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POSTED INELECTION COVERAGE
Real-estate money floods fight against San Francisco ‘social housing’ measure
Proposition I is being outspent 4-to-1
by ANDREA JIMÉNEZOctober 29, 2026, 4:00 am
A senior apartment building is under construction at 4200 Geary Blvd on Sixth Avenue in the Richmond District, San Francisco. Photo by Junyao Yang on Mar. 14, 2024.Play
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San Francisco’s big real-estate players have raised more than $2.7 million to defeat an affordable-housing ballot measure that proponents say would fund the kind of European-style “social housing” rare in American cities.
The outlay against the initiative, Proposition I, is the largest source of spending to oppose any measure on the November ballot — a full $1.9 million more than was raised this year to defeat Prop. G, which would bring cars back to the Great Highway.
Supporters of Prop. I are heavily outspent; they have raised $687,000, a quarter of their opponents’ war chest.
Prop. I would dedicate 50% of the city’s “transfer tax” — levied on sales of properties valued at $10 million or more — to various forms of affordable housing, including social housing where residents “have the right to participate directly and meaningfully” in running their building, according to the measure’s text. Prop. I supporters are outspent 4-to-1Yes on C, No on I$2.7MFair Housing, Yes on I$687KChart reflects data as of Oct. 28, 2026Chart: Andrea Jiménez Source:San Francisco Ethics CommissionCreated with Datawrapper
Prop. I would also lock in the city’s current tax rate, among the nation’s highest, and ensure it can only be changed by voters — not city supervisors — going forward.
Locking in the high tax rate and forcing a vote of the people to lower it has the real-estate lobby worried. The list of 73 donors against Prop. I is a who’s-who of developers, real-estate tycoons, investors and others active in the city’s construction scene:
- The San Francisco Apartment Association, the landlord lobbying group, donated $211,000 and is the largest donor to the measure.
- Micheal Moritz, the billionaire venture capitalist developing high rises in San Francisco and financial backer of the San Francisco Standard, has donated $200,000. Moritz is a key ally of Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has called the measure a “slush fund,” even though his office would administer it.
- Related California, the real estate development and investment juggernaut that has built thousands of units in the city, also donated $200,000.
The funds are going to the “Yes on C, No on I” committee, which is fighting Prop. I and also backing a separate affordable-housing measure on the ballot.
The committee did not make anyone available for an interview.
John Doherty of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, one of the groups fighting Prop. I, wrote in a statement, “Labor and business have come together on Yes on C and No on I because working families need housing they can afford and neighborhoods that are clean and safe.”
Other donors against Prop. I include the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce ($185,000); the Fisher family, the clan behind the Gap dynasty ($125,000); and Kilroy Realty, the real estate giant that has been one of the biggest spenders to local political pressure groups ($100,000).
Prop. I, by contrast, is relying heavily on a few wealthy, progressive donors:❮❯
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- Saikat Chakrabarti, the congressional candidate who lostin the primary to Connie Chan and Scott Wiener, is the campaign’s top donor and has given $150,000. Chakrabarti is much more involved in city politics since his primary loss: He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to progressive ballot measures this cycle, and is pledging money and support to Chan in her congressional race.
- Dean Preston, the former District 5 supervisor who authored the original 2020 ballot measure that doubled the city’s transfer tax (also Prop. I), has donated $118,000. Preston, a tenants attorney, is a longtime tenant and housing rights activist.
- Dylan Hirsch-Shell, a former mayoral candidate and social housing advocate, has donated $105,000.
Christin Evans, a member of the Prop. I campaign, said the measure’s opponents see their opposition spending “like an investment.”
“It’s essentially spending $100,000 to potentially get millions in tax cuts in the future,” she said.
The backstory goes back years. In 2020, voters passed a separate Prop. I to double the city’s transfer tax rate on sellers of properties valued at $10 million or more, moving it from about 3% to about 6%, depending on the value of the property.
Those selling luxury homes or large apartment or office buildings subsequently saw the city cut into their profits during sale.
The funds collected by the 2020 tax adjustment were meant to be earmarked for affordable housing, but legal questions surrounding whether that could be written into the measure allowed then-Mayor London Breed to use the money for the city’s general fund. Mayor Lurie has followed suit, also allocating the tax revenue to the general fund.
The tax has raised hundreds of millions of dollars.
