SF Cuts Housing Tax to 5%, Except in the Mission
PLUS: Speed cameras, drug-free housing, and fundraising
What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of July 12, 2026:
- SF Cuts Housing Tax to 5%, Except in the Mission
- Supervisors Back More Speed Cameras
- SF Will Finally Fund Drug-Free Housing
- Wiener Fundraising Surges After Attack
- Pelosi Can’t Lift Chan
- Campaign Donation Reform Uncertain
SF Cuts Housing Tax to 5%, Except in the Mission
Published July 16, 2026
The Facts
The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 on July 14 to cut San Francisco’s inclusionary housing requirement from 15% to 5%, and exempted buildings with fewer than 24 homes entirely, reports Aaliyah Español-Rivas at Mission Local. The inclusionary requirement is the rule that homebuilders must sell or rent a share of new homes at below-market prices. Because the builder absorbs the loss on those homes, it works like a tax on new housing.
But the new rate will not apply everywhere. District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder won a 6-5 amendment keeping the Mission at 8%, the highest rate in the city, over the opposition of Supervisors Dorsey, Wong, Sherrill, Sauter, and Mandelman.
The Context
Nobody builds at a loss: a project only gets financed when expected rents cover the cost of construction (land, labor, and materials), and every required below-market home is an extra cost the building must absorb. When costs are too high, builders don’t just build less, they don’t build at all, and that’s exactly how San Francisco got here.
In June 2016, voters passed Proposition C, which raised the inclusionary zoning requirement for large projects to 25%. The city’s own advisory committee warned in 2017 that anything above 18% would sink projects, but the rate stayed too-high-to-build under the previous Progressive majority. This April, the City Controller recommended going all the way to zero, warning that “requirements significantly above 0% would further threaten feasibility and would not create additional housing”.
The Mission’s carve-out rests on a repeatedly disproven fear that building new homes causes displacement. If that were true, then demolishing homes would make a neighborhood more affordable. The evidence points the other way: Austin built, and rents fell.
The GrowSF Take
Credit where it’s due: cutting the housing tax from 15% to 5%, with a full exemption for smaller buildings, is the biggest step any Board has taken to restart homebuilding in San Francisco. It completes a drop from 25% at the 2016 peak to 5% today, and it passed 9-2. Thank you to the nine supervisors who voted yes.
Still, let’s be clear about what 5% is: a political number, not an economic one. The City’s own economists said even zero doesn’t pencil out, and no analysis has surfaced to justify 5% instead. The Board picked a number small enough to signal seriousness but big enough to avoid the headline that San Francisco eliminated its inclusionary requirement. If the economists are right, that compromise has a cost: projects that don’t pencil at 5% produce neither market-rate homes nor below-market ones, and 5% of nothing is nothing.
There is no such defense for Supervisor Fielder’s Mission carve-out. The Controller said any rate above 0% “would not create additional housing.” Fielder heard that and demanded 8% for her own district anyway, the highest rate in the city. That 8% will not produce a single below-market home, because the projects that would contain them won’t break ground. It will simply make the Mission the one neighborhood the recovery skips: as building restarts everywhere else, the Mission’s frozen supply will push prices up faster, causing exactly the displacement Fielder says she is fighting.
Now the Board should watch permit applications, and if 5% still doesn’t pencil, follow its economists to zero. Either way, the Mission’s 8% should be the first thing repealed.
Supervisors Back More Speed Cameras
Published July 17, 2026
The Facts
More speed cameras may be coming to San Francisco, if the state agrees. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday formally asked the state to lift San Francisco’s 33-camera cap and allow the city to install up to 80 more, with Supervisor Shamann Walton casting the sole no vote.
The Context
California’s AB 645 pilot caps San Francisco at 33 systems through 2031. Citations are civil penalties starting at $50, and cameras photograph rear license plates rather than drivers’ faces.
SFMTA’s one-year report found that the share of drivers going at least 10 mph over the limit fell 79% at camera locations, from 11% to 2%, equal to roughly 40,000 fewer speeding incidents each day.
Citywide traffic deaths fell from 43 to 25 between 2024 and 2025, alongside speed cameras and other safety measures.
The GrowSF Take
The evidence is undeniable: speed cameras save lives. Sacramento should let San Francisco place them on more streets where crash data shows the greatest danger.
Automated enforcement should complement safer street design and police enforcement, not replace either.
SF Will Finally Fund Drug-Free Housing
Published July 16, 2026
The Facts
New city-funded supportive housing must be drug free after the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to pass Supervisor Dorsey’s “Drug Free Housing” ordinance, reports Delilah Brumer at the Chronicle. Until now, the city followed the state’s Housing First rules, under which illicit drug use could not be grounds for eviction.
Of the city’s roughly 8,500 supportive housing units, only 42 are drug-free today. The ordinance allows for relapse and requires that anyone facing eviction be offered shelter.
