Transcripts For SFGTV LIVE Full Board Of Supervisors 2016072

SFGTV LIVE Full Board Of Supervisors July 27, 2016

Housing affordability, and i think having more discussion on this issue would be a good thing for all of us so im happy to support item 26. Thank you supervisor campos. Supervisor wiener. Thank you mme. Pres. I cant support this in the condition that is and if this were simply creating a commission in the mold of the Planning Commission or Police Commission over the Mayors Office of housing or Community Development so an Affordable Housing commission essentially where the mayor appointed commissioners and the board president up pointed three with the same approach to hiring the director and if that were being proposed here i would certainly support that. I have thought about the idea of an Affordable Housing commission and it is taking on a greater role and more money is flowing through Affordable Housing so our committee does make sense to me but that is not what this is. This is not our traditional split appointment where we would acknowledge that this is an agency and an executive branch where the mayor gets a majority of the Commission Appointments and the mayor plays a role in hiring a Department Head and the mayor is politically accountable to the voters for the performance of the executive branch. Instead, this is taking two very significant departments, and taking these two departments that are part of the executive branch and removing them effectively from the executive branch by putting them under one commission where the mayor makes the minority of the Commission Appointments and according to this measure if im reading it correctly the mayor plays zero role in actually selecting the director and so, under this circumstance though i am under the agreement of the concept ofwhat this proposes this particular way that this is proposed i just cant support that. Supervisor. I would just like to say that we are spending quite a bit of resources on these housings we know this is an issue that the public cares deeply about when in fact, if you look at the poles its the top two or three that San Franciscos are thinking about and certainly what they would like increased dialogue, discussion, and feedback on. But, as our a Feasibility Study moves forward on proposition c moves forward and we talk about the size of projects and neighborhoods but also based on the type of needs that we want to fulfill in the citya commission is going to be invaluable in helping to guide the support of the Mayors Office in terms of direction that we as a city want to take for Affordable Housing. In particular, i believe this comes up in almost every single project that are office negotiates and the type of Affordable Housing that we build and it what income levels. I do not want to say that there is not a rhyme or reason for each project, but we do do it on a project by project basis. We have to say i think Senior Housing is needed in this neighborhood and i think we should do this at 55 ami and we do the best that we can tell fill the needs that we are hearing from the community but i think the commission will provide a larger risible document that we can follow and, give us a better compass in helping to guide all of our budgets together and not go on a development by development basis which is actually truly what were doing today. There are so many needs that we need to fill. Affordable homeownership that we need to fill and of course the continuing need for a working Class Community and those that are homeless and formally homelessand this commission is going to provide better laws and focus solely on this issue over the course the years and i think that would be invaluable. Finally i should say having worked on many agreements by the Mayors Office of development before this agreement comes before the board of supervisors in many ways the Community Process comes to us before this and we have to modify these projects because the community wasnt able to provide input early on into the process and i think a commission will help us to get Good Development mint deals Going Forward that our community can benefit from. And finally, what a bounce commission looks like. Yes, there will be free3 from the Mayors Office and three from the Community Development office. I have to say the Controllers Office has played a particular role around the issue of Affordable Housing. They are currently leading the Feasibility Study around the maximum that we can require Market Rate Developers via proposition c they also led our communities study when we want to see how Market Rate Development affected the displacement of Service Organizations in the city. The office has been a valuable impact on these developments before they hit our office. The controller of courses put forward by the Mayors Office and i think ultimately this would be heavily guided by what the mayor would like to see in terms of the director and the Mayors Office of housing. Finally, i would just say that putting this commission forward is not a criticism of this department. Ive a great relationship with the Mayors Office of housing. I think they are truly committed to affordability. That being said, i think we can do a better job around a guiding document of what we are building and we can do a comprehensive plan of what that looks like and how much Senior Housing and how much Family Housing and what income brackets this is something that will only enhance the work of affordability here in the city that we are doing today and certainly provide more transparency and accountability and trust with the public. Thank you. Before i moved to supervisor avalos i really appreciate your comments supervisor kim and i just want to ask two questions of you and supervisor peskin. Have you done any analysis of how much time a commission would, for example, a number of projects that deal with housing. I know your office worked on and negotiated the additional time that would take a commission before it would potentially get to the board. Do you have any idea what you think we are talking about . I know it is hard to really say probably because it is a project by project basis but we do know this is going to add an additional amount of time to new production of Affordable Housing and i just wanted to know, you know, just ballpark what either you or supervisor peskin think that might be. I would just say i dont think that a commission has to add any additional time to a Housing Project that would be coming before the board and i would also say that additional projects that might be reviewed before the commission would be with the commissioners. The additional time of course would be in the time of the meeting. But, i dont think it would increase the amount of time that it would get to that board of supervisors and, if anything, i think there would be some efficiency because we frequently do a lot of amendments on the backend of the Development Deal when the public can finally provide input because that is often the first opportunity that we can do that when it comes before the board. I actually think that would have a lot more efficiencies if we could have more public input on the front and of a Development Deal than on the backend. Now, i have not done a study on the number projects impacted by this. I think that it varies from yeartoyear. There some years where we have had and trish ryland and this year i would say we have not had as big of a number come for the board that are been impacted. Supervisor peskin. Mme. Pres. I would add to that that its really a function of into [inaudible], okay, and last question . How is this going to impact the Housing Authority, and for example, section 8, and units under the Successor Agency because i cant tell from the legislation how all of this fits into one, because as you know, there are so many different layers to housing in a city and specifically, Affordable Housing. It is very