Editorial: Californias housing crisis darkens amid glimmers of progress in the Bay Area – San Francisco Chronicle

While the pandemic-induced downturn has eased stratospheric rents in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, it has only exacerbated the underlying cause of unaffordable housing: a chronic shortage of homes and apartments. State statistics show 2020 marked yet another horrible year for housing construction in California, suggesting any immediate relief from the crisis will be fleeting at best.

The continuing slump comes at a time of dramatically diminished attempts to address the shortage in the Legislature, which has struggled since 2017 to pass bills to boost the housing supply. Perhaps the best hope for turning around the states historical hostility to housing can be found in the most unlikely of places: the cities that have been hotbeds of housing obstruction.

Since Gov. Gavin Newsom took office aiming to boost housing production to 500,000 units a year, construction has headed in the opposite direction. Just over 100,000 new housing units were authorized in 2020, according to a state Department of Finance report released last week, a drop of nearly 9% from 2019, which saw a decline of nearly 4% from the year before.

Worse, last years decrease was driven by a precipitous 18.5% fall in new multifamily housing, the kind that is most likely to make a dent in the shortage and provide affordable housing near transit and jobs. Single-family housing, meanwhile, grew slightly even as prices put it further out of reach for most. While the number of Californians working shrank by 1.5 million during the year, the median single-family home price grew by more than 11% to nearly $660,000.

While the trend is remarkably contrary to Newsoms goals, its not surprising given a series of implosions of housing legislation in Sacramento. Last years legislating began with the Senate killing a sweeping housing production bill by Sen. Scott Wiener, SB50, which would have ended single-family zoning statewide and allowed multifamily development near transit and job centers in the most populous counties. The session ended with a moderated housing package mired in squabbling between the Senate and Assembly.

Last week, reflecting the shift toward more incremental measures, Wiener introduced a bill to limit local governments power to cap square footage in multifamily zones, a means of limiting apartment construction. Wiener, D-San Francisco, also has reintroduced a bill that would allow cities to streamline zoning for small multifamily developments, while state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, has revived a proposal to allow up to two duplexes on most lots zoned for single-family homes.

As the Legislature scales back its efforts to overcome local barriers to housing, a few cities are showing signs of acknowledging the need at long last. The Berkeley City Council, for example, was expected to consider a resolution by Vice Mayor Lori Droste on Tuesday night declaring its intent to eliminate single-family zoning by the end of next year. Its evidence of a surprising and heartening pro-housing shift for a city that, according to the resolution, invented single-family zoning a century ago to keep certain neighborhoods white, wealthy and free of what a former city attorney called the less desirable ... floating renter class.

Sacramento, beset by Bay Area refugees, is considering a similar proposal. In San Francisco, meanwhile, Supervisor Rafael Mandelmans more modest proposal to roll back single-family zoning earned immediate blowback from his colleagues. Berkeley may open its borders to the less desirable, but dont count on San Francisco to join the enlightenment.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

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Editorial: Californias housing crisis darkens amid glimmers of progress in the Bay Area - San Francisco Chronicle