California Makes Significant Progress on Affordable Housing
Governor Newsom signed five SPUR-sponsored bills that will increase the production of housing for low- and moderate-income residents. Two of particular note: Assembly Bill 1633 (Ting) prevents the misuse of environmental review processes to stop or delay new housing and is considered one of the year’s most impactful pieces of legislation. Assembly Bill 1287 (Alvarez), which provides a “super density” bonus for projects that include housing for very low-income and moderate-income households, is already having an impact on housing production: At least five proposed projects in San Francisco have already submitted project applications using the new law.
Helping Bay Area Transit Survive — and Thrive
Changes in travel patterns since the pandemic have put large transit operators across the state at risk of fiscal crisis. In response, SPUR initiated and co-led the Survive and Thrive Coalition, which secured a one-time infusion of $5.1 billion from the state budget, $400 million of which went to support Bay Area transit. This helped avert major service cuts, which would have disproportionately burdened low-income households. But this solution is not permanent. SPUR has been appointed to the first-ever statewide Transit Transformation Task Force and continues to advocate for more transit funding from the state and region, as well as for more predictable sources of funding.
Bay Area Approves First U.S. Standard to Phase Out Sale of Gas Appliances
Thanks to advocacy by SPUR and our partners in the Bay Area Clean Air coalition, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District approved a first-in-the-nation standard for phasing out dirty gas appliances. Starting later this decade, fossil fuel furnaces and water heaters in the Bay Area will be replaced with clean electric alternatives such as heat pumps when they reach the end of their lifespans. The new standard tackles pollution from gas water heaters and furnaces, which are responsible for more nitrogen oxide pollution than all of the region’s passenger vehicles combined.
San Francisco Removes Regulatory and Financial Barriers to Office-to-Residential Conversion Projects
As a result of SPUR’s research and advocacy to introduce more housing and revitalize downtown San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors simplified the approval process for office-to-residential conversion projects. SPUR’s work also prompted Mayor Breed to place Proposition C on the March 2024 ballot to reduce taxes on office-to-residential conversions and make it easier to finance these projects.
A Leap Forward for Healthy Food Incentive Programs
California took a big step forward in scaling up healthy food incentive programs: CalFresh participants can now get bonus dollars from their healthy food purchases electronically credited to their benefits card. The instant rebates are provided to participants in the CalFresh food assistance benefits program, who earn matching dollars when they buy fresh fruits and vegetables. The new program replaces paper coupons and is expected to dramatically increase participation, a leap made possible by legislation SPUR co-sponsored and technology upgrades SPUR helped implement with grocery store partners.
San Francisco (Finally) Makes It Easier to Build New Housing
For years, San Francisco’s restrictive project-approval process has made it hard to build new housing, contributing to the city’s current affordability crisis. In 2023, a state mandate requiring San Francisco to build 82,000 new homes within eight years prompted the city to adopt a housing plan that committed to reforming policies and practices to speed up housing production. SPUR’s advocacy helped push forward a suite of planning code changes to make good on the city’s commitment, which includes allowing senior housing and homeless shelters in all of the city’s neighborhoods, eliminating extraneous public hearings for most types of housing, and cutting city fees on affordable housing units.
What the Housing Crisis Means for Middle-Income Households and Racial Inequality
The Bay Area housing market has been shaped by scarcity and widening economic and racial inequality. SPUR released research on how the definition of “middle income” has changed, how housing costs have affected who can afford to live here — and what is happening to those who can’t. We identified four steps policymakers could take to support both middle-income and low-income households and do a better job producing middle-income housing.
Exploring the Viability of Office-to-Residential Conversions in Downtown San Francisco
Converting empty offices into apartments could both reanimate downtown San Francisco and provide housing for more people in an area rich in transit, jobs, culture, recreation, and entertainment. In a first-of-its-kind study, SPUR and ULI San Francisco (in partnership with Gensler, HR&A Advisors, Sylvan Development Group, and the Emerald Fund) explored the physical and financial feasibility of converting office buildings to housing. SPUR and ULI’s report laid out six policy imperatives for realizing office-to-housing conversions on a large scale.
Leveraging Outdoor Dining to Enliven San José Neighborhoods
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of San José’s outdoor dining initiative extended a critical lifeline to businesses and their patrons. The program continues to be a popular way to advance economic recovery and enliven streets. SPUR recommended four strategies for improving upon the Al Fresco Initiative and expanding it to neighborhoods citywide.
Strategies to Accelerate Transit and Gain Riders
The Bay Area’s transit system provides equitable access to opportunity for all and plays a critical role in curbing California’s greenhouse gas emissions. Both of those goals depend on growing transit ridership significantly — and quickly. The best way to do that is with buses. A new SPUR report recommended strategies that state agencies, transit agencies, and local governments could employ to give transit vehicles priority over cars on Bay Area roads and state highways, creating the speed and reliability improvements needed to get more people out of cars and onto buses. This work is informing SPUR-sponsored state legislation and the development of a regional transit priority policy.
