Tue May 02 2023

San Francisco has a unique system of “discretionary review,” and YIMBY advocate Bilal Mahmood (with the pro-development Yes In My Back Yard group) and California Assemblymember Matt Haney see this process as a major roadblock to new housing. Mahmood went down the rabbit hole to suss out exactly how tangled this bureaucracy is for a Chronicle opinion piece. Haney has crafted two pieces of state legislation intended to make the process of getting new housing or office conversions approved a little more predictable, and thus faster. They explain how that could spur housing construction and how all this could help reshape downtown.