Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

Office growth. Its not at all connected to or analyzing the pipeline that we already have. Because we know that there are very large projects that are jumping all over each other to try to take whats available under prop m which is expected to at least in the next few years, in the near term, be a lot higher than much closer to the full prop m. I think the challenge we have now is having enough, year over year, because theres way more than the 950,000 that we have available. So i want to be clear the analysis is not connected to the actual pipeline that is existing now. Its based on the past and tends to be a long term forward look assuming the citys economy is as favorable as its been over the past 20 years for office. And to the extent that we bump into the prop m limit, the impact of projects being infeasible above that limit or rendered infeasible by this increase would not have any impact. They would simply be punted into the next year or at some future point when Market Conditions would improve as they would be outwithout the fee because of prop m. So i would agree the fee increase in prop m at this point in time kind of work together. The capacity for the market is already constrained by prop m. So if in one year you had 1. 5 million square foot that wanted to go forward and because of this, we knock that down by 200,000 it has zero impact on that. Thats exactly right. Because you still can only go forward with 950. So the other question that i had was about the jobs impact and Economic Impact of building Affordable Housing. Obviously this is do you take into consideration those construction jobs, the positive impact on how many jobs for the millions of dollars spent on Affordable Housing. We are assuming that all of the fee revenue increase goes into constructing multifamily permenantly Affordable Housing. The issue is that because office is so much more expensive to build, there are so many dollars, again, foregone when Office Development is less than it otherwise would have been. So the construction is also kind of a seesaw. You are building more Affordable Housing. You are building less offices. So from the impact of the Construction Industry its actually a net negative. Got it. And obviously theres a lot thats hard to measure here. I mean, having people who are working in these buildings who are commuting from further and further away, the impact on their ability to fill positions in the city when people cant live here, obviously the human impact of people being displaced and people on the lower income and their lives. So i think i take some of these. I take it with a grain of salt. Because as i said, they are going to continue to be very Significant Office growth and what this is intended to do is have a little more balance in terms of how we provide for the workers who are either connected to those Office Developments or who are impacted by them. Supervisor safai, do you have im sorry, supervisor mar questions . Its not really a question but i wanted to sort of echo the point that chair peskin and supervisor haney made around some of your key findings and in your analysis. In the way you present them in the report. I would agree that its very misleading in the way that you talk about a negative impact and up to 1500 jobs lost as a result of this, the legislation. And a negative impact of up to 330 million on gdp when in fact, again as we discussed its really a slight reduction in job growth and gdp growth in the future, especially in consideration of the report that we just heard from the dla office where it showed we are expecting tens of thousands of jobs to be added over the next seven years in our city. And also just almost rampant job growth has been a key part of the problem and driver of the Housing Affordability crisis for low and moderate income workers. And the fact that weve only created one housing unit for every. 5 for every 8. 5 jobs created. So in the future if you would consider more objective language in your findings and Economic Analysis. I think the only thing i can respond is we are always trying to talk about the difference between the situation in which the legislation passes and the situation in which the legislation doesnt pass. Sometimes depending upon the legislation you get more Economic Activity if the legislation passes, and sometimes like in this case, you get less Economic Activity. So im always open for ways to describe that difference in what feels like a more objective way. But thats the task we are always trying to set for ourselves. Its very hard to project whats going to happen tomorrow. But what we are more confident of being able to say, well, this makes the economy this way relative to the baseline or a different way relative to the baseline. If i can hop in relative to what supervisor mar said. I appreciate what your mandated role pursuant to what the voters voted relative to what you are supposed to discharge consists of. But when you are looking at bullets on the page, and you welcomed to me constructive suggestions. If every phrase at the top of the page it said relative to what would be without this ordnance or potential future growth. When you read these bullets and we are involved in the business of politics. Somebody will flash up on the screen, eric mar excuse me, gordon mar and peskin voted to lose 1500 jobs. Well actually thats not true. There would have been less job growth over time. So i just think the way these things that people like you are doing your job produce can be misused. If the whole phrase allows the consumer of this information to know precisely what it means, which is less job growth which may be objectionable, i think thats you are looking for constructive criticism, i think thats the best way to lay it out. And this is maybe not a question that im posing to you its more of a policy question for all of us. Obviously this board is deeply committed to providing housing for people who cannot afford it. Extremely low low, moderate. We are doing great on goals as to market rate, luxury, super luxury. This is all fact. But the question that im wrestling with relative to the data and modeling, which i totally understand, it goes up and goes down and is a backward looking science because thats what it is. Im not interested in development for developments sake. Im interested in development because its going to make peoples lives better. So what you basically told this panel is that we are going to make stuff more expensive but to what benefit . I mean yeah, there will be some short term jobs relative to the development of office. But i dont understand let me ask you this question. If we dont have any development at all, which is not the proposal that is before us by any stretch of the imagination, and costs dont go up, thats what you are saying. Right. Is the world a better place or not . If all development is curtailed, how would that happen . Well, you are saying that the more office we develop people get more money but stuff is more expensive. Thats right. So why are we doing this . Let me go back and explain a little more this process of how more development makes people wealthier. I think people are used to thinking about a Housing Market in which theres a certain amount of housing and theres people are Different Levels of income chasing that housing. The same thing is going on in the labor market. Theres a bunch of people who are housed in a way that enables them to work at jobs in San Francisco. And there are companies who are willing to spend 90 a square foot a year to a developer to occupy new office space to try and hire people in an economy where the Unemployment Rate is less than 2 percent. That injection of demand into the labor market is going to force those companies to drive up wages. And those wage increases will ripple throughout the economy through the Multiplier Effect. If you, as a San Francisco resident, are stable in your housing situation, you have a nice rent controlled apartment or you own your home