San Francisco Can't Agree on Affordable Housing Formula

San Francisco City Controller Ben Rosenfield looked into the numbers on the San Francisco housing market and, hoping to find a way to create affordable housing without curbing development, sought to determine a realistic number defining how much affordable housing developers should be asked to create. "Rosenfield’s analysis concluded that developers can afford to rent up to 18 percent of new apartments and sell up to 20 percent of new condominiums at below-market prices without jeopardizing overall housing production," Emily Green writes for the San Francisco's Chronicle.

But many of the city's elected officials, including Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Ahsha Safai, think these percentages are too high and using these hard numbers would be imprecise. While Rosenfield's formulat might be appropriate for some neighborhoods, they would be wrong for others. Meanwhile, high housing and rent costs in the city continue to slow the economy of the region and the country, push families out of the city, and exacerbate a homelessness problem.