Equitable Growth and Complete Communities in San José and Beyond
The concept of the “15-minute neighborhood,” where residents can access essential, everyday services just a short walk or bike ride from home, has gained currency in recent years. SPUR published a brief looking at how San José could use the 15-minute framework to implement its plan to grow by building dense, mixed-use “urban villages.” We recommended six strategies to enable the creation of these more complete, connected, and equitable communities.
Transforming California Transit for Today’s Needs
Governor Newsom and the California Legislature called for the creation of a statewide Transit Transformation Task Force to recommend policies for increasing transit ridership, improving the transit experience, and addressing long-term operational needs. SPUR was appointed to serve on both the 25-member task force and the supporting technical working group. The state’s largest foray into transit policy in decades comes at a pivotal time for systems that are still struggling to stabilize their financial footing post-pandemic. It will also be critical to achieving the significant reductions in driving needed for California to meet its ambitious climate commitments.
Ocean Beach Climate Plan Takes Big Steps Forward
The Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaptation Project took major steps toward full implementation with the San Francisco Planning Commission's certification of the environmental review, approval of the project’s alignment with the city’s General Plan, and approvals by the Department of Recreation and Parks and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The project implements many components of SPUR’s Ocean Beach Master Plan, which envisions the transformation of the shoreline into a resilient and protected open space.
Transit Priority Takes a Win on Geary Boulevard
Getting buses out of traffic is critical to meeting equity and environmental goals, growing ridership, and keeping transit on a financially firm footing. After 20 years of advocacy by SPUR and others, San Francisco finally approved bus priority improvements for the Richmond District segment of Geary Boulevard. It couldn’t have happened without Senate Bill 922 (Wiener), which SPUR co-sponsored. The bill exempts sustainable transit projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, which has been used to delay and litigate projects such as bus priority, sometimes for decades.
Coordinating Regional Transit as a Seamless Network
SPUR has long advocated for regional transit governance and improved coordination among transit operators to deliver better outcomes for customers. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Bay Area transit operators formalized a new Regional Network Management structure that will be critical to helping transit recover and grow ridership and to ensuring that customers have a seamless experience as they travel across the region.
San Francisco Reduces Fees to Speed Up New Housing
In line with SPUR recommendations, San Francisco adopted new legislation to reduce the cost of housing development in order to accelerate construction. The Housing Stimulus and Fee Reform Plan lowers the amount of affordable housing that market-rate projects must build under the city’s inclusionary housing policy and reduces development impact fees. The cost reductions could accelerate the construction of 8,000 approved but unbuilt units, including 2,500 units downtown. Another 10,000 units will be able to move quickly into construction once approved. Concurrently, SPUR and partners advocated for putting a new affordable housing bond measure on the ballot ahead of schedule to create more funding to build low-income housing. Proposition A passed in March 2024.
Shortening Timelines to Connect Electrified Homes and EV Chargers
SPUR supported successful Senate Bill 410 (Becker), which addresses the very long timelines for upgrading electrical connections when electrifying buildings and when connecting new housing and EV charging to the power grid. The new law directs the California Public Utilities Commission to set reasonable average and maximum target timelines for these projects by September 2024. If the commission adopts ambitious timelines, it could reduce one of the greatest barriers to decarbonizing buildings: the long delays customers often experience when they need more electricity for their homes.
Building a Coalition for Earthquake Resilience Advocacy
SPUR convened a coalition of the Structural Engineers Association of California, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, the U.S. Resiliency Council, and local government leaders to collaborate on advocacy efforts and establish a system for rapid response to state seismic legislation. The coalition partnered with Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez to preserve $250 million in state funding for the Multifamily Seismic Retrofit Program. Our efforts succeeded in securing $15 million for the program in the 2023–24 state budget. Unfortunately, in January 2024, Governor Newsom cut the funding due to the state’s budget deficit. Despite this setback, the seismic coalition is poised to negotiate and advance earthquake resilience priorities.
Taking Action on Groundwater Rise
Increasing rates of sea level rise have surfaced a lesser-known climate risk for Bayshore cities: shallow groundwater rise. Rising salt water pushes groundwater up through the soil, increasing flood risk and earthquake-liquefaction potential, degrading underground infrastructure, and surfacing contaminants left by industry. In partnership with community-based organization Nuestra Casa, SPUR helped launch the Groundwater Rise Coalition to coordinate advocacy and education in low-income and low-lying neighborhoods of San Mateo County. SPUR is a co-coordinator, researcher, and advisor on the coalition’s efforts.