and you are in the labor force you will be better off as a result of that Office Development. If, on the other hand, you are not in the labor force or in a low wage job that doesnt get the Multiplier Effect and lets say you are a growing family and need to find new housing every year or two and you are looking at housing prices going up ten percent per year, you are worse off. So the reason what im saying is that it depends kind of how you sit in the situation. There are a lot of people who are better off because of the way the San Francisco economy has grown this decade, with i think we can all agree, a lot of job growth and not a lot of housing growth. And also a lot of growth on income on average and a lot of growth in housing prices. But there are a lot of people who are worse off and they tend to be lower income people. So im not minimizing the policy challenge. But if you are asking the question how is it possible that Office Development can benefit people, thats how. Because your housing costs are stable. And that Office Development is going to lead employers to drive up your wages. Ted, that was really good. Thank you for that. And i guess my response, not to you this is also backwards looking. Is thats how the job housing linkage evolved right . Which is we wanted the impacts to pay for themselves. I assume. I was not around when this happened. Nor i. Yeah, i mean we speak about the value of the nexus study in our report. And i dont have anything to add to that. Thank you. Are there any other questions . I would like to ask supervisor safai. We didnt really have the opportunity to look at this. We just got this. I know you were trying to get it done by the time of this hearing. But theres a couple things i wanted to ask. I appreciate all the clarification. I understand peoples response to some of the language in it. And i understand what you are trying to do. You are meant to be the objective one looking at this. One of the things i wanted to ask for you put some bullets in here is the question of the fact of the nexus study is different than an Economic Analysis right . Can you talk a little bit about that just for the record . Well, i think its fair to say the study is looking at one way in which Office Development affects the economy. That there will be nor workers and they will need to be housed and it implies a situation in which they are housed in San Francisco according to to their incomes. One of the things it doesnt consider which limits its value for us is it doesnt consider the growth in jobs. So some people are unemployed but become employed or theres this wage effect i talk about so people might have more income and that might affect Housing Affordability for some people. Why do they come up with a number in their study . They use numbers up to 200 square foot. Whats the basis for that . I think i understand the basis for that. I mean i think its not a complex methodology. They are looking at what are the types of jobs that are in offices or different types of land use. What level of income are the households those workers are in, what do they have. How do they slot in terms of low moderate very low income. Whats the citys funding gap for a housing unit per household for that. And thats sort of the logic. For every job or every thousand square feet of space, you are going to have this many worker households in each income level to produce that level of Housing Units per thousand feet of jobs, this is the citys current funding gap. And the totals come from there. Okay. What about the part about you had you did some samples and even without the increase some of these Office Developments were not feasible. And then you talk about that once Market Conditions improve, that there would be room for modest fee level increase . That was the eps study. That was not eagan. We were just reviewing that study as inputs to our work. But that is epss conclusion. Okay. And its in reference to the original 10 per square foot increase. Right. Did you take any time to look at what the Planning Department . They came up with their own numbers. Did you look at their numbers . I reviewed a feasibility memo from the Planning Department. But im not aware of any specific numbers that you are speaking of. Im sorry. Okay. So if you are not aware of that you dont need to comment on it. Thats fine. Okay. Thats pretty much it that i have. Thank you supervisors. Thank you mr. Eagan. And just to my colleague supervisor safai, i mean San Francisco and many most, all municipalities in the state of california because of changes to the state constitution are feedriven. And because of the nolan decision and other decisions and the mitigation fee act a nexus study is required. So the nexus study clearly established a much higher nexus than what is being proposed by supervisor haney. That is satisfying a legal nexus requirement pursuant to the law which has nothing to do with epss study and findings of what is fiscally feasible. That was kind of my point. I just wanted to get it on the record. Because the economist looks at pure numbers. The nexus study looks at kind of variables that can make an argument. But they are not necessarily backed up by economics. And so just trying to get to a happy medium. I know that supervisor haney is not proposes what the nexus study did. If it keeps ongoing i might. Before we go to Public Comment supervisor haney said earlier he wanted Public Comment and then he was going to introduce amendments. I have asked him if we can actually speak to the amendments prior to Public Comment so the public can speak to the amendments. So supervisor haney, if you could regale us with your concept on page 19. Sure. You have the amendments in front of you. They are on page 16 to 20. As i mentioned weve been in conversation with different stakeholders and particularly over the last week or so. So we are bringing forward some amendments that reflect some of the things that came out of those conversations. A big part of this is that we would be phasing it in over the next two years. This is taking into consideration the fact that there are some projects that have already received planning approval and others that have already completed environmental evaluation applications. And this fee is coming granted somewhat late in the process for them. So for i will say that theres been an understanding that this fee was going to be changed for some time now. For Office Projects that received their planning approval before this, this is what the amendments say. For office prompts that receive their approval before this ordnance was approved with condition of approval they would pay the new fee these amendments assessed a 57 fee which is double the current fee. For any project that is submitted incomplete environmental application before september 10, 2019 and has not received its site permit as the date of this ordinance also double the current fee. And projects filed between september 1 and january 1, 2022 a 63 fee would be assessed. For projects that file after january 1 2022, it would be the full 69. 60 fee which is the one inordnance. This would give projects time to plan. We also agreed to have a provision that allows for regular review and analysis of the fee. But thats not before us today. I would be adding that before we go to the full board. I also say that the amendment similarly phase in the fee for lab use. So they would start at 38. 05 per pipelines in the project and rising to 46. 