SF voters: Airbnb OK, Mission housing ban not OK

San Francisco voters on Tuesday rejected tighter restrictions on short-term housing rentals, as well as a moratorium on building market-rate housing in the Mission District, according to complete unofficial election results.

Proposition F, a ballot measure that would have placed stricter limitations on the short-term rental of residential units in the city, needed a simple majority to pass but had only about 45 percent approval.

San Francisco-based short-term rental company Airbnb fiercely opposed the ballot measure, spending an estimated $8 million campaigning against it.

Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty released a statement from the company about the result, calling it “a decisive victory for the middle class.” “Voters stood up for working class families’ right to share their homes and opposed an extreme, hotel industry-backed measure,” the statement said.

Proposition I, known as the Mission District Housing Moratorium, received nearly 43 percent of the vote, short of the majority approval needed to pass.

The measure aimed to impose an 18-month suspension of city permits on market-rate housing developments, as well as demolition of certain properties, and to create a neighborhood stabilization plan in an effort to limit the ongoing displacement of long-term residents from the Mission District.

Two other housing measures on the ballot appear to have passed.

Proposition A, a $310 million affordable housing bond, received more than 73 percent of the vote, above the two-thirds majority needed to pass, while Proposition D, a measure allowing the Mission Rock mixed-use development near AT&T Park to move forward, also received about 73 percent of the vote.

Proposition D, which just needed a simple majority, proposes increasing building height limits on parts of the Mission Rock property and makes it city policy to support the development as long as it includes 33 percent affordable housing and eight acres of parks and open space.