The state Department of Housing and Community Development was recommending that the state build 180,000 units of housing each year and has been leaning on local governments to zone enough land and reform their approval processes to make that happen. More recently, the housing goal was reduced to 148,000Two recent reports on housing in two of the state’s largest and most housing-deficient cities provide some insight into the factors that must change if California wants to meet its housing needs.
“California’s affordability crisis is one of our own making,” Newsom said in a statement. “The decisions we made limited the creation of housing we need. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in San Francisco.” The report recommends a number of specific reforms needed to jump-start housing in San Francisco. Its current mayor, London Breed, has been pushing a slate of procedural changes, but the city’s Board of Supervisors, whose members are acutely tuned to the city’s historic resistance to big housing projects, has been reluctant to act.