Matt Haney is a “dealmaker”

If you like these current Supervisors, you’ll like Matt Haney.

Matt Haney differentiates himself from Sonja Trauss and Christine Johnson, by saying he will “be focused building housing in District Six…I’m not going to be running around other parts of the Bay Area trying to deal with those issues.” His “laser-focus on District Six” means he will continue what’s known as Supervisorial Prerogative, allowing each District Supervisor to control housing on their own turf.

On the district’s current Supervisor Jane Kim, Haney says he wants “to take her work and ramp it up big time.” Haney will continue Jane’s style of negotiating projects on a case-by-case basis. “I think I’d negotiate hard… and I’d make the deals to get the housing built.”

This strategy of having a Supervisor getting deeply involved in dealmaking has meant time-consuming negotiations and inconsistent rules. Projects are delayed years, sometimes even requiring ballot initiatives, as in the case of Pier 70 and Mission Rock, which he cites as “great housing projects that have had massive support in D6 and across the city. Pier 70 and Mission Rock, these are projects that had 30–40% of affordable housing…” (Joe Eskenazi in San Francisco Magazine disagrees with Haney’s assessment.)

Case-by-case negotiations have huge costs, even for Affordable Housing. These endless negotiations have resulted in some projects with more affordable units, but also years of delay, a massive increase in cost, and a loss of many potential projects. Haney notes that “One of my concerns is that we’ve had a lot of projects that go through entitlement and get approvals and then they just sit there.” He doesn’t seem to connect this to the “hard negotiations” that it turned out weren’t feasible.

Negotiations have also created opportunities for rampant corruption. Politically connected groups are often rewarded with “community benefits” negotiated by Supervisors.

Speaking about Mayor London Breed, he focuses on how important it will be for him to “stand up to her.” He tells us that while he will work with her when he can, “The District Six Supervisor has a responsibility to advocate and fight and stand up and yell and scream to make sure these services are being delivered effectively.” He thinks that the question should not be “who is most closely aligned” with Mayor London Breed, because he is going to fight for the district.

When asked to name a policy he would enact, he mentions increasing mental health options in Navigation Centers, but rather than elaborate, he pivots to speaking with stakeholders. All in all, there’s a surprising lack of specifics.