On Thursday, at 12 p.m., San Francisco’s new upzoning proposal, which Mayor Daniel Lurie’s has “family zoning,” will be presented before the San Francisco Planning Commission during an informational hearing.
First announced last Thursday, the new map expands upon previously proposed upzoning across the city’s Westside. It proposes taller building height limits along commercial and transit corridors — mostly 85 feet, but up to 650 feet in some places — as well as “density decontrol,” which would eliminate the limit on how many units can be constructed per parcel in selected areas.
The hearing is likely to draw strong reactions during public comment: While YIMBY groups have expressed delight at the proposal, other groups — Neighborhoods United, a coalition of neighborhood associations and Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition of San Francisco, a coalition of grassroots housing organizations — are staunchly opposed to any blanket upzoning reform.
The proposal is a political gamble for Lurie. On the campaign trail, he focused primarily on issues of public safety and street conditions. Now in Room 200, the mayor has taken a decidedly pro-housing stance, to the surprise of some. But the city is required to implement new zoning legislation to comply with the state-mandated housing element by January 2026, and the clock is ticking.
For that reason, a version of the proposal is likely to be adopted by the Planning Commission. After that, it will be voted on by the Board of Supervisors, and then the mayor.
Are zoning restrictions changing in your neighborhood? Use the map below to explore the proposal and current zoning requirements:
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Planning Department and S.F. Open Data.
I wish they wouldn’t force all new residents to live on the busiest streets. There’s no reason why we can’t have European-style density on quiet European-style streets
Oof…up-zoning Dolores Park (no doubt due to proximity to the J Church).
This raises some questions in my mind.
1 What is “density decontrol”?
2 how are the heights measured in a city with a lot of homes built on the sides of hills?
Im not clear what is really changing
Some answers:
1. Density Decontrol: in many parts of the city the # of dwelling units you can build is a function of lot area – e.g. 1 unit for every 800 square feet of lot area. DD does away with this and allows you to put as many units as you can that fit within the height and lot coverage limits. And to ensure they’re not all tiny studios, the city requires a minimum # of 2 and 3 bedroom units
2. On slopes, height is measured from the mid-point level of the lot with offsetting provisions if the lot slopes up to the back to down to the back.
3. Nothing much is changing tbh. At least not for a long time over which change will be very incremental. Rules against demolishing rent controlled dwellings, historic buildings, etc all still stand. Many of the lots being up-zoned in the Sunset are too small from a practical standpoint to build to the proposed zoning. Things will only change if many current land owners merge lots with their neighbors, or sell out to developers and vacate the premises. No one is coming to take your house from you.
I’d love to see a layer applied to this map of the areas at risk of liquefaction (as opposed to bedrock). ’89 is still a recent traumatic event for many. That North Point upzoning is worrisome.
There are those who want housing to grow their businesses allied with those who want to grow our tax base – and then there are those who will actually live in these transformed neighborhoods. While the first group counts the money, the second deals with skyrocketing rents, gentrification, parking, traffic and transit overcrowding, more street noise, trash, and shadows encroaching on their homes or local businesses.
For those interested how the kind of development that’s envisioned here might look like: Take a trip to the Outer Sunset, to Irving at 26th Ave, where a massive lump of Affordable Housing is rising in the old spot of the SF Police Credit Union building. Did I mention it’s massive? Oppressively so. I feel for the neighbors, I can see now why they were fighting it tooth to nail.
“Family Zoning”
Speculators’ dream
Wave of Evictions Coming
YIMBYs Hate Renters
The billionaire mayor supporting the financial elite. What a surprise.
Bulldozing existing neighborhoods is not the only way to get more housing. Lurie sold out big.
They aren’t interested in lowering rents or home prices for middle-low incomes, they only want that free flowing developer cash in their campaign coffers. They sold out office building conversions to market rate, they sold out ADU units to market rate, and the irony is that none of what they’ve done actually incentivizes builders to build new homes quickly in a way that would move the needle on the Housing Crisis. The bottleneck was never zoning. Developers freely admit it and are skeptical of this. Ruining existing hoods is not the way to go nor will it happen fast enough to achieve their claims. It’s a sham and Lurie flip flopped 100%. We won’t be supporting him for another term at this rate. Scott Wiener is no friend of middle class renters no matter what lies pass through his slimy lips.
get over it. we have to build 80k homes or the builder’s remedy goes into effect and then people will have even less of an input.
“The bottleneck was never zoning”
Exactly. The bottleneck to affordable family housing always was, always is, and always will be the class war waged by those in the mansions on the hill against working class families via gentrification and asset speculation.
The only thing zoning has ever been a bottleneck to is, in a very few cases, windfall profits for developers, banks, and landlords.
but first the revolution!
No mention of affordable anywhere!
Engardio LITERALLY took the affordable housing requirement out personally. These are the people making the big sucking sounds, in between YIMBY lies about “the housing crisis” that they’re ACTUALLY IGNORING while they use the issue for private profits.
What we really need are 500′ towers all along Cortland for transit oriented development in that walkable community to make up for the Bernal Mafia throwing the Mission to the luxury condo wolves.
You keep threatening this as though there aren’t plenty here who are entirely prepared to call your bluff (see other news articles on ML today about public comment on upzoning w.r.t. Bernal).
You don’t run SF, Bernal yuppies, even though you obviously believe otherwise. Ironically you will be the first bulldozed and unable to afford relocation when the dust settles, sayonara NYC transplants!