The housing debate dominated Campos and Haney’s Assembly race. New reports reveal their background

But she and her husband managed to rent a tiny one-bedroom apartment at 1188 Valencia St. in February 2021 for $3,900 a month plus $400 for utilities and a storage unit. Like many San Franciscans, they are now addicted. Unlike many San Franciscans, they plan to stay when they have children.

“We really fell in love with our home here and the community here and the work we do here,” said Ganguly, 36.

Ganguly’s new life, however, would not be possible had then-supervisor David Campos returned in 2015, as his home would likely not exist.

The building with around 50 residences, including six units below market price, is home to a diverse mix of people, including many families living in larger units with children. But development would have been significantly delayed, had it been built at all, if Campos’ proposed 18-month halt to construction of market-priced housing in the Mission – with an option to extend it to 30 months – had been passed at the council or the ballot box. Even Campos himself now acknowledges that the moratorium was not a good idea.

It is a central point made in a new report examining Campos’ housing file – and another looking at his opponent’s record in the State Assembly, Supervisor Matt Haney – by an associate professor of political science at UC Berkeley and confessed YIMBY who wants to see more housing built across the city. And who, for the record, votes for Haney.

David Broockman, working in his spare time, took on the mind-numbing task of drafting planning documents, watching government meetings and filing public records requests to analyze the housing records of San Francisco leaders, one by one. (You may recall his first report on Supervisor Dean Preston, whom he called “the worst offender” when it came to stopping housing on a board with multiple title contenders.)

Broockman plans deeper dives into the housing track records of supervisors who will be re-elected in November.

As the Assembly race nears its April 19 finish line, housing — or lack thereof in San Francisco — has become a priority. It’s clear that the city and state, both struggling with a severe housing shortage and affordability crisis, need more housing for people at all income levels. It’s also clear that the Board of Supervisors hasn’t done enough to approve these units, and that the city is making it far too difficult and expensive to build the units that manage to get approved.

Clearly, our housing crisis is not the fault of any elected official, but emanates from an overall desire by too many residents and their leaders to freeze parts of San Francisco in amber, to pretend that fundamental laws of supply and demand do not exist, and continue to see the value of their own home skyrocket.

Yet it is crucial to examine the background of each leader and hold them to account.

As Broockman explained, “For any individual project, there are often excuses that seem reasonable, but it’s only by zooming out that you get a sense of the overall pattern.”

Campos was the supervisor of District Nine, which includes the Mission, the Portola and Bernal Heights, from late 2008 to early 2017. Broockman calculates that Campos got a paltry average of 157 residences built in the Mission per year, of which only 32 were housing subsidized. . It was less than one a week despite repeatedly speaking about the need for buildings with 100% affordable housing.

Admittedly, Brookman is not a neutral political observer here, and Campos called his report “poorly done, biased and narrow in scope.” He argued that this sidesteps his goal of keeping people in their homes, taking measures such as banning no-fault evictions of teachers and families during the school year and regulating Airbnb to prevent homes from become short-term vacation rentals.

But to truly tackle our housing crisis, officials need to focus on both protecting tenants and building more housing at all levels. Broockman argues that the second part is where Campos fell on the job.

The report concluded that between the rejection of specific projects and the rejection of legislative proposals, Campos effectively opposed the creation of units capable of housing 6,058 people during his tenure, including subsidized housing for approximately 3,930. low income people.

In 2016, for example, Campos wrote a letter to the Planning Commission opposing the development of 2675 Folsom St., an abandoned warehouse, saying it would hurt the vibrancy of the Mission’s Latino cultural district centered on 24th Street. Broockman calculates that the proposed project would have housed 227 people, including 45 low-income residents, but after various plans failed, an abandoned warehouse remains.

Much of the tally of homes effectively opposed by Campos stemmed from his proposed moratorium on new construction at market rates, which would have killed or delayed several developments that now exist, including 1188 Valencia, which includes either affordable housing on-site , or a fee to pay for it elsewhere.

In an interview, Campos said his stance on the moratorium had changed and he wouldn’t come up with such an idea if he was a supervisor now.

He said he was glad 1188 Valence had been built and more people like Ganguly had homes. He pointed out that Haney, then a school board member, also supported the moratorium, and he accused Haney of turning into YIMBY as soon as he decided to run for Assembly because he needed the money. developers to fund his campaign.

Broockman found that Haney saw 2,255 homes approved in his district per year during his time on council. (“That’s one every four hours!” the report reads.) This included 372 subsidized housing units per year. (“That’s more than one a day!”)

Haney’s District Six, which includes the Tenderloin, Civic Center and Market South, has long been one of the few areas in the city in which supervisors are approving new housing in large numbers, a fact that has been true ever since. decades – and for which Haney doesn’t deserve all the credit.

“Voters are looking for someone who wants to build more housing, who wants to challenge bureaucracy, who actually wants to fight for progress, not just fight to stop it all,” Haney told me.

Haney said he would “absolutely not” support a moratorium if it were proposed now and said tweeting support as a school board member is not the same as proposing the idea as a supervisor.

It’s clear the two men’s stances on housing have evolved at least somewhat – just as it’s clear there’s no love lost between them. Haney dismissed Campos as having “a terrible record” on housing, including affordable housing. Campos called Haney “a parade horse, not a workaholic” whose time at Camp YIMBY is politically convenient.

Either way, it’s good that city leaders are realizing – albeit very slowly – that building more housing, including market-priced homes, is essential.

Ganguly certainly thinks so. She admitted to being a little frustrated with all the construction around her Brooklyn residence, but said she found it helped more people find a home they loved. As she did.

“I want the Mission to be an affordable place to live,” she said. “I just don’t think building less will get us there.”

She founded a startup that creates virtual experiences for kids to learn math and science through real-world problems. An experiment revolves around how to build apartment buildings financially. Students learn that building more apartments makes rents cheaper.

“It’s really interesting to see kids going, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea!’ “, she said.

Looks like she should take her lesson at city hall.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: [email protected]: @hknightsf