43 after january 1, 2022. Supervisor, i totally get that and understand that. And i think support it. But you said that you just said when you introduced it on september 10, because when i saw this when you handed it to me, thought what is magical about september 10 other than its the day before september 11. And you said you introduced it then but you introduced it back in may. So whats magical about september 10 . I believe september 10 was when we introduced the new version with the current. Oh, when we did the substitute. The subcutaneous substitute. We did introduce it before the nexus study and then we reintroduced it the substitute, on september 10 with the new numbers. Got it. Okay. Is it okay if we open it up for comments . Yeah. We open it up for Public Comment on items 6 and 7. [calling names] first speaker please. I object to that demonstration. Thats top class, professional bull shit. Demonstrations pertaining to my schematic that i demonstrated on a nonprofit developer built in the 27story tower to house the Homeless People is proof that you use a nonprofit developer, and you wont have this kind of problem. Is that clear . Youre demonstrating a high level incompetency by overlooking my demonstrations where i demonstrate if you build 188 unit Apartment Building complex for 57 million, its the best damn deal on any Apartment Building thats being built in the city and county of San Francisco god damn cisco. Hes making his estimates from a developer. Youre using a measurement on Office Building complexes with a nonprofit developer like i demonstrated compared to nonprofit developer on building Apartment Building complexes here in the city and account of Market Conditions<\/a> would improve as they would be outwithout the fee because of prop m. So i would agree the fee increase in prop m at this point in time kind of work together. The capacity for the market is already constrained by prop m. So if in one year you had 1. 5 million square foot that wanted to go forward and because of this, we knock that down by 200,000 it has zero impact on that. Thats exactly right. Because you still can only go forward with 950. So the other question that i had was about the jobs impact and Economic Impact<\/a> of building Affordable Housing<\/a>. Obviously this is do you take into consideration those construction jobs, the positive impact on how many jobs for the millions of dollars spent on Affordable Housing<\/a>. We are assuming that all of the fee revenue increase goes into constructing multifamily permenantly Affordable Housing<\/a>. The issue is that because office is so much more expensive to build, there are so many dollars, again, foregone when Office Development<\/a> is less than it otherwise would have been. So the construction is also kind of a seesaw. You are building more Affordable Housing<\/a>. You are building less offices. So from the impact of the Construction Industry<\/a> its actually a net negative. Got it. And obviously theres a lot thats hard to measure here. I mean, having people who are working in these buildings who are commuting from further and further away, the impact on their ability to fill positions in the city when people cant live here, obviously the human impact of people being displaced and people on the lower income and their lives. So i think i take some of these. I take it with a grain of salt. Because as i said, they are going to continue to be very Significant Office<\/a> growth and what this is intended to do is have a little more balance in terms of how we provide for the workers who are either connected to those Office Development<\/a>s or who are impacted by them. Supervisor safai, do you have im sorry, supervisor mar questions . Its not really a question but i wanted to sort of echo the point that chair peskin and supervisor haney made around some of your key findings and in your analysis. In the way you present them in the report. I would agree that its very misleading in the way that you talk about a negative impact and up to 1500 jobs lost as a result of this, the legislation. And a negative impact of up to 330 million on gdp when in fact, again as we discussed its really a slight reduction in job growth and gdp growth in the future, especially in consideration of the report that we just heard from the dla office where it showed we are expecting tens of thousands of jobs to be added over the next seven years in our city. And also just almost rampant job growth has been a key part of the problem and driver of the Housing Affordability<\/a> crisis for low and moderate income workers. And the fact that weve only created one housing unit for every. 5 for every 8. 5 jobs created. So in the future if you would consider more objective language in your findings and Economic Analysis<\/a>. I think the only thing i can respond is we are always trying to talk about the difference between the situation in which the legislation passes and the situation in which the legislation doesnt pass. Sometimes depending upon the legislation you get more Economic Activity<\/a> if the legislation passes, and sometimes like in this case, you get less Economic Activity<\/a>. So im always open for ways to describe that difference in what feels like a more objective way. But thats the task we are always trying to set for ourselves. Its very hard to project whats going to happen tomorrow. But what we are more confident of being able to say, well, this makes the economy this way relative to the baseline or a different way relative to the baseline. If i can hop in relative to what supervisor mar said. I appreciate what your mandated role pursuant to what the voters voted relative to what you are supposed to discharge consists of. But when you are looking at bullets on the page, and you welcomed to me constructive suggestions. If every phrase at the top of the page it said relative to what would be without this ordnance or potential future growth. When you read these bullets and we are involved in the business of politics. Somebody will flash up on the screen, eric mar excuse me, gordon mar and peskin voted to lose 1500 jobs. Well actually thats not true. There would have been less job growth over time. So i just think the way these things that people like you are doing your job produce can be misused. If the whole phrase allows the consumer of this information to know precisely what it means, which is less job growth which may be objectionable, i think thats you are looking for constructive criticism, i think thats the best way to lay it out. And this is maybe not a question that im posing to you its more of a policy question for all of us. Obviously this board is deeply committed to providing housing for people who cannot afford it. Extremely low low, moderate. We are doing great on goals as to market rate, luxury, super luxury. This is all fact. But the question that im wrestling with relative to the data and modeling, which i totally understand, it goes up and goes down and is a backward looking science because thats what it is. Im not interested in development for developments sake. Im interested in development because its going to make peoples lives better. So what you basically told this panel is that we are going to make stuff more expensive but to what benefit . I mean yeah, there will be some short term jobs relative to the development of office. But i dont understand let me ask you this question. If we dont have any development at all, which is not the proposal that is before us by any stretch of the imagination, and costs dont go up, thats what you are saying. Right. Is the world a better place or not . If all development is curtailed, how would that happen . Well, you are saying that the more office we develop people get more money but stuff is more expensive. Thats right. So why are we doing this . Let me go back and explain a little more this process of how more development makes people wealthier. I think people are used to thinking about a Housing Market<\/a> in which theres a certain amount of housing and theres people are Different Levels<\/a> of income chasing that housing. The same thing is going on in the labor market. Theres a bunch of people who are housed in a way that enables them to work at jobs in San Francisco<\/a>. And there are companies who are willing to spend 90 a square foot a year to a developer to occupy new office space to try and hire people in an economy where the Unemployment Rate<\/a> is less than 2 percent. That injection of demand into the labor market is going to force those companies to drive up wages. And those wage increases will ripple throughout the economy