Hundreds of people descended on City Hall today to express either fury or delight with the mayor’s legislation to allow developers to build higher and denser.
By 10:45 a.m., YIMBY advocates of the plan had gathered on the right side of the City Hall steps, preparing for their rally in favor of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s so-called Family Zoning plan ahead of the Planning Commission’s vote on whether to recommend the plan to the Board of Supervisors.
Advocacy-group members and union construction workers cheerfully toted signs that read “Cities are not Museums” and “Affordable Housing Can’t Wait.”
As they see it, the city’s failure to build housing at scale for the past decades has contributed to the city’s affordability crisis, and the solution is to build at scale, which the zoning plan will enable.
On the left side, the skeptics gathered for a “silent counterprotest.” A bit larger in number, and skewing older than the YIMBYs, they represented a combination of neighborhood-group members and tenants, small businesses and affordable-housing advocates.
Some were decked out in costumes, including a grim reaper and a skyscraper. Many carried homemade signs. One, Romalyn Schmaltz, a North Beach business owner, passed out masks made from photos of Lurie, State Sen. Scott Weiner and District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter.
“I’ll take Scott,” said one man. He pulled the mask over his face and proceeded to wander around the crowd, flipping people off.
The zoning plan, critics warn, does not have enough support for low- and middle-income housing, carrying the risk of a rush of real estate speculation and displacement of residents, small businesses, and nonprofits, which is what some argue happened in the Mission after the eastern side of the city was rezoned nearly 15 years ago.
By exempting many types of new construction from the public-input process (and from long delays) that was standard procedure until recently, others argue that the new zoning plan will ruin the charm of their neighborhoods.
“It’s a gift to property owners with few obligations in return,” Joe Butler, an architect and North Beach resident said, holding a giraffe poster at least 10 feet tall, with a picture of Wiener’s face on it.
As more critics gathered on the left side of the City Hall steps, Bridget Maley, a member of Neighborhoods United SF, called out: “We’re being silent, remember?”
But when Lurie came up to speak around 11 a.m., the silence was quickly abandoned. “Shame! Shame!” “You are a liar! You are a liar!” the plan’s critics chanted.
“Let him speak! Let him speak!” chanted the YIMBYs.
“Hold on, hold on, everybody,” Lurie said. “My question is, can I speak? And then we hear from you? Because this is a country that right now is experiencing division. I would love to have a respectful conversation.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone in the crowd responded.
Lurie, who took office in January, is late to this particular party. San Francisco’s eastern neighborhoods — the Mission, much of SoMa, Potrero Hill and the Dogpatch — were upzoned in 2009 after 8 years of planning. Plans to upzone the western neighborhoods — the Richmond and Sunset, as well as Noe Valley, Russian Hill and Nob Hill — have been underway since at least 2022.
In 2023, the Board of Supervisors passed an updated Housing Element, which required the city to show the capacity to build 82,069 units. Under existing zoning, not all those units would be built, though, so the city needed to rezone parts of the city to provide capacity for around 36,200 units to stay in compliance with state regulations.
Map of current and proposed zoning
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Planning Department and S.F. Open Data.
“Here’s the truth. Either San Francisco leads on housing, thoughtfully planning to add homes across our city, or we lose control,” Lurie told the crowd once they had quieted just enough for him to be heard.
“If we don’t act, we risk losing funding and our ability to decide what gets built and where,” he said.
“Families and workers should be able to live in San Francisco, not just visit on weekends or commute from the greater Bay Area,” Lurie added. “We have built-in protections to support small businesses. And I want to be crystal clear about one thing: this family zoning plan protects rent-controlled homes.”
Following Lurie, Supervisors whose neighborhoods are affected by the plan took the floor to speak in favor of it — first Sauter, then District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, then District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who gave a rousing speech.
“No one believes your NIMBY nonsense,” Dorsey shouted, “Sit down!”
The last supervisor to speak was District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio who, despite the fact that he’s currently facing a recall fueled in part by more-conservative homeowners who may be opposed to the zoning plan, still decided to speak.
“Recall Engardio!” a few protestors chanted when he came up to speak.
He spoke about the new affordable housing complex for teachers that opened in the Sunset recently. “Apartment buildings do not ruin a neighborhood,” he said.
