In late June, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to halt ten new townhomes within the metropolis’s Nob Hill neighborhood, citing the necessity for added environmental overview of the shadows the houses would solid on an adjoining park.
The following day, the U.S. Division of Transportation introduced that San Francisco can be getting $20 million from a grant program that the Biden administration had allegedly retooled to incentivize zoning reforms and housing manufacturing.
That grant, from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Fairness (RAISE) program, pays for added bus lanes, bike lanes, and street widenings within the metropolis’s Bayview neighborhood.
That is the second RAISE grant that San Francisco has obtained for the reason that Biden administration introduced again in Might 2022 that this system can be used to “reward jurisdictions which have reformed zoning and land-use insurance policies” as a part of its Housing Provide Motion plan.
Grant candidates for RAISE and several other different transportation grants would obtain further factors on their utility for detailing zoning adjustments they’d made to facilitate extra housing building, stated the White Home.
The primary grant San Fran obtained—$23 million for street narrowing and bike lane additions on town’s Howard Avenue—was introduced in August 2022. That award got here a few days after California housing officers introduced they have been launching a first-of-its-kind investigation of San Francisco’s housing insurance policies and practices to find out if it was violating state legislation in taking pictures down so many tasks.
Those that observe San Francisco improvement battles will know that metropolis politicians have repeatedly halted the approval of housing tasks over their potential shadow impacts. Most infamously, one property proprietor within the Mission District was ordered to finish three separate shadow research in his quest to show his laundromat into an residence constructing.
Earlier this yr, San Francisco obtained state sign-off on its plan to facilitate the development of 82,000 new houses over eight years by means of adjustments to its zoning code and allowing processes. That raised the hopes of some housing reformers that town authorities had turned a nook on its NIMBY methods.
The Board of Supervisors’ vote in opposition to the Nob Hill undertaking reveals town is sticking to its usual soiled methods. Town’s RAISE grant reveals that it will be frequently rewarded by the feds for doing so.
In our federal system, there’s clearly solely a lot the federal authorities ought to do to incentivize native governments to vary their land use laws.
However removed from inappropriately strong-arming native officers with the facility of the purse, the Biden administration is committing an arguably worse sin. It is utilizing a program it has dedicated to the reason for zoning reform to subsidize the nation’s highest-profile housing coverage unhealthy actor.
That is a horrible sign to ship. It tells all different zoning reform–hostile politicians and coverage makers that they too might be handsomely rewarded with federal tax {dollars} whereas persevering with to cynically shoot down sorely wanted, privately sponsored, zoning-compliant housing tasks.
The Biden White Home’s preliminary proposal to tie transportation spending to zoning reform was an fascinating concept. Critics cautioned that retooling present packages with priorities apart from zoning reform would probably be ineffective. More and more, it is trying like this a part of the Housing Provide Motion plan is actively counterproductive.
