Meet the new boss, John Rahaim
In theory, the San Francisco city Planning Commission gets to decide who runs the department, but in practice, it’s up to the mayor — who has announced today that the new Planning Director will be John Rahaim, who now holds that same job in Seattle. Rahaim has apparently informed the folks in Seattle that he’s accepted the job, although I don’t think the commission has formally offered it to him. And, of course, he has to resign his new position immediately, before he even starts work. Welcome to San Francisco.
I don’t know much about Rahaim, but I found one interview that he did with a Seattle radio station in which he made it pretty clear who calls the shots in major development decisions:
MANY AMERICAN PLANNERS ADMIRE WHAT’S HAPPENED IN VANCOUVER. BUT THEY SAY STANDARD PRACTICE IN CANADA CAN’T FLY ON THIS SIDE OF THE BORDER.
RAHAIM: “Rightly or wrongly, in American society we rely on private developers to build.”
SEATTLE CITY PLANNER JOHN RAHAIM SAYS UNLIKE CANADA, WHERE THE GOVERNMENT DETERMINES HOW AND WHAT DEVELOPERS WILL BUILD, IN THIS COUNTRY WE RELY ON INCENTIVES TO ENCOURAGE DEVELOPERS TO CARRY OUT AN OFFICIAL VISION.
RAHAIM: “And it’s the only way to achieve some of these goals…We don’t nearly influence the market the way other governments do, where development is a privilege, not a right. But nonetheless we do. These programs, subsidies, do influence the market.”
Seattle’s had a downtown housing building boom, just like San Francisco, and of course, if the guy didn’t share Newsom’s basic philosophy, he wouldn’t have been offered the job.
UPDATE: My error on the process. In fact, the commission sent three names to the mayor, including Rahaim’s, and the mayor made the choice. That’s how it works. So Rahaim has the job — until, of course, he follows the mayor’s directive and resigns.