Following the supervisors, several community members came up to speak. The crowd remained angry. At one point, two representatives of opposing factions stood face to face, yelling at each other, until a sheriff’s deputy stepped in to separate them.
At noon, the rally dispersed and people began pouring into City Hall. Dozens of people were already lined up outside Room 400, waiting for a seat in the Planning Commission meeting to open up. Two sheriffs guarded the doors, gruffly telling people to either wait in line or go down to the overflow room on the first floor.
Right now, the Planning Commission is hearing the zoning plan. The room is quiet and calm, but a constant murmur from outside can be heard within — plus the occasional firm remark from the deputies telling people they can’t come in.
Comments from other supervisors and public comment is up next — stay tuned.
How many times are people going to continue to fall for this scam? “Affordable housing” in the city never ends up being affordable at all.
I think Lurie misled the public prior to the election about his zoning plans. I certainly would have reconsidered my vote ranking had I known he was going to cave and sell out to the YIMBY Wieners and their gentrifying, rent-control-agnostic machinations. They’ve done this time and again in SF and it’s always raised base rents and forced low income working class long term residents out of the City.
Meanwhile there’s hundreds and thousands of free open space acreage in unbuilt areas of SF that are ripe for redevelopment – where there is no one currently trying to scrape a living together amid peaking record rents. Why displace existing low income residents if it’s not necessary, while claiming to be doing this all for their benefit and to “lower prices” – which has no guarantee and obviously hasn’t historically happened when they push these redevelopment agendas for Developer / Billionaire benefit.
where are these acres and acres of undeveloped land of which you speak in san francisco, the second most densely populated city in the us?
Run along now troll boy Jym who doesn’t know SF.
Dude. What did you expect Lurie to do? He’s a pro business oligarch. Peskin was your guy and you shouldn’t have ranked anyone else. Although in hindsight Breed might be better than Lurie’s turned out to be.
Did anyone talk $$$ numbers? Because that’s essential to understanding the unfortunate reality we’re in. How about this: Rehabbing a number of townhouse style units at Ocean Beach, recently completed by the carpenter’s union, was done to the tune of $1m a pop. And they didn’t even have to acquire the land. In the Mission, converting a garage to an in-law runs north of $500k. At that level, newly constructed 2/3 BR workforce family housing will be “starting at $1.2 million”, or rent for $4k+ a month (or thereabouts, I’m probably at the lower end of the range). All that mostly to cover construction cost, regardless of the demand/supply argument that’s been thrown around. So the headscratcher here is how building all that housing would have much of an impact on housing prices at all. Let alone make things affordable, unless of course you qualify and stick it out on the wait list for City&County (taxpayer) sponsored social housing, aka Affordable Housing.
With that in mind, if you, say, rent a rent-controlled 2BR for $2,500/month, you got to wonder how you’re a “museum” piece that deserves one’s building torn down, reconstructed five stories taller, for the opportunity of re-entering a place there at $4,000/month. Well, if this is what Matt Dorsey calls “NIMY nonsense”, I got to assume he’s already found the money to cover the $1,500/month difference, no?
Eastern Neighborhoods were upzoned with no protections for rent controlled housing. If anything, demand is higher in the Mission than the west side. The Mission Area Planning district has not seen demolitions of rent controlled housing. This is a red herring. I do not think that it is legal to ban all demolitions of rent controlled buildings.
Yeah well, leveling the Fillmore didn’t have precedent either.
Seriously? It SHOULD be illegal to demolish rent-controlled buildings! Yours is an admission that YIMBYs don’t care about existing San Franciscans, just future ones and the profits they’ll bring.
Lower cost of land per unit (since you can build more units per plot of land), lower soft costs (streamlining will need to be done to get the volume they’re talking about), and increased competition will drive down rents on the higher end units. In response to the other comments: the state would’ve mandated this anyway; higher density will support more transit frequency and existing/new businesses; no, we’re not paid (just an Econ MA that cares about bringing down my own rent); no, there’s not a bunch of available land (and that which is already has projects planned – HP, Schlage Lock, 400 Divis, etc); and what is with the aspersions against developers? Many are longtime locals (eg Nibbi Bros), hire union labor, and construct sorely needed housing despite the constant griping. They should be commended.
