SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — In a city where affordable housing has long been at the center of impassioned debates, a renewed push is under way to increase affordable housing for tens of thousands of San Francisco college students.
Supervisor Scott Wiener on Tuesday said he will call for a hearing to explore what the city can do to encourage more construction to accommodate housing for the city’s collegiate population.
Wiener’s office says that at the hearing, the Planning Department will be asked to report on current housing numbers for the 82,000 full-time students in the city, and what projects are in the pipeline to provide housing for that group. Supervisor Wiener will also explore what could be done to spur the creation of more student housing, according to his office.
“Providing housing for students is a key part of addressing our housing affordability crisis,” said Supervisor Wiener. “Students have different needs than families and long-term residents, generally requiring less space. By building adequate housing for students, we can free up rental space in our badly over-extended existing housing stock,” Wiener said.
In 2012, Supervisor Wiener authored legislation to provide incentives to educational institutions to build their own housing and to ban the conversion of apartments to be used exclusively as student housing. Wiener’s office says that plan was drafted in response to the lack of any student housing policy in the city,