One of the least polarizing measures headed to November’s ballot veered off course Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting.

A parcel tax, co-sponsored by Supervisors Scott Wiener and Eric Mar, would earmark more than $18 million annually and require that the city take back maintenance of street trees and the sidewalk repairs that go with them. But Tuesday morning, Mar dropped his name from the legislation, citing concerns about the number of tax measures already on the ballot.

The measure has the backing of all five moderate supervisors and needed only a sixth vote. With Mar’s support withheld, it became uncertain whether it would get the needed six votes to make it onto the ballot. Wiener moved to continue the item until July 26 — the cutoff for ballot measures.

“I was optimistic we would have a majority support for this measure,” Wiener said at the meeting. “I was excited about today. There are a lot of people that were excited we had an opportunity to fix this problem.”

The number of items already headed to voters in November is a concern, Mar said.

But it’s not a new fact. Many of those measures — including another parcel tax that would funnel about $15 million each year into City College of San Francisco — have been in the works for months. Instead, critics say Mar dropped support after facing pressure from his progressive colleagues.

In recent weeks, they have been accused of holding measures hostage in an attempt to force Supervisor Mark Farrell’s tent-camp legislation off the ballot.

But Mar maintained he wanted to support the best tree measure. There are two others under consideration, including an ordinance with unsure funding by Supervisor Norman Yee and a carbon tax by Supervisor John Avalos.

“I believe tree maintenance is a critically important issue for the Richmond District and the city as a whole,” Mar said after the meeting. “I took my name off of Supervisor Wiener’s measure because I am not yet sure of the correct approach to deal with this matter. In the next week, I will see ... if we can reach a consensus.”

For now, the board is stumped on what to do with city trees.

— Lizzie Johnson

Housing plan’s road show: Gov. Jerry Brown’s housing chief is taking to the road to drum up support for a controversial “by right” housing proposal, which would require cities to approve some code-compliant residential developments without extensive environmental review.

Ben Metcalf, director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, was at the urban think tank SPUR Wednesday in a private meeting with Mayor Ed Lee and representatives from Bridge Housing, the Bay Area Council, the Housing Action Coalition, the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and other groups.

In remarks to media after the meeting, Metcalf said that the administration will spend the next 45 days fine-tuning the proposal.

“There are a lot of folks who have some valid concerns, and it is our intention over the next six weeks to do as much as we can to triangulate and improve on the bill to try to reconcile some of those issues,” he said. “I doubt that we will get to perfection in terms of satisfying everyone, but we can certainly make progress.”

The proposal has run into opposition from some environmental groups who say that it will allow developers to ram through projects without proper scrutiny. It has also not been well received by the State Building and Construction Trades Council, which wants assurances that developers taking advantage of the program pay prevailing wages.

On Wednesday, opponents issued a statement criticizing the administration for crafting the legislation “behind closed doors” saying the proposal would “cause significant negative impacts upon the environment, jobs, working and low-income neighborhoods.”

But Lee said that he is working to make sure the legislation protects existing affordable housing, respects the demands of the building trades and allows cities to set minimum standards for affordable housing. Done right, he said the legislation could “shave one or two years” from the planning process that housing developments go through.

— J.K. Dineen

All for one: In a rare show of consensus, a measure that would collect data on the sexual orientation of city clients passed the Board of Supervisors unanimously.

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Scott Wiener, would require city departments and contractors that provide social services and health care to collect data on LGBT clients. Ideally, the data would help identify programs and services where the group is underrepresented.

However, those clients are not required to provide any information.

The first data could start rolling in within 24 months. Programs with a small LGBT client base must then submit a plan to the city on how to make the services or programs more accessible to that population. The legislation goes back to the board Tuesday for a second reading.

— Lizzie Johnson