through the Multiplier Effect<\/a>. If you, as a San Francisco<\/a> resident, are stable in your housing situation, you have a nice rent controlled apartment or you own your home and you are in the labor force you will be better off as a result of that Office Development<\/a>. If, on the other hand, you are not in the labor force or in a low wage job that doesnt get the Multiplier Effect<\/a> and lets say you are a growing family and need to find new housing every year or two and you are looking at housing prices going up ten percent per year, you are worse off. So the reason what im saying is that it depends kind of how you sit in the situation. There are a lot of people who are better off because of the way the San Francisco<\/a> economy has grown this decade, with i think we can all agree, a lot of job growth and not a lot of housing growth. And also a lot of growth on income on average and a lot of growth in housing prices. But there are a lot of people who are worse off and they tend to be lower income people. So im not minimizing the policy challenge. But if you are asking the question how is it possible that Office Development<\/a> can benefit people, thats how. Because your housing costs are stable. And that Office Development<\/a> is going to lead employers to drive up your wages. Ted, that was really good. Thank you for that. And i guess my response, not to you this is also backwards looking. Is thats how the job housing linkage evolved right . Which is we wanted the impacts to pay for themselves. I assume. I was not around when this happened. Nor i. Yeah, i mean we speak about the value of the nexus study in our report. And i dont have anything to add to that. Thank you. Are there any other questions . I would like to ask supervisor safai. We didnt really have the opportunity to look at this. We just got this. I know you were trying to get it done by the time of this hearing. But theres a couple things i wanted to ask. I appreciate all the clarification. I understand peoples response to some of the language in it. And i understand what you are trying to do. You are meant to be the objective one looking at this. One of the things i wanted to ask for you put some bullets in here is the question of the fact of the nexus study is different than an Economic Analysis<\/a> right . Can you talk a little bit about that just for the record . Well, i think its fair to say the study is looking at one way in which Office Development<\/a> affects the economy. That there will be nor workers and they will need to be housed and it implies a situation in which they are housed in San Francisco<\/a> according to to their incomes. One of the things it doesnt consider which limits its value for us is it doesnt consider the growth in jobs. So some people are unemployed but become employed or theres this wage effect i talk about so people might have more income and that might affect Housing Affordability<\/a> for some people. Why do they come up with a number in their study . They use numbers up to 200 square foot. Whats the basis for that . I think i understand the basis for that. I mean i think its not a complex methodology. They are looking at what are the types of jobs that are in offices or different types of land use. What level of income are the households those workers are in, what do they have. How do they slot in terms of low moderate very low income. Whats the citys funding gap for a housing unit per household for that. And thats sort of the logic. For every job or every thousand square feet of space, you are going to have this many worker households in each income level to produce that level of Housing Units<\/a> per thousand feet of jobs, this is the citys current funding gap. And the totals come from there. Okay. What about the part about you had you did some samples and even without the increase some of these Office Development<\/a>s were not feasible. And then you talk about that once Market Conditions<\/a> improve, that there would be room for modest fee level increase . That was the eps study. That was not eagan. We were just reviewing that study as inputs to our work. But that is epss conclusion. Okay. And its in reference to the original 10 per square foot increase. Right. Did you take any time to look at what the Planning Department<\/a> . They came up with their own numbers. Did you look at their numbers . I reviewed a feasibility memo from the Planning Department<\/a>. But im not aware of any specific numbers that you are speaking of. Im sorry. Okay. So if you are not aware of that you dont need to comment on it. Thats fine. Okay. Thats pretty much it that i have. Thank you supervisors. Thank you mr. Eagan. And just to my colleague supervisor safai, i mean San Francisco<\/a> and many most, all municipalities in the state of california because of changes to the state constitution are feedriven. And because of the nolan decision and other decisions and the mitigation fee act a nexus study is required. So the nexus study clearly established a much higher nexus than what is being proposed by supervisor haney. That is satisfying a legal nexus requirement pursuant to the law which has nothing to do with epss study and findings of what is fiscally feasible. That was kind of my point. I just wanted to get it on the record. Because the economist looks at pure numbers. The nexus study looks at kind of variables that can make an argument. But they are not necessarily backed up by economics. And so just trying to get to a happy medium. I know that supervisor haney is not proposes what the nexus study did. If it keeps ongoing i might. Before we go to Public Comment<\/a> supervisor haney said earlier he wanted Public Comment<\/a> and then he was going to introduce amendments. I have asked him if we can actually speak to the amendments prior to Public Comment<\/a> so the public can speak to the amendments. So supervisor haney, if you could regale us with your concept on page 19. Sure. You have the amendments in front of you. They are on page 16 to 20. As i mentioned weve been in conversation with different stakeholders and particularly over the last week or so. So we are bringing forward some amendments that reflect some of the things that came out of those conversations. A big part of this is that we would be phasing it in over the next two years. This is taking into consideration the fact that there are some projects that have already received planning approval and others that have already completed environmental evaluation applications. And this fee is coming granted somewhat late in the process for them. So for i will say that theres been an understanding that this fee was going to be changed for some time now. For Office Projects<\/a> that received their planning approval before this, this is what the amendments say. For office prompts that receive their approval before this ordnance was approved with condition of approval they would pay the new fee these amendments assessed a 57 fee which is double the current fee. For any project that is submitted incomplete environmental application before september 10, 2019 and has not received its site permit as the date of this ordinance also double the current fee. And projects filed between september 1 and january 1, 2022 a 63 fee would be assessed. For projects that file after january 1 2022, it would be the full 69. 60 fee which is the one inordnance. This would give projects time to plan. We also agreed to have a provision that allows for regular review and analysis of the fee. But thats not before us today. I would be adding that before we go to the full board. I also say that the amendment similarly phase in the fee for lab use. So they would start at 38. 05 per pipelines in the project and rising to 46. 