complicated for people to understand where to apply for this and where do you go for this and why do i qualify for this amount and not for this amount and it is very confusing. So, i guess im trying to understand how those layers all fit together because i just do not see it. Mme. Pres. , i dont mean to be combative but i think you just answered some of those questions. With your specific question relating to the Successor Agency and redevelopment that we call ocii, after redevelopment was a sunset it and this legislation in no ways impacts ocii. I guess what im saying is there is still some overlap in what they are bringing together. Mme. Pres. There is now a transition of transferring some projects and the Mayors Office of housing have developed that those that will be in the reit program will will have a place to go to talk about the bread and butter of their daytoday lives. So, they wont have to go to the Housing Authority anymore . Or, they could go to both . So for example the right place for them to go under the new management the right place for them to go for those daytoday breadandbutter questions that would go to this new commission and should it be something to vote on the voters would vote for. Thank you supervisor peskin. Supervisor avalos. Being part of this commission i have watched San Francisco move forward in Housing Development and i havent seen that in my district and i think there needs to be a way to bring some transparency into the decisions that are being made by the Mayors Office a housing and Economic Workforce Development and ive also worked closely with my community in San Francisco and i have seen their role in Community Development work as they have been able to get more people engaged in changing the district 11 needs and we have changed the process over the many years i have been on the board now to add a little bit of money every year to be able to develop ideas for projects and this year we developed the Workforce Center in august 20 and that has been built out over the years that we are finally opening up and we will be able to do Worker Rights work and with the immigrant community especially the chinese, filipino and Chinese Community we also have Housing Projects Going Forward and that effort was not led by an oh but it was led by Community Development and there was an effort to take out community develop as an effort by the city and bring forth the Economic Community and Workforce Development and they were actually narrowing the scale of what development was going to be in San Francisco and it was really about commercial development. We need all three. We need housing, residential and community and Housing Development i think we need all three of these entities under one commission and that makes a lot of sense and if we are looking at models the Community Development to be spread around the city i think district 11 has a really good model of having a commission that can have a way to approach how we could move the needle on making sure that the neighborhoods get their fair share of support and services of development in San Francisco and i know supervisor tang has done a lot of work on Community Development as well and i think these are very similar that could be done on the hospices of a commission with some strategic planning. I am also concerned how the Mayors Office of housing is often making political decisions on how to stretch dollars across the city and we will see it that these endings are moving back and forth between different cities in different projects and you know there is not enough to move around there. And as you can see there would be some Real Transparency on how these would be spent and how these projects can be built out over years in time to make them happen. Earlier this year i asked the Controllers Office to start working on building towards a commission over at the Mayors Office of housing and i was going to slow approach and i was looking at doing hearings and trying to get information but it wasnt really tentative because i didnt have a lot of time left on the board to really do this. They presented their Charter Amendment and it wasnt ready for prime time. I really appreciate how we use the legislation process to move these projects that i really feel are worthy of supporting today so i thank you for your support and i think the public from hearing the board talk about what this commission could be about and i really like these to be uniform across the city. Some are split between the board and the mayor and some are with the mayor and their split across all of these commissions and this commission is very different in terms of having a controller make the appointment so that we have even numbers from the mayor and the board of supervisors has a controller but i actually think that approach makes sense given that within the process the answer from the Mayors Office was no and when an answer is no we dont get any input on what to do i think it makes sense that we determine and reshape it the way that we think that it should be and how we develop this commission and that we should do it in a way that we think is going to work for our district and for the districts in the city so again, thank you for putting this forward and im very happy to support this and i have no other questions. Thank you supervisor avalos. Supervisor wiener. Lets be very very clear that most appointments are made either all by the mayor or primarily by the mayor and there are two exceptions this would be the commission and the Ethics Commission where we intentionally split up these appointments because these are unique departments that should not be part of that executive branch the executive branch is a branch and we dont want people to have control over those there is no one that has the majority and that means that no one is politically accountable for the performance in those departments. And that governmance and there is no accountability if know what one has a role of managing these departments and i think its on precedented here andcorrect me if i am wrong but perhaps for the first time we are doing an appointment power for a very powerful commission to a nonelected official to control. I am a huge fan of my controller. He has done a great job. He is very efficient he is a friend he is a neighbor. But he was not elected to make these decisions and perhaps this vote would be cast by someone who is not elected by anyone and to me, that is a huge problem. This is a bad precedence and i am going to predict that if elections happen and things changed with the current majority of this board that we are going to see a move towards more and more commissions having this kind of splintered structure where the mayor no longer effectively manages his executive departments and i will not support that. This is a very bad road that we are potentially going down if the voters approve this Charter Amendment. Thank you supervisor weiner. Supervisor campos has not had a chance to speak. I think i have spoken. Supervisor peskin. Mme. Pres. I had that discussion last week so i dont want to belabor it but i do want to recognize incredibly hard work of my staff as supervisor avalos had stated ms. Ankula has really worked very difficult and i think that i really up ppreciate all of her work and i like to publicly acknowledge my appreciation for her work i would simply say that i think that we should call the question. Actually supervisor campos, that is not a bad idea. All right, i will say that this is a hard one. There are so many reasons why i want to see this commission happen. But, i was looking forward to some of the proposed amendments from supervisory yee that i thought would definitely make it better policy but since i am not 100 comfortable with the proposed direction, without any amendments to make it better legislation, i am going to oppose both item 25 and 26

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