By Natalia Gurevich : sfexaminer – excerpt (includes audio)

What a difference a year made for San Francisco in the eyes of state housing officials.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development gave The City a Prohousing Designation on Friday, as part of a larger program recognizing jurisdictions that have proactively sought to speed up housing construction by enacting policy changes. It also includes access to state funding.

State officials issued the San Francisco Housing Policy and Practice Review a year ago Friday, strongly criticizing The City’s sluggish and complex processes for approving and building new homes…(more)

I’m not so sure about the year ago part, but, the tone from Sacramento has conveniently changed as of late. If San Francisco is all of a sudden in compliance does that mean we are dropping Builder’s Remedy, or are we in compliance because we are under Builder’s Remedy? Is this turn-about about protecting our Mayor by making the city look good? Stories abound about crime being down and the Muni is all of a sudden doing better. Will this honeymoon season continue after the elections are over? One can only hope so

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Stare Labels SF as a pro-housing city, one year after criticizing city’s slow housing progress. Leading some of us to wonder whether or not the party is waking up to the possibility that the state’s position may not be supported by the voters and the heavy-handed nature of the state overrides may be turning people away from the party line in other areas. In most regards, civil rights are on the ballot this year.
We shall see if this sudden friendly stance continues after the votes are counted. The voters may take out some revenge this year in a way that may not be that pleasant for the ruling class.