Scott Wiener, the state senator who leads the California Legislative L.G.B.T.Q. Caucus, and Shirley Weber, the Assembly member who heads the California Legislative Black Caucus, asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to posthumously pardon Mr. Rustin.
“He deserves to be remembered as one of the towering figures in the cause of justice,” Ms. Weber said at the time. “A pardon will ensure his legacy and his place in history unsullied by this incident.”
[Read the full story about Mr. Rustin’s life and legacy.]
Yesterday, Mr. Newsom responded, with a pardon for Mr. Rustin, and with a broader clemency initiative aimed at clearing others who faced similar treatment.
“In California and across the country, many laws have been used as legal tools of oppression, and to stigmatize and punish L.G.B.T.Q. people and communities and warn others what harm could await them for living authentically,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “I thank those who advocated for Bayard Rustin’s pardon, and I want to encourage others in similar situations to seek a pardon to right this egregious wrong.”
In 1997, the state established a process that allows some people with similar convictions to be removed from the sex offender registry. But that doesn’t affect the underlying conviction or count as a pardon. The new initiative will work to identify and pardon eligible people. (You can learn more about that effort here.)
Mr. Wiener said in a statement that he applauded the swift work by Mr. Newsom: “The governor’s actions today are a huge step forward in our community’s ongoing quest for full acceptance and justice.”
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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