The Key Differences Between Prop D and Prop E

Prop D - Affordable Homes Now - is a pro-housing measure to fast-track the building of new affordable homes. Supported by housing advocates and unions, the measure creates a practical process to streamline and accelerate housing construction and removes the Board of Supervisors and petty politics from decision-making. It requires projects to be approved within 3 - 6 months, and provides prevailing wages for all construction workers, ensuring they receive fair pay and benefits for their work.  

Prop E - placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors - is an anti-housing measure that lets them retain their power to keep delaying/killing housing projects. Their measure is filled with poison pill provisions that will prevent new housing construction. They provide no deadlines on the construction approval process, which means much-needed housing projects will continue to be politicized and delayed. It is supported by the same Supervisors who voted against building nearly 500 new homes on an empty valet parking lot in SOMA.

A Closer Look

1. Chan-Peskin does not streamline 100% affordable projects. First, because it allows funding decisions to remain at the Board of Supervisors’ discretion. Second, because it leaves 100% affordable projects subject to CEQA review and litigation – meaning they can still be blocked or massively delayed by meritless lawsuits brought by NIMBY neighbors and others.

In contrast, Affordable Homes Now fully streamlines 100% affordable projects. It streamlines both the approvals and funding process for 100% affordable projects, and protects eligible projects from bad faith lawsuits.

2. Chan-Peskin’s affordability requirements will make it economically impossible to build new homes – and Supervisors know it. Their measure requires mixed-income projects to include 30% affordable units, which Supervisors are aware is infeasible and will prevent housing projects from being built. How are they aware? Because San Francisco’s Housing Affordability Strategies feasibility study has already detailed why this requirement is so economically unrealistic that it will result in little to no new affordable housing construction.

In contrast, Affordable Homes Now includes realistic affordability requirements designed to deliver more mixed-income housing. Mixed-income projects must include 15% more affordable units above SF’s current inclusionary requirement. Example: A 100-unit project would be required to provide 25 affordable units under AHN  instead of 22 under current city requirements.

3. Chan-Peskin will make it too onerous to hire enough workers to meet SF’s housing construction needs. Their measure requires all mixed-income and educator housing projects, regardless of size, to use construction workers specifically certified as “skilled and trained” – a certification that unionized construction workers can earn by taking classes and going through a formal apprenticeship. However, less than 1/7th of all California construction workers are union workers and therefore even eligible to become skilled and trained – so mandating “skilled and trained workers” will make hiring excessively burdensome  and add further delays and costs. 

In contrast, Affordable Homes Now requires projects with 40+ units to pay construction workers prevailing wages, provide healthcare to workers and their families, and create apprenticeship opportunities for those starting out in the construction trades. For projects with 10-39 units, Affordable Homes Now requires home builders to pay prevailing wages. 

4. Chan-Peskin fails to require timeframes of any kind for the approval of any project. Including no timeframes means there is no accountability for the city to approve 100% affordable or mixed-income projects within a reasonable time period. No timeframes and no accountability means that fully compliant housing projects will continue to get stuck for years in city bureaucracy. San Francisco takes longer than any other major city in the country to issue permits for housing projects, and Chan-Peskin does nothing to remedy this. 

In contrast, Affordable Homes Now requires projects to be approved within 3 – 6 months once a completed application has been submitted. This establishes a clear timeframe and holds the city strictly accountable for adhering to it.