S.F. supervisor to 'explore' ballot measure to speed up housing

"San Francisco takes an average of 280 days to approve the permits necessary for construction to begin. That is one of the longest waits in the country, and a key bottleneck for building new housing. It is more than three times as long as it takes in Washington, D.C., and more than twice as long as in San Diego."

"The city report has relatively simple solutions for speeding up permitting, namely to streamline coordination between the five departments currently involved in issuing them - building inspection, planning, fire, public works and the Public Utilities Commission. The departments could, for instance, set up regular meetings, or have applicants be shepherded through the process by a designated point person."

"To 'fully realize that vision,' the city will need to ask voters to change the charter because the responsibilities of each department are currently 'hard coded' into the charter and can't be easily changed. Amendments to the city charter require a simple majority to pass."

San Francisco's housing permit approval process takes an average of 280 days, significantly longer than comparable cities like Washington, D.C. and San Diego. A city report commissioned by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood identifies the bottleneck as coordination issues among five departments: building inspection, planning, fire, public works, and the Public Utilities Commission. Proposed solutions include establishing regular interdepartmental meetings, assigning designated point persons to guide applicants, and consolidating building inspection and planning departments. Mahmood plans to pursue a ballot measure to amend the city charter, as current departmental responsibilities are legally codified and cannot be easily modified without voter approval. The report notes insufficient data collection on where delays occur, though Mahmood suspects San Francisco's complex building code contributes to the problem.

Read at Mission Local