43 after january 1, 2022. Supervisor, i totally get that and understand that. And i think support it. But you said that you just said when you introduced it on september 10, because when i saw this when you handed it to me, thought what is magical about september 10 other than its the day before september 11. And you said you introduced it then but you introduced it back in may. So whats magical about september 10 . I believe september 10 was when we introduced the new version with the current. Oh, when we did the substitute. The subcutaneous substitute. We did introduce it before the nexus study and then we reintroduced it the substitute, on september 10 with the new numbers. Got it. Okay. Is it okay if we open it up for comments . Yeah. We open it up for Public Comment<\/a> on items 6 and 7. [calling names] first speaker please. I object to that demonstration. Thats top class, professional bull shit. Demonstrations pertaining to my schematic that i demonstrated on a nonprofit developer built in the 27story tower to house the Homeless People<\/a> is proof that you use a nonprofit developer, and you wont have this kind of problem. Is that clear . Youre demonstrating a high level incompetency by overlooking my demonstrations where i demonstrate if you build 188 unit Apartment Building<\/a> complex for 57 million, its the best damn deal on any Apartment Building<\/a> thats being built in the city and county of San Francisco<\/a> god damn cisco. Hes making his estimates from a developer. Youre using a measurement on Office Building<\/a> complexes with a nonprofit developer like i demonstrated compared to nonprofit developer on building Apartment Building<\/a> complexes here in the city and account of San Francisco<\/a> you will have a multimillion billion dollar difference in the amount of money being spent. And you talking about that property thats owned by the city and takes years and you dont have money to develop it, thats a god damn lie. You have billion dollars in your budget because of donald trump. Then the following year you had 12 billion in your budget. After you say you dont have the money thats an insult on peoples intelligence and by the same response to last year, you had 88. 2 million negative cash flow because your poor supervision and management and gives multimillions of dollars to the hightech Company Twitter<\/a> and nine other hightech companies and have the audacity to wonder why you have the negative cash flow. That guy dont know what hes talking about. Thank you sir. Next speaker please. My name is hannah schwartz. I work for spur. Thank you for the opportunity to provide input on the jobs and linkage fee. We urge you to weigh the information on financial feasibility that you have in hand as you consider this item. San franciscos jobs and housing linkage fee is one of several important sourceses of funding for housing in San Francisco<\/a>. It is not surprising the recent nexus study update justifies a higher linkage fee than in the past. However we would challenge the assumption that all new workers in new commercial buildings will live in San Francisco<\/a> which has long been part of the Regional Labor<\/a> market. It is important to consider financial feasibility when setting impact fee levels. Given Construction Costs<\/a> and other dynamics it is already difficult for new development to make sense. An increase of 40 per square foot of office is aggressive and will render some Office Projects<\/a> infeasible. This may seem appealing to some but does not serve the citys purposes. With office space in high demand, if developers choose not to build more, it will make office space more expensive pushes expenses higher and potentially displacing them to inconvenient or suburban locations. This further reduces the diversity of San Francisco<\/a>s economy. Further, generating Affordable Housing<\/a> funding is the goal then commercial Development Needs<\/a> to happen to be able to occur in order to trigger that. Spur agrees it is important for San Francisco<\/a>s commercial uses and employers to contribute to the city for Affordable Housing<\/a>. Updating the fee by some amount should be appropriate but it should not be a total that will have an impact on San Francisco<\/a> far beyond developers who will look elsewhere for opportunities. We urge you to consider this item for further discussion. Ms. Schwartz, do you know, and i honestly dont know, has spur at any point since 1997 when this was last updated, advocated for an increase of jobs housing linkage fee or been radio silent . Ive been in and out of this job for 19 years. But i do not ever recall spur coming down here and saying hey folks do nexus study and raise it a bit or a little bit or index it. Do you know . Im not sure if thats been official spur adopted policy. But i dont have a record of all the letters like this that weve made. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon supervisors. Im getting two minutes so ill try. One of our members had to leave so ill give my and her comments. My comments are about local 2 who supports this legislation. I want to add by the way that as a 20 year resident of oakland which has seen residents rise 9. 8 percent every year for the last three years the response by the city of oakland has been to build condos so the idea that oakland could be building its way out of Affordable Housing<\/a> crisis its actually building its way into one. So speaking of of this city, its hard to get a living wage but they are shut out of housing. Stack ton sacramento, watsonville thats where our workers commute from. The report states that 96 percent of the housing target goal for high income households has been met and 15 percent for the lowest. Our members, lower income and moderate income households. Our members work in the hospitality industries, a critical source of revenue and they cant afford to live in the city they have built. We need to increase the amount of resources that go to building houses for basically everybody but the liest income households. The fee is based on charging developer fees for their projects and this is 22 years old. We need to raise it. We support raising this fee and those who support the legislation currently i hope you are bolstered by the facts of the stories you have heard here. If you have not come around yet i hope you will hear us and support it as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Hi. Good evening supervisors. Im the planning and policy manager at the tenderloin development corporation. Im here to support the update to the jobs housing linkage fee. Its a common sense way to pay for Affordable Housing<\/a> that we know that we really need. Even though some of the data we heard just pretty depressing its heartening to see this momentum around the report being released, around the fee being updated so at least theres something to feel optimistic about in this conversation about housing in the city. In the tenderloin which is where we are focused its been a microcosm of what can happen when you invite a lot of highpaying jobs in without doing much to provide more housing or secure the housing thats already available. So weve seen how painful thats been for low income folks living in our neighborhood, even People Living<\/a> in rent controlled housing hasnt been enough to protect them. And so just from what weve seen there we know thats true throughout the city as well. And i know Everybody Knows<\/a> how expensive it is to build housing in this city. But i think just the numbers they are repeating and hopefully we dont get too jaded, its about 7 the radio thousand 750,000 to build one unit of Affordable Housing<\/a>. We ask the city to do everything they can to support the development of Affordable Housing<\/a>. Thank you for supporting this legislation. