San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood is pushing for the creation of a centralized database to track all city-owned properties, aiming to identify potential sites for grocery stores, food pantries, and affordable housing. This initiative was inspired by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s similar effort to inventory city-owned land for housing development.

Current State of City Property Data

Currently, San Francisco has a property database, but it lacks detailed information about each property, such as its potential uses, vacancy status, and historic significance. The city’s lands and facilities databases do not include data on existing leases or historic status, making it difficult to make informed decisions about property development.

Mahmood’s proposal stems from his experience working on legislation related to homeless shelters in the city, where he discovered that the city had no consolidated list of all its shelters. He hopes that a centralized property database will help identify underutilized properties that can be repurposed for community needs.

Potential Benefits of the Database

The proposed database could help address food insecurity in areas like the Tenderloin, where grocery stores and food pantries are scarce. Mahmood also plans to use the database to identify sites for affordable housing development, which can be faster and cheaper to develop on city-owned property due to streamlined permitting processes.

The city already evaluates its properties for potential affordable housing development, but the current list does not include land owned by certain city departments, such as the San Francisco Unified School District and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Mahmood’s proposal aims to create a more comprehensive and detailed database that can help the city make better use of its resources.

Original reporting: Mission Local — read the source article.