By Tim Redmond
This is big news.
Marc Salomon, a local activist, has done something that the City Planning Department should have done years ago: He’s carefully tracked who’s moving into new housing in San Francisco, using voter registration data. His conclusion: Fully two-thirds of the people moving into the new market-rate units are from out of town. That is, the vast majoirty of the new housing the city is allowing developers to build does nothing for the San Francisco renters who want to buy homes, the familes who are being driven out of town …. and nothing for the local housing market.
We are building housing for very rich people who don’t live here. That’s exactly the opposite of what the city’s official policy is and what any sane housing policy would do.