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. Im tracy at jobs and justice in San Francisco<\/a>. So we all know theres a huge housing crisis in San Francisco<\/a> and we arent able to house our workers. We know this is most severe for the citys low and middleincome workers. And we all know who ultimately bears the brunt of this. Its development tally black and Brown Workers<\/a> who get pushed out of their homes and San Francisco<\/a>. We already heard over the next sixyears San Francisco<\/a> will be short more than 15,000 units for low income workers and their families. Where are these hard working people supposed to live . This didnt happen by accident. We have a housing crisis but its a crisis of our own making. For too long the Planning Department<\/a> and city agencies have been chasing the holy grail of job growth and allowing endless Office Development<\/a> while turning a blind eye to workers. Supervisor haney, thank you. Your legislation is important. We need resources to build housing that addresses the problems in San Francisco<\/a>. The fee covers only a small part of the cost of Affordable Housing<\/a> that development makes necessary. Developers must do their part and pay this increase so we can house low and middleincome workers in San Francisco<\/a>. This legislation is a really important continued step towards housing workers, Homeless People<\/a> and helping organizations acquire more land for Affordable Housing<\/a>. So thank you to the supervisors who support it and we urge you to continue finding more resources to build Affordable Housing<\/a> for people in San Francisco<\/a>. Thank you. Next speaker please. Supervisors. Shannon. We are crazy enough to cry try and build both office and housing in this city. From a housing standpoint weve been 1500 units of market rate housing, 600 units of Affordable Housing<\/a>. And we have another 2,000 units in the pipeline. Weve done projects at 25 percent, projects at mission rock at 40 percent affordable. Jobs housing linkage fee needs to come up. But we need to do that in moderation. We failed to build enough housing in this city both at market rate and Affordable Housing<\/a>. But to increase this fee too much or too quickly will drive jobs to oakland and to the peninsula. I live in the 2700 block of california and every morning the buses are idling outside my house to take workers who live in San Francisco<\/a> to other jobs. Do we really want to push the fees where we push the employers out of San Francisco<\/a> where we get none of the benefits. The projects in central soma have signed up for 52 in citywide fees, 77 in central soma fees and in our case and many of our peers have similar fees, 79 of project fees and concessions. Thats over 200 of concessions in the project. If you look at the numbers that mr. Eagan just presented if we are building 430,000 square feet a year and lose 120, the job housing linkage fee would be the same but you would lose 200 per square foot or 24 million per year of public benefits. We urge continuance and continued dialogue on this one. Thank you mr. Shannon. 2700 block of california is it about scott street . I would pose to you those people are actually going to tech jobs on the peninsula and had the peninsula built housing, they would be living next to their jobs right now. The floor is yours. Thank you supervisor. Mike from realty corporation. I completely agree that none of you who support this measure are trying to eliminate jobs in San Francisco<\/a>. That was a good clarification. The goal is to generate revenue for the city of San Francisco<\/a>. And to build on what the previous speaker said, if the goal is to increase revenue to the city of San Francisco<\/a> the 140,000 square feet that the controllers report said would not be built every year is generating far more in other revenue than just the increase that you are proposing for the jobs housing linkage fee. Just in terms of property taxes alone that 140,000 square feet would generate 2 million a year in property taxes. Thats every year. The jobs housing linkage fee is a onetime fee. So i think we need to be careful that we are not working against the interests that i think we all agree we are trying to solve to generate money for Affordable Housing<\/a>. Theres bond measures on the ballot this year. And we should all be supporting those to try to generate more money for Affordable Housing<\/a>. This measure i fear would have the reverse effect. And so i think we need more time to consider it to come up with an appropriate increase that will not have the effect of reducing the amount of development or pushing the development to other places which will generate fees for the other places. And with all due respect supervisor, i think that your exact point you just made about people in mr. Shannons neighborhood taking a bus to a peninsula, that will still happen if the Office Development<\/a> gets built on the peninsula. We will still feel the housing impacts if that Office Development<\/a> is built on the peninsula but we wont get any of the fees. Thank you. I was suggesting they put housing on the peninsula but thank you. Agreed. Next speaker please. Hi. Im here to request we continue this item. I know it was brought up in may. But it wasnt until last month that it was the number of 69 was brought to attention and there are a couple of things that are concerning. For example the Feasibility Study<\/a> showing the highest amount recommended would be 38. 57. And the current amount would be more than double that. If the policy objective is to Leverage Office<\/a> element for Revenue Sources<\/a> for the production of Affordable Housing<\/a> this rate would counter to that. Some of the numbers i saw in the presentation, for example in 2015 and 2016, the revenue was 30 million. And thats when i remember the housing crisis was pretty intense. And right now with this number, we are maybe going to get 9 million in additional revenue, which is a lot less than 30 million in the current rate that we have. So that would deliver 12 more affordable Housing Units<\/a>. I think again to the point of mixed use housing and Office Development<\/a>, we are compromising housing. There are a lot of times when housing projects lean on the commercial aspect to make it feasible. So the layering of these things is going to impact those most vulnerable our larger community. I really think we are not addressing the root of the problem. We need to come up with more creative solutions. I totally agree we need to focus on the lower Income Housing<\/a> but this isnt the way to do it. So again i request that we postpone this item. Good afternoon again speakers. Cory smith on behalf of the San Francisco<\/a> housing coalition. This is a piece of legislation where ultimately at the end of the day we want whatever results in the most money for subsidized Affordable Housing<\/a> and we want to drive that number as high as possible with being economically feasible. I know theres conversation about what is economically feasible. I know the gentleman spoke about the loss of revenue for the city if this passes through as it currently comes through. But the study that was done, and it was fantastic, and thank you supervisor mar for requesting it. Just trying to understand as a whole how much housing and what types of jobs we are creating in the city. And we all agree its a regional conversation, i want to pin a pin in that for a moment. But to expect things to change without a wholesale just refreshed solution about how we go about our affordability and displacement crisis in the city without addressing the big picture of it we dont think we are going to get very far. A few years ago put out a study that showed if we want San Francisco<\/a>s rent to increase at the same rate of inflation we need to be building 5,000 new homes every year. We need to be doing it all over the city. We need to be doing it at all income levels. If we take those steps we are going to get much bigger bang for our buck. And it will be hard and we will make sure our services are adequate. We will invest in schools as new kids come in. But as mentioned by the previous speaker, we are talking maybe a dozen affordable units which are incredibly important to the people that are going to live in them. One at a time they do count but in order to get the quantity that we need in order to fix this thing, this will not be a panacea, we do need Big Solutions<\/a> and we need bold solutions. Thank you. Next speaker. Thank you supervisors. The San Francisco<\/a> chamber of commerce representing