Removing Barriers to Housing

Walk down almost any block in the Sunset built between 1920 and 1960, and you will find homes with basement or garage spaces that have long served a variety of needs. Some are occupied by extended family members. Some provide housing for students or working adults. Others have evolved over time into informal rental units. These spaces are already part of the neighborhood’s housing ecosystem, but many remain difficult or prohibitively expensive to legalize under current rules.

I introduced an ordinance at the Board of Supervisors on June 2 to start changing that.

It is one of the narrowest housing ordinances the Board will consider this year. It amends a single section of the Housing Code to align San Francisco’s minimum ceiling height requirement for habitable rooms with the state minimum under California Residential Code. Habitable rooms would drop from 7 feet 6 inches to 7 feet. Non-habitable rooms would drop from 7 feet to 6 feet 8 inches. That is the entire change.

What the change unlocks is significant. Thousands of basement and garage spaces in the Sunset’s pre-1960 housing stock have ceiling heights between 7 feet and 7 feet 5 inches. Under state law, those spaces can be considered habitable. Under San Francisco’s stricter local standard, they have been excluded from legalization for decades. Homeowners seeking to legalize these units often face a difficult choice: abandon the project or undertake costly excavation work that can add tens of thousands of dollars to the project cost. For many property owners, that cost is simply prohibitive.

As a result, housing opportunities that could otherwise be brought into compliance and added to the city’s housing inventory remain in limbo. A relatively small difference in code standards has become a major barrier to legalization.

For homeowners, unpermitted units can create uncertainty. They can complicate insurance coverage, refinancing, property transactions, and future improvements. Many owners would prefer to bring these spaces into compliance, but the cost of meeting San Francisco’s ceiling-height requirement has often stood in the way.

For tenants, legalization can provide greater certainty and stronger protections. Bringing units into compliance helps ensure that housing meets applicable safety standards while making it easier for both tenants and property owners to navigate the city’s housing regulations. Legalization creates a clearer path toward stability for everyone involved.

This ordinance does not solve every challenge associated with converting basement or garage space into housing. Other code requirements still apply, and those costs do not disappear. But it moves a generation of existing units from “effectively impossible to legalize” to “realistically possible to legalize.” That is a meaningful step forward.

For a City under state pressure to plan for more than 82,000 new housing units by 2031, this ordinance is one of the lowest-cost housing measures the Board can pursue. It complements San Francisco’s broader housing strategy by making it easier to bring existing housing into the legal market. We should remove unnecessary barriers that prevent existing homes from being counted, improved, and legally occupied. This ordinance simply removes a local requirement that exceeds the state standard by six inches and has proven to be a significant obstacle to legalization.

The Department of Building Inspection supports the ordinance. The Planning Department has identified ceiling-height requirements as one of the primary cost drivers in legalizing existing in-law units. Five of my colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors: Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Myrna Melgar and Bilal Mahmood.

If you live in a Sunset home with a basement or garage space that could become a legal dwelling unit, this ordinance is for you. If you rent in one of these units, this ordinance is for you. And if you have been following San Francisco’s housing debate and looking for practical ways to add housing opportunities, improve existing units, and reduce costs for homeowners and tenants alike, this is one such step.

Sometimes meaningful housing policy starts with something as simple as 6 inches.

Supervisor Alan Wong represents District 4 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Reach his office at wongstaff@sfgov.org or 415-554-7460.