NIMBY used to be, “I don’t want section 8 housing near me!”. But here I am, surrounded by tons of subsidized housing that I supported the entire time, and I tell someone that I think replacing 14 rent controlled units with a 8 story tall CHROME building full of luxury condos is not a good idea – BOOM, it’s like the damn hordes of hell came down on me calling me a NIMBY mother-***er. I think upzoning is fine, but that group is being led around by a bunch of rich developers who has convinced them that everyone that disagrees with any new building is the enemy.
Interesting! Former candidate for mayor-Arron Peskin was, a major Nimby, glad the drunk lost.
LEARN HOW COMMAS WORK NOOB.
Scott Weiner has been in the pocket of big real estate developers for years as has Gavin Newsom. Weiner writes laws that take away all California towns and neighborhoods rights to fight against over-development and Newsom puts his rubber stamped on it. All small towns and neighborhoods are being affected and they are all on the East side. In the old days this was called Redlining or way back-segregation. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find those old maps that all the areas being gentrified or as some say “Manhattanization” are the same placed Developers want to bulldoze. Its cheaper real estate and Sacramento has taken away all those pesky NIMBY’S that chose to live in a small town or community to get away from high-rise apartment buildings. Some people enjoy looking at the blue sky outside their homes vs an ugly skyscraper apartment building. Let’s call it like it is: the Democrat party wants to pay back their biggest donors and this is the way they are doing it. They create all these new laws behind closed doors where NONE of the people get to vote on it. They don’t know how to balance the budget so instead try to do it on the backs of the poorest who have no way to fight against the big political machine in Sacramento!
“Golly, those bullies are threatening us, so we’d better do whatever they want, right away!”
So says Lurie, a true chicken among men.
Articles like this that continue to frame this issue as nimby vs yimby is reductionist and past of the reason the division continues. Of course we in SF want more housing but people are right to be angry at this race to rezone with no plan to address the negative effects esp when they ignore and compound existing issues; zoning for 85′ towers that block out single family homes, placing them on already congested corridors with no plan for traffic alleviation, increasing through traffic in these same neighborhoods that already face risks while simply crossing the street and waiting at bus stops, etc etc etc. This is yet another money grab we see so often in SF under the guise of progress.
But it’s never the right kind of housing. Saying you want more housing “but not that, and not that one either, and not here, and not there” is saying you don’t want more housing.
Campers,
Fascinating stuff from a distance.
I’m still looking at this as the first of eight years of Mayor Daniel Lurie and I’m still very optimistic about the good things this guy will accomplish.
Right now he’s in the process of learning that Scott Weiner is the best tool in the SF Developer toolbox.
He’s been snowed there and bought it so far.
He also made a disastrous move in sending a knuckle-dragging Brady List lieutenant to command Mission Station and the guy moved all ‘Community’ meetings back inside the station house and took a roving gang of cops declaring celebrations of the birth of the United States to be, “illegal assemblies/gatherings” … “we will use violence” …
These are mistakes on a learning curve for Daniel Lurie and that’s the important thing.
He’s Daniel Lurie and unlike every previous Mayor going all the way back to Agnos he can change his mind without losing his job.
I’m counting on my read of him after maybe a combined ten hours over the last couple of years in my apartment for political parties cause all of my parties are political and at 4 Barrell and I got him to go to the 20th Anniversary of Matt’s run for Mayor in 2003 before Daniel entered the Mayor’s race and he came by himself as he has every time I’ve invited him and he showed up …
He’s a really, truly nice guy with intelligence and social conscience.
When we talked about him entering the race he said that one of his friends said:
“But, you’re such a nice guy !!”
Yeah, in the view from this 81 year-old’s VA subsidized Mission crib, that’s what makes me think that he will change.
He’ll figure out that the People should pick the Police Chief and that it is in his interest to give the people that power the sooner the better and it will free him to read some Zelda Bronstein to counter Scott Wiener (I spelled it both ways cause I forgot) …
go Niners !!
h.
All hail San Francisco’s landed aristocracy who want to dictate what is built on property they do not own. Oh the shadows, the shadows will kill us all! What about my zucchini? Who will take care of all the retirees once the landed oligarchs turn San Francisco into a retirement community. Schools are closing because there are no children. The last child in San Francisco moved to Texas for a better life.