over 1,000 businesses in San Francisco<\/a> large and small. We want to first start and thank supervisor haney for initiating this long overdue reevaluation of the jobs housing linkage fee. We agree that more Affordable Housing<\/a> is necessary to sustain our economy. We encourage a few continuation that allow for more Stakeholder Input<\/a> and discussion to finetune this legislation. We appreciate the supervisors willingness to work with different stakeholders, advocates businesses. We think the nuanced approach is correct in this legislation. Incrementally increasing the fee over a period of time as the supervisors amendments have moved in that direction is a smart move and we would encourage expanding that length of time and lowering the fee from the start point and getting to its end point. We also encourage a different feature for small Cap Development<\/a> for developments that are designed for small and medium sized businesses. The supervisors probably recognize the Feasibility Study<\/a> that the study said there was a feasibility for small Cap Development<\/a>s that is possible. But thats only feasible because that fee gets passed onto those tenants. So you have a small Cap Development<\/a> that has a higher fee that does mean higher rent for those companies and those companies will get pushed out of San Francisco<\/a> when they can no longer afford the office space. Finally we think it is prudent to have regular Economic Analysis<\/a> and regular board adjustments much like we do with zoning legislation. By continuing the legislation we allow for more time for discussion. Adding the Business Community<\/a> would like to be a positive supporter of collaborative partner on this legislation and given a few more weeks of time for discussion allows us to do that. Thank you for your time. Next speaker. Hi. I work at partners who make the food for hospitals member of local 2. A couple months ago i had to take the decision to move to watsonville. And i travel daily between five and six hours. I had to admit just last week i was driving about driving to work and just ten minutes before coming to work i had to pull over and sleep for 40 minutes. When i woke up, it was i was late for work 15 minutes. So those kinds of things im far away from my family. I dont get to see my daughter. And things like this, its hard for people. I used to live five minutes away from work. Ive been working at this company for 13 years. And now i i dont get to live around here. I contribute to this city. So i should be able to live here too. So please increase the fee and have enough housing for workers like me. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening my name is aaron with boston properties. Supervisor haney, i wanted to thank you for considering a reductions in the fee for projects that have been in the development pipeline. Weve got a project in soma that has been on file since 2005 and we are finally able to move forward. The plan has been approved and the lawsuits are cleared. With that said, we are open to a fee increase and weve been having productive conversations both within the Development Community<\/a> and with your office. And we ask this item be continued for another week or two so we can continue that dialogue. And ill come up with a solution that we think would work for everybody. Thank you. Next speaker. Supervisors. Mercy housing. Supervisor haney, i wanted to compliment you for introducing the legislation. Somebody may know i used to work for the city and we were con tellcontemplating the fee back then. I think i was 12 years old when that was last considered. You are struggling to figure out the exact point. I just want to say as somebody who develops Affordable Housing<\/a> on the peninsula one of the big challenges down there and everywhere else in the region is people use other communitys lack of willingness to increase their linkage as an excuse to not raise that i know own so its important that every community continue to push this issue forward because at the end of the day lots of communities are refusing to increase the fee under the excuse their neighbors dont have it and it will be a disadvantage for them. So i recommend you continue moving forward. I dont have an opinion on the continuance. Im sure the amendments are excellent. And i hope you swiftly move forward with this legislation. Thank you. Next speaker. Disability action. I am in support completely of the job linkage jobs housing linkage fee. I am so glad that we heard two reports today giving us a different picture but a picture. What i know and what i see and hear all the time is that seniors so the retired workforce are unable to remain in their homes because they are being priced out because they are being evicted out. People who in my neighborhood in north beach had worked at the fishermans what were Fisherman Wharf<\/a> so we are talking about people of all ages. They have been forced out of the city. We need housing which is very clear. We need housing that is truly affordable. And lets be clear when we use the term affordable, what income level we are talking about. And in terms of which workers could actually afford that, quote Affordable Housing<\/a>. So im so glad that we are doing something about this. It is one step in the right direction and above all having reports. I especially appreciated the definition of loss or trying to define that. We are losing a huge loss of so many of our workers. So many of our seniors. Because there is not truly Affordable Housing<\/a> here. So we need to do whatever we can. And im very appreciative of this effort. Thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon supervisors. Im a member of senior and disability action. And im a longtime voter from district 5. Im here to support supervisor haneys proposal for an increase in the jobs housing linkage fee. This would be for producing Affordable Housing<\/a>. Please do not delay with the continuation. This is too critical. As a senior ive witnessed for decades the city running a race it can never win. A race to keep protect and provide enough affordable Housing Units<\/a>, completely overtaken by a tidal wave of new workers, created by commercial development. The tidal wave that has forced our extremely low to moderate income people much of them seniors and people with disabilities out of the city or homeless into the streets. So a tidal wave of displacement an affordability crisis that has no end unless, unless we enact sensible measures to Balance Office<\/a> and Affordable Development<\/a> such as supervisor haneys proposal. I urge all the supervisors to unanimously support this proposal to slow our race to self destruction. This treadmill we cant seem to get off. I especially call on my own district 5 supervisor brown, on october 8, when senior and disability action had its supervisor Candidate Forum<\/a> supervisor brown said she would support supervisor haneys job linkage increase. I hope that she stands firm in the assurance she gave us, because we are counting on her. