Who is Matt Haney?
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Matt Haney
District 6 Supervisor
Matt Haney represents San Francisco’s District 6 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (i.e., City Council). Under Haney's leadership, District 6 has built more housing than any other part of San Francisco.
What is Matt Haney's record on new housing?
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New homes: Haney has mostly supported building new housing.
- When he was Supervisor, Matt Haney's district built more housing than any other district in San Francisco - over six homes per day! Although Haney has occasionally opposed housing, he usually supports it.
- Haney has a record of standing up to local NIMBYs to approve all kinds of housing in his district, including the Embarcadero Navigation Center, converting hotels into supportive housing, 100% subsidized housing developments, and new mixed market rate and subsidized housing developments, including on the SF waterfront and on a Nordstrom's parking lot which local NIMBYs opposed developing into housing.
- Haney is one of only two San Francisco City Supervisors who supports allowing fourplex apartments to be built anywhere in San Francisco without excessive restrictions.
- Haney previously opposed some important state housing laws. These laws try to stop local NIMBYs from blocking housing. However, since then, Haney has come out in support of several important state housing laws, including SB 35, SB 9, and SB 10. Haney also voiced support for NIMBY initiatives when he was on the school board, before he was running for positions that had important influence over housing policy.
- Haney has supported important reforms to stop NIMBYs from abusing environmental laws to stop environmentally-friendly housing and transit projects.
Haney says he's not a NIMBY. He's usually not! However...
Initially opposing SB 35
HOUSING OPPOSED-
# People's homes
Haney opposed - 3,841
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# People's subsidized
homes Haney opposed - 3,591
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# displacements housing
would cause - 0
SB 35 is a state law that it harder for San Francisco to say no to proposed housing that is at least 50% subsidized. Since the bill’s passage, it has led San Francisco to build homes for 3,841 people, over 93% of which were subsidized homes. Haney originally opposed SB 35, but has since said he was wrong to oppose it and said he supports it.
Citations: Haney listed his support on the SF Latino Democratic Club's questionnaire in 2018, but more recently has changed his mind on SB 35. The Planning Commission calculated that SB 35 projects have produced 1,980 homes in SF, of which 1,851 are subsidized (see here). We use the default home-to-people conversion metrics from Planning as above given limited information about bedroom numbers on these projects. More background information on SB 35 is available here.
1052 Folsom Street
HOUSING BLOCKED-
# People's homes
Haney blocked - 122
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# People's subsidized
homes Haney blocked - 29
Haney led opposition to an apartment building in his district because it would occasionally cast a shadow on a local park.
Citations: Haney's opposition and the unit counts are described here. We assume 1.94 people per unit, per SF Planning.
450 O'Farrell Street
HOUSING BLOCKED-
# People's homes
Haney blocked - 411
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# People's subsidized
homes Haney blocked - 56
A developer proposed building 316 studio "micro-units" at 450 O'Farrell Street. Local NIMBYs opposed the housing, and Haney did what these NIMBYs asked for and voted against it.
Citations: Haney's opposition and the number of units (316) are included here. We count this as "blocked" housing because other Supervisors likely deferred to Haney's decision here due to the norm of supervisoral prerogative. We use SF Planning's default assumption that each studio would house an average of 1.3 people to calculate 411 people's homes opposed.
Frequently asked questions
- What is this? Why did you make this?
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Politicians don’t advertise how much housing they block and oppose, and it's hard for citizens to find out. That's why it is so easy for them to block housing -- no one finds out when they do it!
We’ve launched NIMBY Report to solve this problem. It's not an easy problem to solve, because this information is hard to find -- we had to dive into obscure City reports, watch long meetings, and find knowledgeable City staff to find the answers. And politicians want this information to be hard to find. But we’re making it easy for you, so that politicians know they can't hide how much housing they block any more.
We are working on other San Francisco politicians next. If you want to help, please email nimby.report@gmail.com. - What is the difference between "blocking" and "opposing" homes?
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We count homes as "blocked" when a Supervisor's actions were directly responsible for stopping homes from being built, either by casting a deciding vote or by exercising supervisorial prerogative. We count homes as merely "opposed" when a Supervisor is on record against the homes (e.g., blocking, delaying) but their opposition did not meaningfully determine the outcome.
- Who wrote this site?
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This NIMBY Report page was authored by David Broockman.
- I found an error.
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Please contact us with any corrections. We want this website to be as accurate as possible. Please send any corrections to nimby.report@gmail.com.
- NIMBYism makes me angry! How can I get involved to help build more housing?
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If you want to help build a NIMBY Report for another politician, email us at nimby.report@gmail.com. To simply stay updated about housing in San Francisco and hear about future volunteer opportunities, you might want to join the SF YIMBY mailing list or join the Grow SF mailing list.