The Facts

Keep your eyes out for three more charter amendments on the November ballot, according to Patrick Hoge at the Examiner. A Housing Trust Fund expansion would leverage rising property values into more annual funding for subsidized housing, growing the fund from $52 million to $125 million, and allowing revenues to be bonded. A public-bank framework would create a municipal financial corporation as a precursor to a city bank. And a commissions overhaul would move some bodies from the City Charter to the Administrative Code and eliminate others - the outcome of a year of work by the commission streamlining task force.

The Context

The current Housing Trust Fund was created by voters in 2012, ramps up to $50.8 million by FY 2024-25, and expires in 2043. On commissions, voters already approved Prop. E in 2024, which created the streamlining task force and set up a 2026 path for charter changes.

The GrowSF Take

A bondable tax-increment financing system for subsidizing low-income housing is a smart idea that is simpler than it seems. In short: rather than taxing the creation of new housing (with "inclusionary zoning"), the system instead relies on broader prosperity and captures a small percentage of rising property values across the city (that's the "tax increment" part). Those revenues are fairly predictable (global pandemics notwithstanding) and can be bonded to let the city access a larger lump sum and pay it off over time with inflated dollars. This unlocks immediate development funding while removing the tax disincentive on new home building.

We're also glad to see the commission streamlining progressing - we've been big fans of the process and of the recommended outcomes.

The public-bank idea is a tougher sell, though. The bank has been pitched as serving the very clients that are most risky for banks to serve, which all but guarantees taxpayers will be left holding the bag. We think the oversight that independent banks bring is more of a feature than a bug, and a public bank is a solution in search of a problem.