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon now evening supervisors. Sorry to keep you here. But peter cohen from Community Housing<\/a> organizations. And like other speakers have said, thanking primarily the lead sponsor supervisor haney and others who have endorsed this legislation, it is a long time coming. And supervisor peskin, i dont think i go back 19 years but at least 15. And the Housing Organization<\/a> has been asking and pressing and suggesting we need to increase our commercial linkage fee. That is the primary of job growth in this town. The fact that we havent raised it for 20 years is kind of 22 years . Okay. Good math. Its kind of unconscionable. Finally the nexus report came out to tell us what we all understood is its dramatically underinvesting in the needs of our workforce. And im glad to see a number of our organizations up here. We are in the business of providing services and making sure folks have a roof over their head. And we can talk numbers all day. But the frame of this is, you said it earlier this isnt just numbers these are people. These are households. And cesar from from local 2 told you a story. Theres thousands and thousands and thousands of those stories like cesar said, people who are working their butts off all day long, hidden from the glory of the tech economy but making the city go round and we are not providing the housing they need. Maybe youve read resegregation, the new book, people are moving to find housing to commute to this city. Its not right. So lets raise this fee and get it right. And lets not delay. Weve spent months to get to this point. Please move this forward to the new board and i hope its an 110 vote when it goes there. Thank you mr. Cohen. Next speaker please. Hello. Im from the housing program. Our Organization Provides<\/a> access to housing by helping people to navigate Affordable Housing<\/a>. Over the years, we have seen changes in our demographics as well in terms of who is looking for Affordable Housing<\/a>. For the last fiveyears or in the last five years or five years ago, i would say 90 percent of our clientele were about from 40 percent ami to 80 percent ami. Last year, our demographic has changed from 60 percent where they are extremely low income meaning lower than 30 percent ami and about 40 percent are very low or low income. So that means like 40 to 8 percent. So that means theres a big change already of people who are living or working here in San Francisco<\/a>. And that means the people are working here in San Francisco<\/a> are not living here in San Francisco<\/a> anymore. And theres an increase of homelessness. One thing that i really appreciate, it really gave a perspective of the Bigger Picture<\/a> about when there is loss of feature Office Development<\/a>s meaning the ami will also decrease. That is a perfect scenario for all of our clientele. Because every time there is Affordable Housing<\/a> the ami because every year thats something she didnt mention is every year amis are always increasing. And that means rents are always increasing. So it really gives a picture that what kind of Affordable Housing<\/a> or what kind of housing is being built or being pushed on by the city itself meaning growth and density is not going to solve the housing crisis. So yes we support the fullon housing linkage fee legislation. Thank you ms. Imperial. Next speaker. My name is susan marsh. I think its generally, its general consensus that the growth of highend jobs here and throughout the region is one of the main things that is generating our housing crisis in San Francisco<\/a>. I think thats a given. What is the housing crisis . Above all its a crisis of displacement. As we heard the percentage of lowincome people has dropped sharply in this town. Theres been an increase in lowwage jobs. What does that tell us . Theres massive displacement with all the environmental and social and human destructiveness of all this, with all the suffering it entails. One of the reasons for the displacement and the surge in amis and minimum qualifications of Affordable Housing<\/a> is simply that we are not building enough of it. Also as per the report. The market will never fix this. The market is overbuilding as we have also heard. Market rate housing the city we must build the housing that we need. The way to do that is to fund this. The fee is a good place to start. I urge you to forward it without any further delay. Thank you supervisor haney. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good evening. Dean preston. And thank you supervisor haney for moving this legislation forward. And thank you supervisor mar for surfacing so much of the factual data that makes it so clear why this is essential. At a time when the displacement crisis is raging in our city when our housing is less affordable than its ever been and when we see new data showing that so clearly that we are overbuilding for those with high wages and completely failing as a city to build for poor folks for working class folks in this city, this is a critical piece of taking a step forward to building the Affordable Housing<\/a> that we need. I think this hearing and the discussion and many of chair prestons questions peskins questions made it clear the current policy makes the situation worse. Its not just some neutral policy that exists right now. As we are building largescale Office Development<\/a> and not charging the fees we need to offset the impact, we are making our city less and less affordable. We are taking maybe one step forward and probably three or four steps backwards. And whats so crucial about this legislation is it moves us toward actually addressing the impact of this kind of development. I commend supervisor haney for his work on this. Lets move this forward as quickly as possible. I say to all of those who have been supporting proposition a and its wonderful to see us all coming together, around 600 million for Affordable Housing<\/a> this is going to bring us what, 500 million over the next decade. So lets all come together over this. Thank you. Next speaker. With the Life Sciences<\/a> association. We too urge you all to consider continuing this item for further Stakeholder Input<\/a> and analysis. Thank you. Thank you. And we are in receipt of your organizations letter. Next speaker. Hello supervisors. Im david woo with the filipino Cultural Heritage<\/a> district. Thank you supervisor haney for the legislation and all the cosponsors and thank you supervisor mar for that report. We are in full support of the legislation to update this fee and bring that fee in line with the realities of 2019. The goal of the cultural district is to preserve the existing community and residents between 2000 and 2010 the filipino population in the south of market decreased by 50 percent. Within filipinos we see a huge demand for Affordable Housing<\/a> and we see the impact of private commercial development. The south of market is is targeted by the city for up zoning and profitcentered development which creates pressure on existing residents and existing Affordable Housing<\/a> as the private market looks to maximize profit at the expense of the existing community. The fact that this fee has not been updated since 1997 really speaks to the amount of additional benefit commercial developers especially office have been getting by not paying the correct amount for this impact fee. And again this isnt a new fee its an out of date fee. While we cant get back this loss of funds this legislation is a step in the right direction toward meeting the housing demands that are created by commercial development. We see how private development has severe and lasting negative impacts on the neighborhood by increasing rent increasing displacement and evictions and pricing out nonprofits and Small Businesses<\/a> with the passage of the central plan we are about to experience a large influx of Office Development<\/a>s and with it a new tidal wave of displacement. The massive amount of profit being created by these private developments must be redistributed through fees like this. I strongly urge the other supervisors that have not yet signed onto this legislation, to sign on, support families and workers. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead maam. Good evening supervisors. First of all, i want to thank you for giving me this opportunity and privilege to talk in front of you. I am a resident of the tenderloin community. I am a volunteer there for five years already. And in my observation i experience also that its really a great problem of this Affordable Housing<\/a>. And with my daughter, we are evicting for this. After listening to the different people, i appreciate that first of all i am in favor of this legislation. This housing our workers legislation is really very important to all of us, especially in my community. Thank you, my dear member haney, supervisor, thank you and your companions too for this i strongly support this legislation. 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