San Francisco Mayor Creates Position To Streamline Housing Production
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Wednesday she's created a new position, the Director of Housing Delivery, charged with helping the city produce more housing in a timely manner.
The position's creation comes as Breed has set a goal of cutting the permitting process time after Planning Commission approval in half for large and mid-size housing projects.
"We are in desperate need of new housing, but our current permitting process is too slow as projects are bounced back and fourth between city departments instead of moving forward," Breed said in a statement.
"Once the Planning Commission approves these projects, the city must move more quickly to get these housing units permitted so we can create more homes for people. My Director of Housing Delivery's sole job will be to work with our city departments to streamline the permitting process and work with departments to get housing built quickly," she said.
The new director of housing delivery will lead a Housing Delivery Team, which will be made up of several housing coordinators.
In addition to helping speed up the process of individual housing projects, the director of housing delivery will also take steps to streamline the entitlement process, as well as implement a plan to digitize project applications so that several different departments can view them simultaneously.
The director will also establish a system to track whether the city's housing goals are met, along with ensuring adequate staff is retained so that applications don't become backlogged.
Under the current system, housing projects approved by the city's Planning Commission go through a permitting process, which can involve as many as eight different city departments, each with unique schedules and processes, according to Breed's office.
The long permitting process often results in delays in affordable and market-rate housing proposals, or the projects' abandonment altogether.
