Scott Wiener Archives — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Clean energy and better infrastructure: a great combination

Michael Redmond

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July 22, 2014

OPINION Achieving a more sustainable San Francisco means a city running on clean power. It also means maintaining our infrastructure to keep San Francisco functioning.

Right now, our city can do better on both fronts, and legislation we are sponsoring will help move us in the right direction by increasing our use of clean, hydroelectric power while generating more revenue for infrastructure investment in our streetlight and power systems.

San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy power system produces a massive amount of clean, hydroelectric power, yet our city uses very little of this energy despite our stated goal of moving toward 100 percent clean power by 2030. Moreover, the operator of this power system, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), has massive unmet infrastructure needs. Our streetlights, most of which are owned by the PUC, are badly in need of upgrade, and PUC’s power delivery system has almost a billion dollars in deferred maintenance.

To address these challenges, we are authoring legislation to bring more revenue-generating, clean power to San Francisco.

For over 100 years, the PUC has provided 100 percent clean, hydroelectric power to municipal agencies, including Muni, the San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco General Hospital, police and fire stations, libraries, and our public schools. Using this clean public power saves taxpayers millions versus what we would pay if we were to purchase PG&E power. Hetch Hetchy generates 1.43 million megawatt hours of clean power a year and is 100 percent greenhouse-gas free. This is a tremendous asset, but it has been underutilized.

Any excess public power that the PUC generates and doesn’t use for governmental customers is now sold on the wholesale market at a significantly reduced rate. Retail rates are around four times higher than wholesale rates. This means that with every megawatt sold at wholesale rates, the PUC is losing out on significant revenue to address its aging infrastructure needs.

If the PUC obtains more customers paying retail rates, we can generate more revenue to upgrade and improve our failing streetlight system and address the power system’s massive deferred capital needs. The PUC estimates that for every 10 megawatts sold to new retail customers — rather than selling that power on the wholesale market — we will see a net revenue increase of $4 million per year.

That is why we are sponsoring legislation to bring the PUC more retail customers and hence more infrastructure investment. The legislation provides the PUC with the right of first refusal to be the power provider for new development projects in San Francisco, including large private projects. This will allow the PUC to determine if it feasibly can serve as the power provider for these new developments, and in doing so expand the agency’s retail customer base.

Allowing the PUC the flexibility to add retail customers will move us toward a more financially sustainable public power system, while providing 100 percent greenhouse-gas free power to our city and generating significant resources for infrastructure investment, including for our streetlight system.

Some have raised questions about what this legislation means for the future of CleanPowerSF, our previously approved clean energy program that has been stalled by the PUC Commission’s refusal to set rates. These two public power measures are not in any way mutually exclusive, and both can move forward. We are both supporters of CleanPowerSF, and we want it to succeed.

We know the PUC can provide reliable, greenhouse-gas-free power that works for its customers. Anyone who disagrees can just look at San Francisco International Airport. If the PUC can reliably provide power to serve one of the most significant airports in the world, powering new housing and commercial developments won’t be a problem.

A sustainable, clean energy future requires a broad range of solutions. This proposal is one that will deliver our city more clean power and make our power enterprise stronger by redirecting energy revenues back into the system. Let’s put our clean power to work for San Francisco.

Scott Wiener and London Breed are members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Making CEQA work

Andrew Lam

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April 16, 2013

10

OPINION In San Francisco, a single person can file an 11th-hour appeal under the California Environmental Quality Act to stop a park, library, transit, or affordable housing project that has broad public support. It’s actually worse: that single person can file the appeal long after the project has been approved and even after it goes into construction. When the appeal is filed, the project must stop construction — creating huge costs — until the Board of Supervisors gets around to ruling on the appeal.

This is government dysfunction at its worst, and it needs to be reformed. Supervisor Scott Wiener is sponsoring legislation to do just that: to allow full public participation and challenges to projects while implementing the common-sense rule that for any project, there must be an end to the process and a clear deadline for filing CEQA appeals. Public participation in decision-making is important, but at some point, the decision is made, the process comes to a conclusion, and the project begins. Open-ended CEQA appeals with no deadlines — San Francisco’s current system — are anti-democratic.

Passed 40 years ago, CEQA is an important state law that requires environmental analysis before approving projects. CEQA has helped stop or modify environmentally problematic projects in our state. Pretty much every project in San Francisco — whether a mega-development or a smaller project, such as a homeowner replacing a rotted-out porch handrail, a playground or library renovation, an affordable housing project, or a bike or pedestrian-safety upgrade — must undergo CEQA evaluation. These myriad CEQA evaluations are then appealable to the Board of Supervisors. Yes, if you are replacing that rotted out handrail or working with your neighbors to renovate your local playground, those projects can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors under CEQA if a single person doesn’t like what you’re doing.

