Dive Brief:
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week failed to pass a proposed, 45-day moratorium on the building of luxury apartments and condominiums.
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Seven of 11 voting supervisors approved the measure, but city law requires nine “yes” votes for an “interim emergency ordinance,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
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The moratorium was designed to stop the construction of luxury housing in the city’s Mission District, a neighborhood popular with Silicon Valley employees where one-bedroom apartments rent for more than $3,000 a month. It would have put a stop to the building of about 1,250 units in two dozen buildings, the newspaper said.
Dive Insight:
The temporary work stoppage would have bought the city time to create a strategy for allowing lower-income tenants to keep their apartments in the face of increasing evictions and rising rents.
But opponents said the moratorium would have intensified the city’s housing shortage.
Residents, who packed City Hall for a Tuesday hearing on the issue, have said they will pressure the supervisors to reintroduce the moratorium
The proposal’s sponsor said the vote was not “the end of the discussion.” He has identified 13 sites in the Mission District that he is pushing the city to buy and develop into affordable housing.