Putting an End to Biased Traffic Stops in San Francisco
Black and Latinx drivers in San Francisco are pulled over more than other drivers for offenses so minor that citations are often not issued. When these “pretext” stops result in tickets, the fines can be punitive. Using data-driven decision-making supported by SPUR’s research, the San Francisco Police Commission deprioritized eight types of pretext stops that had no effect on road safety and little effect on public safety. SPUR worked in coalition with impacted people and dozens of other organizations to help end this unjust practice.
California Extends Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Program
The California Legislature and Governor Newsom reinvested in the California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Program, which provides low-income households with up to $60 each month in additional food assistance when they buy fresh fruits and vegetables with their electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards. Funding in the amount of $9.65 million in the 2023–24 state budget ensures that the program won’t die on the vine, a victory given the state’s significant budget deficit.
Silver SPUR Awards Honor Civic Leadership
The 61st annual Silver SPUR Awards recognized four individuals whose achievements exemplify the highest aspirations of the San Francisco Bay Area: Diane Filippi, founder and former director of the SPUR Urban Center; Dr. Tricia Hellman Gibbs, co-founder and attending physician of the San Francisco Free Clinic; groundbreaking television journalist David Louie; and Arabella Martinez, founder and former CEO of the Unity Council.
Ideas + Action 2023: Housing Beyond “Zero Sum”
SPUR’s annual Ideas + Action symposium explored the topic of housing policy beyond “zero sum” thinking — i.e., the limiting belief that helping some to prosper must come at the expense of others. Keynote speaker Heather McGhee led an investigation into common zero-sum misconceptions, such as “policies that support renters harm homeowners” and “affordable housing leads to declining property values.” Our daylong conversation explored the role that racism plays in these debates and the policies needed to create more affordable and inclusive cities for all.
SPUR’s Alicia John-Baptiste Named to San Francisco Business Times “Power 100”
Alicia John-Baptiste, SPUR’s president and CEO, was named to the San Francisco Business Times’s first-ever Power 100, a list of the most influential people in Bay Area business. The Silicon Valley Business Journal, sister paper to the Times, tackled the South Bay with its own Power 100. The lists also included current SPUR board members Sam Cobbs and Gary Dillabough; former board members Fred Blackwell, Carl Shannon, Garrett Herbert, and Connie Martinez; and 2022 Silver SPUR honorees Jackie Safier and Jane Garcia.
SPUR Receives the 2023 LAF Founders’ Award
The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) recognized SPUR with the 2023 LAF Founders’ Award for significant contributions to preserving, improving, or enhancing landscapes over a sustained period of time. LAF highlighted SPUR’s initiatives that “empower communities to test scalable models and policies for sustainable concepts such as expanding the use of public land for urban agriculture and designing for rising sea levels,” noting that SPUR has helped drive legislation and action on climate change and inequity.
Partnering on Equitable Solutions to the Housing Crisis
SPUR collaborated with the Partnership for the Bay’s Future — a partnership of the San Francisco Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LISC Bay Area, and Shift the Bay — to hold two conversations on equitable housing solutions. Our first event examined best practices for engaging communities to craft housing policies. The second conversation explored innovative approaches to mitigating the housing crisis by leveraging “little p” policies, i.e., nimble and often localized actions that tend to be easier to implement than traditional governmental “Big P” policy.
President’s Letter
Creating the Capacity for Change
SPUR holds a vision that the Bay Area can become a place where all people thrive. The disruptions of the past few years have challenged us to think differently about how we achieve this goal. When the way we live has changed so dramatically, we have to ask ourselves: Given where things stand now, what would allow people to thrive?
One benefit SPUR brings in a time of disruption is that our long-term view is clear. We know the future we want to build. We believe that for people to thrive, we need abundant homes, easy and sustainable mobility, access to open space, vibrant downtowns, and climate-resilient communities.
But while these are necessary ingredients, they do not guarantee vitality on their own. Because thriving is in fact a dynamic state. To sustain wellbeing, our communities need the capacity to evolve in positive ways as our world continues to change.
SPUR helps to create that capacity for the Bay Area. It’s in our organizational DNA to hold space for new ways of thinking and to trust that a better future is possible. SPUR held a vision to remove freeways and repair neighborhoods after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, to make accessory dwelling units legal to build, and to connect the region through a fully electrified Caltrain service, which will launch later this year. Today we are reimagining downtowns, inventing a financially sound future for transit, and enabling homes for all in high-resource neighborhoods as we continue to hold the vision of an equitable, sustainable, and prosperous region where all people thrive.
Through your support of SPUR, you are critical to building the capacity the Bay Area needs. Thank you for helping us to hold the vision of a better future.
Alicia John-Baptiste
President and CEO