San Francisco’s permitting reform seeks an end to building project ‘death by a thousand cuts’

Dive Transient:

• San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie unveiled a legislative package containing sweeping allowing adjustments for the town, the most recent within the mayor’s ongoing PermitSF plan to take away boundaries and streamline San Francisco’s allowing course of.
• The adjustments would scale back allowing charges for growth initiatives of $100 million or extra and eradicate a requirement to satisfy with metropolis employees forward of submitting a allow software for bigger developments. The adjustments additionally add flexibility for the way the town’s historic buildings can be utilized and make it simpler so as to add accent dwelling items, usually seen as a technique to enhance housing availability.
• “We’re persevering with to push commonsense reforms that present significant profit to on a regular basis San Franciscans in addition to construct a greater basis for a brand new wave of development exercise we hope to see in San Francisco,” Director of Present Planning at San Francisco Planning Liz Watty stated in an announcement.

Dive Perception:

Since a spike of recent development exercise in 2020, new housing development in San Francisco has been in a free fall. In 2024, the town elevated its housing inventory by 1,597 items, 30% lower than in 2023 and 56% decrease than the 10-year common.

The town ranked second in a latest Client Affairs evaluation of cities that require the best income to afford a home, at $386,359.

To assist spur growth, Lurie has taken purpose at San Francisco’s allowing course of, which he described as “death by a thousand cuts.”

“We’re eliminating the nonsense and specializing in frequent sense,” Lurie said.

PermitSF course of adjustments applied thus far have included increasing allow middle service hours and launching a single webpage for allowing data.