Wow. Mission Local’s coverage of housing issues seem to come straight from the yimby playbook. I was one of the rowdy crowd out there because I’m terrified of losing the humble studio apartment I’ve shared with my partner for 30 years. This (anti) family legislation is just a free-for-all for greedy developers who would love to bulldoze my rent-controlled building. The crowd I was in are tired of the lies spewed by the well-paid yimbys and their pet politicians. And we’re tired of the framing that another commenter here pointed out that Mission Local has adopted. The protesters were no more a bunch of nimby homeowners than this legislation is a path to affordability. Why mention our crowd skewed older? I was among a number of young people out there who get it and aren’t agist.
There was no mass demolition of rent controlled units with the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan and recent state law prohibits the demolition of rent controlled apartments without right of return. Now Melgar is making the rent control demo standards even stronger despite state law functionally shutting down rent control demolition. Your fear might be real but what you fear isn’t. Have you considered you’re just a victim of propaganda, or perhaps your opposition isn’t actually about losing your studio but having new neighbors?
If you wish to characterize the affordability advocates as largely “older,” please consider describing the YIMBY “advocates” as largely “paid.” In other words, they are lobbyists, not genuine advocates.
I’m a YIMBY and I’m not paid. I’m fighting for more housing so that when my son graduates HS he has a snowball’s chance in hell of coming back here after college (to a place other than my garage). I’m fighting for the neighbor whose parents were able to afford a house when they were fresh immigrants 60 years ago, but whose kids can’t afford to live within a three hour drive. I’m fighting for my trans friends who can’t afford to move here, even though their lives are literally threatened in the states they live in now. I’m fighting so that the substantial number of Californians who have to drive more than *90* minutes each way to work can instead live close to work and stop lighting the planet on fire. But yeah, nobody is paying me for that. Instead I’m sacrificing my own time for it, because I’ve got mine already—but I also care about people other than myself.
NAIVE. You believe slogans that never come true. Dime a dozen.
If we’re going to discount people for growing old as a way to diminish their (or a group’s) reasoning in the upzoning wars, let’s examine the sanctimonious talking point of proffering one’s recent decision to start a family as a justification to evict, demolish and displace existing citizens and upzone all of the neighborhoods and the city. These are un conceived children but still…. the spawn of the entitled must be prioritized over existing citizens and elders!! Meanwhile, the nation and world are on fire as fascists disappear the mothers and fathers of San Francisco’s actual living, breathing children, but the unformed fetuses of the entitled will need a place to live when they grow up so……..
NIMBY used to be, “I don’t want section 8 housing near me”. I’m surrounded by tons of subsidized housing that I supported the entire time, but then tell someone that I think replacing 14 rent controlled units with a 8 story tall CHROME building full of luxury condos is not a good idea – BOOM, it’s like the damn hordes of hell came down on me calling me a NIMBY mother-***er. I swear, the slightest hint of “maybe that’s a crappy idea” results in fanatic attacks. I think it’s totally fine to upzone the entire city a bit. I honestly don’t see the problem with it, but these YIMBY people can F right off. It’s like they grabbed onto this one idea that building more will fix everything and nothing else matters at all.
I don’t want to see, a wind tunnel, which would happen along the Geary corridor, the city could use those empty office building and even the Westfield Center, as afford housing.
I think San Francisco is an ungovernable city, and I don’t see why Lurie even bothered to run for major.
Peskin declaring that the rent is “too d*mn low” tells us everything we need to know about the priorities of him and his supporters. Good riddance
YIMBY say that rents need to rise to make market rate housing feasible.
YIMBY say that this will add supply and make San Francisco housing affordable for everyone.
Peskin fails here because the decision over whether YIMBY win has already been finalized. These here are mere implementation details.
If San Francisco doesn’t meet YIMBY zoning targets for housing, then the state will eliminate local control over land use approvals. This would mean that the already upzoned east side would face the brunt of the builder’s remedy.
Neighborhoods United are just fine throwing.a fit to throw east side neighborhoods under the bus.
YIMBY and Peskin are both wrong here.
“If San Francisco doesn’t meet YIMBY zoning targets for housing, then the state will eliminate local control over land use approvals. ”
Which is why they passed that law, to force the issue that actually depends on developers ponying up money in down times more than it changes the reality of approving new development.
Wiener lied. People will be displaced as a result.