Prop. I of 2026 would amend the 2020 measure and reserve half of the revenue received from San Francisco’s transfer tax to affordable housing, social-housing developments, homelessness-prevention programs and housing assistance. The measure would also lock in the transfer tax rate at between 5.5% and 6%.
The real fight is over who gets to control that transfer tax rate. If Prop I. wins, the rate is not only locked in, but put under the purview of voters instead of the Board of Supervisors.
That is far more restrictive for owners of large real estate, and the mayor — Lurie has come out against the measure, seeking to preserve his control over the funds.
The mayor is instead backing Prop. C, a consensus measure to boost the city’s affordable housing fund to $125 million or more starting in 2028, and to build potentially tens of thousands of units with the funds.
Lurie, for his part, has had other designs over the transfer tax.
Earlier this year, the mayor co-sponsored the “BUILD Act” with Supervisor Bilal Mahmood to cut the tax rate in order to incentivize more housing development in San Francisco, though it was unclear it would do so.
Cutting the transfer tax rate would have also been a boon to office developers, and the “BUILD Act” was not narrowly tailored to housing construction. The proposal was subsequently shelved because it did not have the votes on the board.
Evans says she, too, supports Prop. C — it is a long-term solution to the housing crisis, she said. Prop. I, she said, is a steady and predictable stream of funding for affordable housing.
“I think [Lurie] can understand why we feel it’s important that City Hall be held accountable to the original tax on properties over $10 million, and that those additional funds be used for housing,” Evans said.
ANDREA JIMÉNEZ
Andrea joined the Mission Local newsroom as a UC Berkeley Local News Fellow. Andrea grew up in Hayward and is excited to report on the happenings of the Mission District. Most recently, Andrea interned at the Pacifica Evening News. Her personal interest include cooking, crocheting, ceramics and shopping secondhand.More by Andrea Jiménez
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9 Comments
Ronsays:October 29, 2026, 5:56 am at 5:56 amTo be consistent, I voted “NO” on both C and I. I see them both as boondoggles and slush funds.In respect of I, it really should need a two thirds majority to become effective. That is what the state’s Prop 43 would ensure and so I voted “YES” on 43.+3 -1 votes. Sign in to voteReply
marcossays:October 29, 2026, 9:13 am at 9:13 amWho in their right mind puts a measure on the ballot to try to compel a mayor with unitary budgetary authority to spend on their pet projects when they know full well the mayor will either not spend those dollars or get the City Attorney to construe the measure to allow him to spend resources on other similar projects?I support land trusts and social housing. That’s why I participated in the policy work that led to the founding of the CLT. But it turns out that we did not balance the equations.As MEDA showed, small sites has sustainability and scalability faults that need to be addressed before codifying into law spending that will only incur more unfunded expenses moving forward.Affordable housing finance is a closely held, secretive operation that reflects internal city priorities and views residents as hostile to their projects. To a certain extent, it is a slush fund.The problem here is that progressive politics has devolved to interests with claims on city revenue streams writing ballot measures to create new revenue streams and hook them up to those nonprofits and unions.I warned Preston midway through their revenue measure ballot feeding frenzy that this could only go on for so long before a backlash developed that could not be defended against because of lack of tangible outcomes.But since they decided to go down swinging on a measure that’s essentially pushing on a string, costing both ballot access and constraints on a mayor who is able to evade them, this has to be an op.Does anyone know what hospice progressives are going to be entering on 4 November?+2 -1 votes. Sign in to voteReply
h. brownsays:October 29, 2026, 2:15 pm at 2:15 pmYour comment is awaiting moderation.Ron, Hold the hospice, I’m still the guy out in the middle of traffic both vehicular and personal at 82 and you sure do sound like me. Yeah, I agree on all except the part about our not producing a mayor. I literally slept under my desk (not always alone thank god) for that entire campaign and remain convinced that Matt was the very last person in San Francisco to be robbed in a crooked paper ballot election. I think Matt won easily and he was ahead in the final poll the friday before the election and Gavin even said “I guess matt won.” but that’s then (and I personally got on the ballot against Gavin twice) … but, it worked out. Matt puts his energy into being Catcher in the Rye for Mano Raju’s Office of the Public Defender and has sorted nearly half a million cases since that time while Gavin has passed to relative obscurity as Governor. lol h.
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