Housing & Land Use3
Too Damn High: Lurie’s ‘Rent Emergency’ And SF’s Struggle to Make Life Affordable
Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a rent emergency last week after the median market-rate rent rose 25 percent over the past year to nearly $4,500 a month. His plan includes a proposal from Supervisor Jackie Fielder to block eviction when a tenant falls one month behind, $3 million more for the city fund that provides free legal help to tenants facing eviction, and an extra $3,000 on the $11,110 payment landlords must give tenants displaced by an owner move-in. The declaration followed last December's Family Zoning Plan, which supporters and opponents are both trying to amend this fall.
Desperate Tenants in SF Face Scams, Substandard Rentals
San Francisco's AI boom has made the rental market more competitive, and KQED reports that tenants under pressure to stand out are running into substandard units and outright scams. The episode follows Mayor Daniel Lurie's rent emergency declaration and an earlier KQED report on a renter who lost $18,000 to a scam.
City Hall4
Saikat Chakrabarti drops $400K for affordable housing, public bank and transit measures
Saikat Chakrabarti has spent $400,000 to support three measures on the November ballot: Props I and J and the regional transit tax. The money backs affordable housing, a public bank and transit.
The office built to stop the next Nuru just got smaller
The Standard's Power Play column reports that budget cuts have shrunk the city office created to prevent another corruption case like Mohammed Nuru's. The column also covers the District 10 supervisor race, another campaign speech by Nancy Pelosi and a bathhouse revival.
Mayor Lurie gets 6 appointments to the Youth Commission. They all hail from private schools.
Mayor Daniel Lurie has appointed six people to the San Francisco Youth Commission, all of them from private schools. Records for at least the past decade show no other mayor appointed only private-school students to the commission.
Supervisors file misconduct charges to remove sheriff oversight board chair
The Board of Supervisors filed 12 charges of official misconduct against William Palmer, chair of the Sheriff's oversight board, and moved Tuesday to suspend him. A city investigation found he violated city law 14 times, including using his office for personal benefit and threatening officers during a traffic stop. Palmer said he disagrees with the findings but did not say why.
Transportation2
S.F. economy will take a hit if Muni measure fails, controller warns
San Francisco's Office of the Controller estimates that passing Proposition H, the Muni parcel tax on the November ballot, would add $310 million to $400 million to the city's GDP over 15 years. The controller's report warns that the service cuts Muni says would follow a no vote would cost the local economy more than the tax would.
Street-Safety Advocates Accuse Yes on G Campaign of Pushing Bad Data
The directors of San Francisco's bike and pedestrian safety groups and the chief executive of the think tank SPUR signed a letter accusing the Yes on G campaign of using "misleading, cherry-picked" data to suggest that closing the Great Highway raised traffic injuries. They also objected to the campaign's use of pedestrian-safety imagery and language to suggest that reopening the road to cars on weekdays would bring safe streets.