San Francisco takes three years on average to approve and permit a new housing development, the longest timeline of any jurisdiction in California, and the city is out of compliance with numerous state laws requiring expedited housing approvals.
That's the damning, not necessarily surprising, findings of a new state audit released yesterday that found the city's housing policies and practices added up to a "notoriously complex and cumbersome" mess that will ensure San Francisco falls well short of its state-set goal of building 82,000 units by 2031.
