Do people have a right to live in San Francisco? In my Sunday column, I argued no. When Mayor Ed Lee came by for an editorial board meeting this morning, I had a chance to ask him. Lee answered:

“I don’t know about a legal right, but they certainly I think, I think what we want is to try to put some stability in the market for everybody and to allow those that have been here for a long time to continue being here. I’ve got to try to match, and this is kind of a difficult challenge for me and for anybody who’s sitting on a successful city, is how do you try to keep those that have earned there way here – and, you know, yes they are lucky to be in rent-controlled units. Do we have that debate again? Or do we try to say these are good affordable housing stock? I think people who have lived here a long time do deserve our support to try to stay in being here. I think it’s newcomers, we can work with them, but it’s got be about helping us build some housing as well, and maybe even better housing…”

Part of the problem is that San Francisco hasn’t built the amount of housing that should have been built.





Ed page editor John Diaz asked Lee about his lack of leadership against Prop. B. Lee’s answer? “I can’t be distracted with another war on the waterfront.” He thinks he can do a better job building more housing not fighting the waterfront battles. “I’m going to concentrate on the things I can get done.”

By the way, Lee described the old Warriors 30-32 project this way: “For me, it’s like the Star Trek Academy in San Francisco.” That is, it’s a project that only gets built in science fiction.