Flanked by state legislators, the city attorney, and San Francisco’s mayor, Assemblyman Matt Haney held a press conference at the Sophie Maxwell Building in Dogpatch on Friday urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign AB 1294, a bill aimed at making it financially viable to build housing for what advocates call the “missing middle” — teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other working- and middle-class residents who are priced out of market-rate housing but don’t qualify for traditional affordable housing programs.
Bill’s long road
AB 1294, now sitting on the governor’s desk, would create a pilot program in San Francisco, Alameda, and Sacramento counties that would make it easier for nonprofits to build housing for low- and middle-income residents by lowering the ongoing costs of building and operating such housing — with savings passed directly into keeping rents affordable long-term. It would extend an existing tax exemption currently reserved for deed-restricted low-income housing to cover workforce housing as well in the three-county pilot area.
Haney credited a chain of legislators stretching back nearly a decade for the bill’s path to Newsom’s desk, joking about who deserved credit for its origin: “Who’s counting?” he said of the roughly eight years lawmakers have worked on versions of the legislation. He thanked “the original author, (now) City Attorney David Chiu,” along with state Senators Jesse Arreguin and Scott Wiener, “all of whom have authored a version of this bill.”
Haney framed the stakes in stark terms, noting that workforce-housing candidates “often make too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing, but nowhere near enough to afford market rate rent.” He added: “When teachers can’t afford to live near their schools, nurses can’t afford to live near hospitals, working families can’t afford to stay in communities they call home, our housing crisis affects all of us.”
Lurie’s push
Mayor Daniel Lurie, who also sponsored the bill, said he was there “to ask Governor Newsom to sign AB 1294,” calling it “legislation that would give San Francisco another important tool to build more housing for workers.” He tied the bill to other local efforts, noting the city has “passed family zoning to allow more homes in more neighborhoods” and is “making it faster and easier to get permits through Permit SF.” Still, he said, “San Francisco is experiencing a rent crisis, and we must do more to address the cost of living.”
State senators, city attorney weigh in
State Senator Jesse Arreguin, representing the East Bay, described growing up in San Francisco’s Noe Valley and witnessing displacement firsthand. He pointed to rising rents in his current district — up more than 8 percent in Alameda County over the past year, and 15 percent in Oakland alone — as evidence of the same “missing middle” squeeze Haney described. He said he introduced similar legislation earlier this year before joining Haney and Senator Wiener as a coauthor of AB 1294.
Senator Scott Wiener called the bill “truly a long-term team effort.” He connected it to a broader push to cut red tape in housing production, criticizing “extreme forms of restrictive zoning and permitting requirements that make it take years and years, or even decades, to get housing approved.” He drew a historical parallel to New York City, which used a tax abatement program to spur workforce housing construction after World War I, noting “This is not the first housing shortage we’ve had in this country.”
City Attorney David Chiu, who authored the bill’s earliest versions eight years ago, described the legislation’s journey using a relay-race metaphor: “As the person who, eight years ago, introduced the first and second versions of this bill, and then handed it to Senator Wiener, who handed it to Senator Arreguin, I just want to say to Assemblymember Haney, thank you for being the end of this relay, getting it done, bringing it home.”
What’s next
With the bill now awaiting the governor’s signature, speakers said they expect Newsom to act soon — “as soon as this week, or maybe even today,” Haney said — allowing construction to move forward on housing for the working- and middle-class residents the legislation targets.
