San Francisco’s new mayor is aiming to spur middle-income housing construction in the city and remake its beleaguered downtown.

Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie won the mayor’s office in his first foray into electoral politics by a 56 to 44 percent margin, outpolling incumbent London Breed, who finished second in San Francisco’s ranked-choice election last week.

During his campaign, Lurie noted that as the founder of San Francisco nonprofit Tipping Point he was the only candidate in the race who actually has built any housing in the city.

Lurie stressed the importance of building middle-income housing in San Francisco, saying “our workforce, our police officers, our firefighters, our teachers, our nurses, can’t afford to live in the city.”

The new mayor has proposed to create a public financing entity to issue bonds to fund the creation or preservation of middle-income housing, and he is open to partnering with regional entities like the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority to do so, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Lurie wants to exempt multifamily projects from transfer taxes, a step that would require the approval of the Board of Supervisors. He also wants to launch an “approvals tracker” that would show the status of permit and entitlements.

In March, San Francisco voters approved Measure C, which eliminated transfer taxes for office conversion projects. The ballot measure also allows the city to make future changes to the transfer tax by passing an ordinance instead of holding a referendum.

During his campaign, Laurie faulted “City Hall insiders” for the city’s slow-moving housing pipeline, which includes projects encompassing thousands of units that have been approved but have not come to fruition.

At a mayoral debate in September, Lurie touted Tipping Point’s completion of a residential project in San Francisco “at a fraction of the cost, and a fraction of the time it takes these insiders to do the same thing.”

“We have such a better track record of getting things done than these City Hall insiders,” he said.

Tipping Point, a nonprofit that focuses on fighting poverty and homelessness, helped lead the development of 833 Bryant Street, a 145-unit permanently supportive housing project in the SoMa neighborhood that was completed in 2021.

Tipping Point teamed with nonprofit developer Mercy Housing and the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, a nonprofit lender, on the Bryant Street project. During the September debate, Lurie said the Bryant Street project was built in 33 months at a cost of $377K per unit.

A case study of the project, published by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center before the development was completed, estimated the project was on a pace to build the homes 30% faster and at about 25% lower cost than comparable projects in San Francisco.

Lurie has pledged to form a Downtown Development Corporation, a group that would bring together “the best of business, government and civic leaders” to spearhead a revival of San Francisco’s struggling downtown, which has been hollowed out by a record office vacancy rate accompanied by an exodus of retail players from the Union Square area.

During the mayoral debate, Lurie said the new downtown initiative would be modeled after the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which was launched in NYC to plan the area’s reconstruction after the 9/11 attack.

Instant Insights /

Lurie Aims to Exempt Multifamily Projects from Transfer Tax

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