San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood on Monday announced that the affordable groceries ballot measure he had proposed will not have enough votes to pass committee, so in the meantime he is developing other ways the city can tackle the problem.
“Affordability is the crisis of our generation,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood in a Monday release from his office. “Every year, more families are forced to make impossible choices between rent, groceries, medicine, and child care. This proposal may have been blocked, but the problem it sought to solve has not gone away.”
According to Mahmood, his Affordable Groceries Act was introduced in response to a growing number of former supermarkets and pharmacies sitting vacant for years as what he calls “zombie stores,” which he says cause neighborhoods to lose access to fresh food and essential services.
His original legislative package would have created a tax on large chain stores that left their buildings vacant. The money raised by the tax would also go into an Affordable Grocery Fund to bolster corner stores and cover costs to bring grocers back to neighborhoods.
Instead of the ballot measure, Mahmood is proposing three ideas. The first would restore funding to the Healthy Retail SF program, which helps turn corner stores into places that sell fresh produce.
The second component would expand the First Year Free program so new grocery stores don’t have to pay building and planning permit fees. It would also grow the Storefront Opportunity Grant, which helps cover construction costs for new grocery stores in areas that don’t have one nearby.
The third involves zoning changes, including new incentives for housing developments that include a grocery store on the ground floor. The idea is borrowed from New York’s FRESH program, which offers developers zoning and tax breaks for including grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods.
The proposals are being called the new Affordable Grocery Act. According to Mahmood, he will introduce drafting requests for the new package at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
Mahmood has also decided to request a continuance so the original ballot measure can be heard at a future date, he said.