San Francisco, CA — Today, Mayor London N. Breed announced San Francisco has been awarded more than $42 million in funding from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in the first round of Multifamily Finance Super Notice of Funding Availability (Super NOFA) awards.
The HCD grants will provide the final funding necessary for two affordable housing projects in the Sunset and Bayview-Hunters Point Districts and will provide more than 200 units of affordable housing for workers, families, and formerly homeless individuals.
“San Francisco is embracing the work we need to do to dramatically expand housing in this City, including affordable housing,” said Mayor London Breed. “But to achieve our ambitious housing goals, we need critical support and partnership from the state. We appreciate Governor Newsom and HCD delivering this funding for new affordable homes in the Bayview/Hunters Point and Sunset neighborhoods, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the state to create housing for all San Franciscans.”
Earlier this week the Mayor announced her Housing for All Plan, a strategy to fundamentally change how San Francisco approves and builds housing, and implement the recently certified Housing Element, which sets the goals and policies to allow for 82,000 new homes to be built over the next 8 years. Housing for All consists of administrative reforms, legislative actions, and government accountability actions. Part of that strategy is to work closely with state and federal agencies to identify support for affordable housing, like the funding awarded by HCD.
Both projects receiving funding from HCD’s Super NOFA are expected to begin construction this year:
- 2550 Irving, the Sunset District’s second affordable housing project offering 90 units for San Francisco’s workers and their families, 22 of which will be dedicated for families experiencing homelessness. 2550 Irving received the largest award in this round of funding than any other housing project in the state. ($36,363,022)
- Hunters Point Shipyard Blocks 52 and 54, a two-building family housing project comprised of 112 apartments ranging in size from one to five bedrooms. The project also includes a community room, fitness room, and more than 4,000 square feet of open space. ($5,913,900)
“As we demand more housing to be built at the local level, it is incumbent upon the state to reimagine and modernize our own approval process,” said Governor Newsom. “State applications that were once redundant, and overly bureaucratic are now streamlined to ensure projects are not stalled in an endless bureaucracy that favored process over production.”
“California continues to advance our commitment to building 2.5 million homes -- with one million affordable homes -- by 2030, as outlined in our Statewide Housing Plan,” said HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez. “Our simple approach to funding helps us accelerate much-needed construction and ensure the lowest-income Californians have access to quality homes near jobs, transit, schools, and other necessities that will make our communities more inclusive for decades to come.”
“The California Multifamily Super NOFA transformed a once burdensome and lengthy funding application process into an accessible and smart one-stop shop that will get more housing built faster,” said Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramírez. “This results in new homes for struggling working families, veterans, farmworkers, and people exiting homelessness. California will continue to act with urgency to find new, innovative solutions to fast track housing development.”
To initiate Housing for All, Mayor Breed issued an Executive Directive to City Departments detailing the immediate actions of this strategy. To ensure that San Francisco can move quickly to reform the policies and processes that pose the greatest barriers to housing production, relevant departments are directed to complete the following Housing Element initial implementing actions, including to:
- Reform restrictive zoning controls
- Reduce procedural requirements that impede housing production
- Revise inclusionary housing requirements
- Remove barriers for office-to-residential conversions
- Create new funding mechanisms to unlock the housing pipeline
- Standardize and reduce impact fees
Each of these legislative actions has specified timelines, with some being introduced within the next two weeks. Read the Executive Directive here.
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