The Context
The old rule meant someone could leave treatment determined to stay sober, and the city would house them in a building where drug use was protected. Amber Richmond, a formerly homeless housing coordinator, told the Chronicle her clients ask for housing insulated from drug use and she has nothing to offer them: “By forcing them into drug-tolerant buildings, we’re just setting them up to fail.”
The Civil Grand Jury found that 26% of San Francisco’s accidental overdose deaths in 2024 happened inside permanent supportive housing, while the city’s first fully sober shelter, Hope House, filled up almost immediately.
The GrowSF Take
Drug-free housing for people trying to escape drug addiction should have been the default decades ago, and Supervisor Dorsey, in recovery himself, deserves enormous credit for getting it done.
Connie Chan voted against this, attempting to force everyone receiving housing assistance into a one-size-fits-all solution that put children and people in drug recovery into housing with easy access to drugs. We think people should be able to choose a drug-free or a drug-tolerant environment.
This November Chan faces Scott Wiener for Nancy Pelosi’s seat in Congress, author of the state’s Recovery Incentives Act. We endorsed him in June, and votes like this are exactly why.
Wiener Fundraising Surges After Attack
Published July 17, 2026
The Facts
State Sen. Scott Wiener raised $127,600 from about 1,090 grassroots contributions in the four days after a video of protesters harassing him at the Trans March went viral, according to Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez at The Standard.
The footage showed protesters following and berating Wiener over his positions on Gaza, which barely differ from his opponent’s: Chan wants a full embargo on aid to Israel and to fully cut ties with the nation, while Wiener wants to halt offensive weapons sales while continuing a strong US-Israel relationship. Both have described the ongoing war as “genocide.”
The Context
Chan barely acknowledged the attacks. After the Chronicle asked for comment, she issued a general statement that did not name Wiener or the incident, according to Joe Garofoli at the Chronicle. She also declined to sign a letter specifically condemning the harassment, threats, and physical intimidation.
Wiener’s grassroots surge of 1,090 contributions also easily surpassed the $100,000 raised by Pelosi for Chan.
The GrowSF Take
Political disagreement is legitimate. Following, screaming at, and harassing someone at a Pride event is not persuasion, and this pile-on plainly backfired.
GrowSF endorsed Wiener because he has the strongest record of turning pro-housing, pro-transit ideas into law. This fundraising surge shows that many voters reject political intimidation and want effective leadership instead.
Pelosi Can’t Lift Chan
Published July 16, 2026
The Facts
Nancy Pelosi raised a paltry $100,000 for Connie Chan at a July 7 fundraiser in Jackson Square, according to Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler at The San Francisco Standard.
Chan has raised about $1.08 million and had $362,000 on hand through June 30. State Sen. Scott Wiener reported nearly $1.3 million available.
The Context
Pelosi is among the most successful political fundraisers in American history, helping Democrats raise an estimated $1.28 billion after entering House leadership in 2002. Yet her handpicked successor trails Wiener financially and electorally: Wiener won 40.7% of the primary vote, compared with Chan’s 29.7%.
The candidates also represent different traditions. Wiener has built a record of passing ambitious housing and transit laws. Chan is an SF progressive: she opposes change, only supports government-funded housing, and wants to slow everything down in layers of process.
The GrowSF Take
For Pelosi, $100,000 is a surprisingly modest haul. She is literally the Democratic Party’s best fundraiser, working for the candidate she chose to inherit her seat. The result suggests Chan remains a weak pick even with Pelosi’s network behind her.
Chan is also poorly aligned with Pelosi’s pragmatic, institution-building legacy. Pelosi’s endorsement increasingly looks less like affirmative support for Chan and more like a spiteful effort to stop Wiener.
Campaign Donation Reform Uncertain
Published July 17, 2026
The Facts
The $500 campaign contribution limit was set in 1973, and the Ethics Commission is trying to raise it. However, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is not sure it has the votes.
The Ethics Commission proposal would raise candidate contribution limits from $500 to $1,000, index them to inflation, simplify spending limits, and increase the public-financing match from $6 to $8 per qualified dollar without raising each candidate’s maximum subsidy.
The Context
Before the Ethics Commission approved it 5-0 in September 2025, GrowSF explained the imbalance: candidate committees face frozen caps while Super PACs and other independent committees can accept unlimited donations.
San Francisco first set the limit at $500 in 1973. It reached $1,000 in 1983, but pushed back down to $500 in 1986 via Prop F. Keeping pace with inflation would put the limit around $3,500 today.
The GrowSF Take
Low donation limits do not remove big money from politics. They push it into Super PACs that candidates cannot control.
We support raising the limit to $3,500. Let candidates raise money transparently, communicate directly with voters, and take responsibility for their own campaigns. That would reduce the relative power of outside spending and bring a half-century-old limit in line with today’s costs.
The astute reader may ask: “But isn’t GrowSF a Super Pac?” Indeed, but that doesn’t mean we don’t support reforms that reduce the influence of outside money! We want good civic outcomes, not good-for-our-bottom-line outcomes.