By Christian Britschgi | Reason
San Francisco takes three years on average to approve and permit a new housing development, the longest timeline of any jurisdiction in California, and the city is out of compliance with numerous state laws requiring expedited housing approvals.
That’s the damning, not necessarily surprising, findings of a new state audit released yesterday that found the city’s housing policies and practices added up to a “notoriously complex and cumbersome” mess that will ensure San Francisco falls well short of its state-set goal of building 82,000 units by 2031.
Currently, the city is producing only about 4,000 homes per year, or less than half of what it needs to hit that 82,000-unit goal. The state audit also found that the city takes 523 days on average to issue planning approval for housing projects and another 605 days to issue building permits to already approved projects.
“This audit puts cities across California on notice: there will be no more leniency for illegally obstructing housing construction,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco), the author of a number of state laws the city is out of compliance with, in an emailed statement. “San Francisco has added layer upon layer of unnecessary discretion and bureaucracy for decades.”
