The city of San Francisco is moving to combat its rapidly rising housing costs with a new plan that will offer more moderately pricing housing in exchange for allowing builders to exceed the city’s current building height restrictions.
According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is set to propose a plan to encourage the building of more affordable housing in the city.
From the Chronicle:
Neighborhoods across the west side of San Francisco could see thousands of new housing units under a measure Mayor Ed Lee is proposing that would allow builders to exceed current height restrictions in exchange for including more affordable units.
The affordable housing bonus program, which will be introduced at the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, would allow an extra two stories of height on projects that include 30 percent affordable units and an extra three stories on 100 percent affordable developments.
Unlike state and federal affordable housing programs, the measure is primarily directed at encouraging builders to provide units for middle-income families rather than low-income. It calls for 18 percent of the units to be affordable to families making between 120 and 140 percent of area median income, which is $122,000 to $142,000 for a family of four. The remaining 12 percent would cater to low- to moderate-income people.
And with San Francisco housing looking potentially bubblicious, more affordable housing can’t come soon enough.
