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Aaron Peskin's Rumored Run for SF Mayor Has Same Strength and Weakness: Housing

As Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin mulls a run for mayor, how people view his opposition to market-rate housing would be both a strength and a vulnerability should he jump in the race against Mayor London Breed.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and San Francisco Mayor London Breed speak with a crowd gathered for a Q&A about the fentanyl drug crisis in San Francisco at UN Plaza on May 23, 2023. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

As Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin mulls a run for mayor, how people view his opposition to market-rate housing would be both a strength and a vulnerability should he jump in the race.

That’s particularly true in San Francisco’s west side, a neighborhood replete with single-family homes where people have rallied against state laws that would allow more multi-story housing to be built. Peskin is sometimes viewed as a champion of saving neighborhood character from what residents consider to be outsize new construction.

 George Wooding, a neighborhood activist who lives just west of Twin Peaks, said neighbors are angry about Mayor London Breed’s “Housing for All Plan,” which would incentivize building taller, denser housing. He said they worry there isn’t enough parking or infrastructure to support the plan.

“That’s going to be one of the turning points of the mayor’s race on the west side,” Wooding said. “Anybody with a brain running for mayor is going to start attacking the density programs.”

San Francisco’s next mayor will steer the city’s future approach to housing.

Peskin is on one side of a divide in development philosophy between moderate and progressive Democrats in San Francisco. The moderates want the city to build, build, build to bring housing costs down. Progressives want the city to focus on building affordable housing while fiercely defending tenant protections.

“Government has a role to play. And a progressive mayor, I think, can do so much more to protect and enhance our existing residents and our existing small businesses,” Peskin said.

He has not declared that he will run for mayor, but he has spoken openly about considering it. Breed is facing a re-election challenge mostly from more conservative Democrats, including former Supervisor Mark Farrell and philanthropist and nonprofit CEO Daniel Lurie. Another candidate, Supervisor Ahsha Safai, has generally been considered a moderate.

Peskin, whose housing views are more mixed than his supporters or opponents assert, would be running to the left of the aforementioned candidates. But because of his voting record, groups supporting unrestricted construction of market-rate housing are already lining up to stop him from winning the election.

More on London Breed

Breed is a frequent ally of those groups, and courted them in her State of the City speech last week when she promised to veto any “anti-housing” legislation that crosses her desk.

She followed through on that pledge Thursday, vetoing legislation brought by Peskin to limit dense housing construction in the Jackson Square Historic District, east of Columbus Street. Supervisors can reject the veto with a supermajority of eight votes.

“This ordinance passes off anti-housing policy in the guise of historic protections,” Breed wrote in her veto letter to the board. “Existing rules already protect against impacts to historic resources.”

Peskin countered, in a statement, “Instead of outsourcing housing decisions to developers so they can maximize profit, as the Mayor is doing, we need to build housing our working families can afford while improving the neighborhoods they live in. We don’t have to destroy San Francisco to save it.”

Peskin was first elected to represent North Beach, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and other nearby neighborhoods in 2000. In recent years, he’s sponsored a flurry of resolutions opposing state legislation that would lead to building market-rate housing more freely in San Francisco:

  • 2018: Senate Bill 827 would have incentivized housing construction near transit lines
  • 2019: State Assembly Bill 68 would streamline housing approvals near transit
  • 2020: Senate Bill 1085 would strip away some local control against awarding incentives for building denser housing

Peskin’s pushback against state regulation doesn’t paint the full picture of Peskin’s housing record. In 2008, as president of the Board of Supervisors, Peskin played a central role in approving the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, legislation aimed at allowing the construction of 10,000 new housing units in the Mission, South of Market and Central Waterfront.

It’s arguably one of San Francisco’s most transformative rezoning efforts.

Last year, he co-authored Proposition A with Breed, which was approved by voters in the March primary. That measure will deliver a $300 million bond toward the construction of affordable housing. It was written in concert with companion legislation Peskin introduced that would defer development impact fees and winnow inclusionary housing requirements on new construction. The deferral is estimated to spur the creation of roughly 8,000 housing units, a boon for San Francisco’s state-mandated goal to build 82,000 housing units by 2031.

At an election party for moderate-aligned Democrats at Anina bar two weeks ago, GrowSF co-founder Sachin Agarwal said Peskin would be bad for San Francisco.

“I believe that Aaron Peskin is going to announce that he’s running. And I think our priority as GrowSF is going to be anybody by Peskin,” Agarwal said. “He is a huge NIMBY and has blocked an incredible amount of housing during the 20 years that he’s been in some form of San Francisco politics.”

GrowSF is one of a coalition of tech billionaire-funded groups that have raised millions of dollars to recall school board members and former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, while also promoting Democrats aligned with their conservative values on public safety. Outsized funding from these groups has tipped the scales in recent elections and now an avalanche of cash threatens to bury Peskin.

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GrowSF isn’t the only roadblock to the housing strategies of the progressive camp. Annie Fryman, director of special projects at urbanist think tank SPUR, said any candidate opposing dense housing construction in San Francisco may clash with state regulators, who have mandated the city to build those 82,000 housing units by 2031.

“That leader will also eventually be accountable to disqualifying us from hundreds of millions of dollars of state affordable housing funding,” Fryman said. “That is a consequence of messing with the housing element.”

Corey Smith, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, a pro-density group that has endorsed Breed, said there are pockets of voters he called old-guard “anti-housing voices” all over the city, particularly in North Beach, the Haight Ashbury and the west side of San Francisco. According to Smith, those constituents hold a Not In My Backyard ethos and oppose housing at every turn.

“I think when you actually think of NIMBYism as it is, I don’t think it’s a big portion of the electorate,” Smith said. But as part of a coalition, “I do think there’s a lane for President Peskin in this race.”

Eileen Boken, a west side advocate who frequently attends City Hall meetings, said her neighbors were “blindsided” by state Sen. Scott Wiener’s proposal to wrest housing approval control of Ocean Beach away from the California Coastal Commission.

Wiener said it would unlock more housing construction along the waterfront. The Board of Supervisors approved Peskin’s resolution that opposed Wiener’s coastal plan in February. The resolution reflected the concerns of people like Boken who worry tall apartment buildings will block views for some while allowing urban skylines to encroach on the beach experience.

“Is Ocean Beach going to become Miami Beach?” she said.

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