The Board hereby finds and declares as follows:
(a) Large-scale entertainment, hotel, office, laboratory, and retail developments in the City have attracted and continue to attract additional employees to the City, and there is a causal connection between such developments and the need for additional housing in the City, particularly housing affordable to households of lower and moderate income. Such commercial uses in the City benefit from the availability of housing close by for their employees. However, the supply of housing units in the City has not kept pace with the demand for housing created by these new employees. Due to this shortage of housing, employers will have difficulty in securing a labor force, and employees, unable to find decent and affordable housing, will be forced to commute long distances, having a negative impact on quality of life, limited energy resources, air quality, social equity, and already overcrowded highways and public transport.
(b) There is a low vacancy rate for housing affordable to persons of lower and moderate income. This low vacancy rate is due in part to large-scale commercial developments, which have attracted and will continue to attract additional employees and residents to the City. Consequently, some of the employees attracted to these developments are competing with present residents for scarce, vacant affordable housing units in the City. Competition for housing generates the greatest pressure on the supply of housing affordable to households of lower and moderate income. In San Francisco, office or retail uses of land generally yield higher income to the owner than housing. Because of these market forces, the supply of these affordable housing units will not be expanded. Furthermore, Federal and State housing finance and subsidy programs are not sufficient by themselves to satisfy the lower and moderate income housing requirements of the City.
(c) The City has consistently set housing production goals to address the regional and citywide forecasts for population, households, and employment. Although San Francisco has seen increased housing production each successive decade since the 1970s, the City has not been able to close the gap between its housing production goals and actual production.
(d) There is a continuing shortage of low- and moderate-income housing in San Francisco. It is desirable to impose the cost of the increased burden of providing housing necessitated by large-scale commercial development projects directly upon the sponsors of the development projects by requiring that the project sponsors contribute land or pay a fee to the City to subsidize housing development as a condition of the privilege of development and to assist the community in solving those of its housing problems generated by the development.
(e) The Bay Area has seen dramatic increases in land acquisition costs for housing, the cost of new housing development and the affordability gap for low to moderate income workers seeking housing. Commute patterns for the region have also changed, with more workers who work outside of San Francisco seeking to live in the City, thus increasing demand for housing and decreasing housing availability.
(f) As the regional job center, San Francisco has historically had the highest ratio of jobs-to-housing units in the Bay Area.
(g) The required housing exaction shall be based upon formulas derived in a periodic jobs housing nexus analysis. Consistent with the requirements of the California Mitigation Fee Act, the jobs housing nexus analysis shall demonstrate the validity of the nexus between new, large scale entertainment, hotel, office, laboratory, and retail development and the increased demand for housing in the City, and the numerical relationship between such development projects and the formulas for the provision of housing set forth in Section 413.1 et seq.
(h) The Board of Supervisors has reviewed the Jobs Housing Nexus Analysis (“Jobs Housing Nexus Analysis”), which is on file with the Clerk of the Board in Board File No. 190548, and adopts the findings and conclusions of that study, and incorporates the findings by reference herein to support the imposition of the fees under Section 413.1 et seq.
AMENDMENT HISTORY
Former divisions A.–C. and K. amended and redesignated as divisions (a)-(c) and (e); former divisions D. and F. amended and combined as division (d); former divisions E., G.–J., L., and M. deleted; new divisions (f)-(h) added; Ord. 251-19, Eff. 12/16/2019. Division (h) amended; Ord. 193-23, Eff. 10/16/2023.