San Francisco is expensive because for decades it built far fewer homes than the people who wanted to live here, and the main reason is that local governments could say no to almost anything. The two candidates for Congress in District 11 have spent the last decade on opposite sides of that fight.
What Scott Wiener has done
Wiener has passed pro-housing law at scale over loud opposition. SB 35 (2017) forced cities that were not building enough housing to approve qualifying projects automatically instead of putting them through years of hearings. SB 423 (2023) extended that framework and tightened it. And SB 79, signed in 2025, legalized mid-rise apartment buildings (the kind that line much of San Francisco) near major transit stops across California. None of those laws fixed the housing shortage by itself, but together they changed the rules: cities can no longer dodge their housing obligations, and badly needed homes get approved instead of argued about.
State law only goes so far. The money and the rules that decide how homes get financed run through Washington: the federal tax credit that finances subsidized homes, Section 8 vouchers (rent help for low-income families), and federal environmental review. Wiener wants to expand the housing tax credit, fund rental assistance, reward cities that build, and cut the federal red tape that slows projects down. He treats housing as both a building problem and a rules problem, and he has a record of fixing the rules.
What Connie Chan has tried to stop
Chan has voted against new homes in San Francisco at nearly every opportunity. In December 2025 she voted no on Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan, which allows taller apartment buildings along commercial corridors on the west and north sides of the city and passed 7 to 4. Before the vote she called the plan a “monstrosity” and proposed amendments that would have removed every site with existing homes from it. GrowSF polling found 74% of San Francisco voters support the plan.
In July 2025 she sponsored a Board of Supervisors resolution to oppose SB 79, the state law that allows apartments near major transit stops, saying it would “undercut the years-long community process to develop a citywide Housing Element.” The Board rejected her resolution 7 to 4.
In December 2023 she voted no on the Constraints Reduction Ordinance, which ended most Planning Commission hearings for homes that follow the zoning code. It passed 9 to 2. In October 2021 she voted to reject the environmental report for a 495-home building on a Nordstrom valet parking lot at 469 Stevenson, blocking the project; the state investigated the vote and the Governor later intervened.
Asked in May 2026 whether San Francisco needs to build more market-rate homes, the kind about 90% of San Franciscans live in, she answered no: “I believe that if your demand is affordable housing, then your supply has to be affordable housing.”
Why it matters in Congress
The next Congress will decide how much federal money goes to building homes and how much federal process stands in the way. Wiener has written the laws that get homes built. Chan has voted against them. Her full record on housing, with every vote linked, is in Everything Connie Has Opposed.