At Bisnow's Residential Real Estate panel last week, Heller Manus Architects CEO Clark Manus (left) asked what needs to be done to change the delivery of affordable housing. AGI Capital prez Eric Tao says some 70% of our rental units are rent controlled and there's a huge voting population that wants to preserve S.F. the way it is. There's a lot of anger and mistrust around Ellis Act evictions, and as a result there is growing anti-development sentiment.

A novel new solution that developers, tenant advocates, the Mayor and Supervisor Kim’s office are working on is a Stabilization Trust Fund. The idea is to purchase rent controlled units at market rate, hold them as permanently rent-controlled, thereby eliminating the risk of evictions and protecting tenants across a range of affordability. The cost to acquire and protect an existing rent-controlled unit is half of developing a new BMR unit, Eric tells us.