We support CEQA and support the right to appeal projects. What we cannot support is having no firm deadline to file those appeals. We’ve seen excellent projects, with broad public support, get delayed and have dramatically increased costs because of our bad process. A small group abused CEQA to fight the North Beach Library for years. After the Dolores Park renovation underwent dozens of community meetings and attained broad community support, a single person appealed the project, arguing that the dog areas of the park would lead to childhood obesity. San Francisco’s bike plan was delayed for years, costing millions of tax dollars.

By setting a clear deadline to file CEQA appeals — 30 days after the project is approved — and by improving notice to the public, Supervisor Wiener’s legislation will provide opponents every opportunity to challenge a project, but they will have to do so before the project goes into construction. That is a common sense rule, and as a result, the legislation has garnered broad support from affordable housing builders, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk SF (our pedestrian safety advocacy group), SPUR, labor unions, and neighborhood associations and leaders.

Supervisor Jane Kim has introduced an alternative to Supervisor Wiener’s legislation. Supervisor Kim’s legislation would make our dysfunctional process even worse. It would allow for multiple CEQA appeals of projects instead of just one and would continue to allow CEQA appeals long after projects are approved and even after they go into construction.

It’s time to bring rationality to our CEQA appeal process. Supervisor Wiener’s CEQA appeal legislation is the right approach and deserves to be passed.

Scott Wiener is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Pat Scott is Executive Director of Booker T. Washington Community Service Center in the Western Addition, which provides services and affordable housing to families and youth.

Housing stability for all

Andrew Lam

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January 29, 2013

9

OPINION San Francisco is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. It’s way too expensive to live here, and for those fortunate enough to have housing they can afford, we need to provide stability. This need for housing stability applies to renters as well as homeowners. If we’ve learned anything from the foreclosure crisis, homeowners are not all rich, and they are not all stable in their housing.

Last week’s Guardian argued against legislation I’m co-sponsoring, which provides one-time relief to owners of tenancies-in-common (TICs) — mostly middle- and working-class first-time homeowners who reside in their units — while providing strong protection to renters. While the editorial correctly stressed the need to support rent control, it failed to acknowledge the need to support housing stability for homeowners as well.

Rent control is one of the pillars of our city. It stabilizes housing prices, recognizes that housing isn’t just another commodity, keeps communities intact, and helps maintain San Francisco’s diverse fabric. I’ve long supported rent control, as reflected by my voting record. I supported a series of rent control measures designed to reduce evictions, including requiring sales disclosure of a unit’s eviction history, requiring increased relocation benefits to evicted tenants, outlawing harassment of tenants, and restricting use of the Ellis Act by real-estate speculators. As a member of the Board of Supervisors, I authored successful legislation to ban conversion of rent-controlled units to student dorms and to provide temporary affordable units to renters displaced by disasters.

The current legislation I’m co-sponsoring will provide needed relief to struggling TIC owners, many of whom are experiencing serious financial distress, while protecting the small number of tenants who live in these units. TIC owners have group mortgages, meaning that if one owner defaults, all owners default. They pay double the interest rate other homeowners pay and usually cannot refinance. The legislation will allow them to convert their units to condos and obtain their own mortgages, at lower rates and less foreclosure risk.

While some caricature TIC owners as speculators and wealthy people, that’s untrue. Many TIC owners are quite middle class, former renters who scraped together a down payment to purchase a home. Many are teachers, social workers, public employees, and other workers who are anything but speculators. These are people who, if they didn’t own TICs, would be renting. They aren’t Martians who dropped out of the sky. They’re our neighbors, co-workers, and fellow San Franciscans. They are part of the city’s fabric.

Under the legislation, owner-occupied TICs that are in the condo lottery will be able to convert to condos by paying a fee of $20,000 per unit, with the proceeds dedicated to affordable housing. Buildings with Ellis Act and other problem evictions are typically prohibited from condo converting in San Francisco, under a 2006 law, and that restriction applies to this legislation. In other words, this legislation won’t encourage Ellis Act evictions. Moreover, buildings that aren’t owner-occupied can’t condo convert. Nor can buildings with more than six units. The legislation is one-time in nature and not an ongoing invitation to condo convert.

The legislation covers very few units with tenants — 85% are owner-occupied — and protects this small number of tenants by mandating they receive lifetime leases, with full rent and eviction controls identical to our rent control laws. This protection is stronger than what most tenants receive in buildings that win the condo lottery currently.

Renters and homeowners both deserve housing stability. This legislation moves us in that direction.

Supervisor Scott Wiener represents District 8.