Written by Josh Koehn
Published Oct. 16, 2023
https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/16/yimby-winning-san-francisco-housing-war/
State Sen. Scott Wiener has authored numerous housing bills in the California Legislature. Here, he is pictured outside of San Francisco City Hall on Oct. 5. | Source:Noah Berger for The Standard
In the dog days of summer, while many California state legislators were vacationing or raising campaign money during the monthlong recess, Scott Wiener was convening secret meetings. The state senator and a close-knit crew of housing wonks were hatching a plan to make an 11th-hour amendment to one of his bills—one that would surely raise the hackles of some of his fiercest critics.
During his seven years in the Legislature, no elected official in California has proposed more ambitious policies to streamline housing construction than Wiener.
Those efforts have made him loved by YIMBYs, the boisterous “Yes In My Backyard” movement that believes developing both market-rate and affordable housing will reduce costs and demand. But some of those same laws have made Wiener equally loathed by NIMBYs, a less-defined group whose reputation for saying “Not In My Backyard” is rooted in retaining the character of neighborhoods, often leading to accusations of opposing new developments under the pretext of environmental concerns.
Wiener made his confidantes swear an oath to secrecy in the early August confabs. Any leaks ahead of a final hearing in the California Assembly’s Appropriations Committee would give opponents of his housing bill time to lobby against its passage before making veto pleas to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I wasn’t sure, you know, how different people would react,” Wiener told The Standard.