Even as it became apparent last fall that San Francisco had misinterpreted a state-imposed timeline for adopting its housing element, Planning Director Rich Hillis said he believed the city would still be able to meet the Jan. 31 deadline. If all goes according to plan over the next two weeks, San Francisco will do just that.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is set to vote whether to adopt the 2023-2031 Housing Element, a blueprint local governments use to demonstrate they can meet state-assigned housing quotas, at its Jan. 24 meeting, Hillis said in an email Jan. 15. The item would then come before the Board of Supervisors for a second and final reading Jan. 31.
It will be a tight but crucial turnaround for San Francisco, one of many Bay Area jurisdictions that believed until October they would have an additional 120-day grace period beyond the Jan. 31 deadline to remain in compliance with state law, which requires local governments to adopt a new Housing Element every eight years.