If there was one thing Mayor Daniel Lurie wanted to communicate Monday night, it was that his plan to upzone San Francisco needed to pass. Not just because it was good policy, but because the alternative would be far worse.
“If it does not pass, let’s just be clear: The state comes in and does this work for us,” Lurie told a room filled with about 100 Sunset residents and business owners at an upzoning forum at the Sunset Recreation Center.
After all, the mayor said, the city is increasing the heights that housing developers can build to because of a state requirement. The city must rezone so that housing production goals can be met, or risk losing its power to approve — or reject — all new housing, the state has told the city.
“There could be towers everywhere,” Lurie said gravely, emphasizing each word.
But the crowd he faced still seemed extremely skeptical, expressing concerns in question after question.
And some seemed ready, perhaps, to back up their dissatisfaction with action. They sported gear emblazoned with the yellow “Recall Engardio” logo, leftovers from the successful recall of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio in September — a campaign that reverberated with the threat to exact further revenge on any elected official who advanced the upzoning plan.
“Our neighborhood businesses are a crossroads of people, culture, language. Those folks do not move and go somewhere else,” said retired police commander Rich Corriea, an audience member.
He asked the mayor to provide “a little more granularity about my corner grocery store, where I bring my grandson to meet the owner, and Joe’s Ice Cream, and other places like that, that will be gone.”
“That’s what scares folks in the neighborhood,” Corriea added.
“I understand there’s fear that people are going to just start bulldozing. I’ve heard that I’m a bulldozer,” Lurie said in a 60-minute appearance with pointed questions but a courteous crowd. “But let me just say, to say that they’re all going to be gone the next day, that’s not fair.”
Plus, Lurie added, the plan will bring benefits to business owners, too: Namely, more customers.
But the Corriea’s fears were not assuaged.
“When I use the word scared, that’s heartfelt,” he followed up. “We’re scared. So should you advance public policy before dealing with the fear in the community?”
“I appreciate that,” the mayor replied, placing his hand on Corriea’s shoulder. “As a San Franciscan, I don’t want high-rises everywhere … As mayor, I’m going to do everything in my power to protect our small businesses.”
“Thank you very much for that,” Corriea responded, adding a grumbled, “You should’ve heard Scott a few minutes ago.”
The mayor had not been the only elected official invited to the town hall. In a separate appearance — leaving before Lurie arrived — State Sen. Scott Wiener answered questions for 45 minutes.
Unlike the mayor, who could justify the rezoning as a state requirement, Wiener had more to answer for as a proud YIMBY who had helped craft many of the laws now forcing the city’s hand.
Wiener wrote SB 828, the 2018 law that increased the amount of housing San Francisco was required to build, for instance.
And this year, Wiener authored SB 79, which would make it easier for developers to build housing near public transit stops. It is now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, and will be signed or vetoed by Oct. 12.
At the town hall, Wiener stood by these policies staunchly.
“Why did you draft a state mandate to have every city upzone without any sensitivities to individual characters of each city, so that the state remedies would almost certainly destroy local uniqueness?” one person asked, to a smattering of applause throughout the room.
“That’s like the ‘when did you start beating your spouse’ question,” Wiener shot back. “I completely dispute the premise of that question.”
“Oh wow…” people in the crowd scoffed.
“Cities have the ability to craft their own alternative option that implements the goals of the bill, but does it in a way that works for that city,” Wiener said, returning to the dry, policy-focused responses that made up the majority of his answers.
In the face of irate questions, Wiener reiterated his pro-building stance. “I don’t think new housing is dumping on anyone,” he said, eliciting a wave of groans.
“When you don’t build enough housing, people get pushed out,” he added.
But, does this new housing have to be in the Sunset?
“Have you looked into upzoning Presidio Heights, Pacific Heights, Forest Hill, St. Francis Wood?” one person asked Lurie later, eliciting laughs and claps from the audience.
His response: “The answer is yes.”
I wish the city and reporters/newspapers would spend the energy to ask what younger people in the city think (eg high schoolers, people in their 20s and 30s) about these political discussions. The way outreach happens leads to only hearing from older, retired, and wealthier homeowners. Oftentimes the perspective shared from them is that there is no problem to be solved so don’t do anything. In this case, they don’t think there’s a housing problem because they bought their houses decades ago + are not looking for housing and are not working/on the job market.
As someone entering my early 30s, I’m excited the city and state are finally taking our concerns more seriously about housing. I hate that younger folks have to get screwed over to maintain aesthetics of a city that no longer exists.
Agreed with SS. Older generation continues to pull up the ladder behind them. They got housing built for them and then they block any more being built after them.
Building new market rate units doesn’t help the housing crisis, full stop. Believing YIMBY liars is where the younger generations went full R-word. Redevelopment is a bad word for a reason.
No matter how much Weiner et al want to streamline the approval process, it costs northwards of $1 million to build a unit of housing. If you aren’t making $300-$400k in (combined) income you will never be able to afford a house here. Also add in the rising cost of insurance and property taxes and it’s nearly impossible for all but 18% of SF residents to afford.
Saying that if we build housing and magically homelessness will go away is ludicrous.
We need a Marshall Plan with massive subsidies for affordable housing. That is the only way to solve the affordability crisis.
Word.
I’m totally with you. Just look at the pictures of this town hall event shared in the article. It is 90%+ gray haired, geriatric folks of retirement age or older. Why are these people involved in making ANY decisions regarding our future? It’s our future — not theirs. This problem is not at all unique to SF unfortunately.
They could have been there. Also, don’t dismiss old folks so quickly. Both voices can learn from one another.
I bet this meeting was held at about 10am on a weekday. No, working people CANNOT be there. This is part of why urbanization projects keep getting stalled. It is much harder for young people to show up to these kinds of things, but we are the majority, and we SUPPORT upzoning and building, building, building.
Ageist comments are the words of an ugly bigot.
‘Why are old people who bought houses in the 80’s allowed to have an opinion in yuppie SF at all?’
Where did you say you were from, YIMBY? It’s not here.
Only out of touch old folks use the word Yuppie — you’ve proven my point. The word literally has no relevance in modern society.
What an arrogant, selfish comment. Why would anyone even want to consider your decisions regarding your future with a ageist attitude like yours?
You seem like somebody who thinks having 80+ year old presidents is a good thing. Look at the picture and tell me I’m wrong, Douglass.
^ Hold these YIMBY liars accountable. Ageism isn’t a virtue.
Hope you can afford that market rate condo tower, YIMBY tools!
Save your bitcoins.
Question for Yimbys: A supply side housing approach works to bring down prices when supply overtakes demand. Econ 101, yes? So, housing proponents, how many units of new housing will it take to build in – say 10 years – to satisfy demand and deliver affordable housing prices for SF – given that AI, Bio Tech and Venture Cap continue to stick around and grow? And why are we to believe such a goal is realistic?
Unless there is real work to improve infrastructure and fund an increase in public transit, simply adding 400 units of housing on Taraval, 19th Ave or Geary is going to hobble SFMTA in a big way.
There needs to be a plan to increase buses and metro trains in every neighborhood that adds bodies.
Once the buildings are there and the demand is there they can add trains. Not that complicated.
Yes, let’s not make any plans for the future and just reactively operate with emergency funds and no time to make informed decisions /s
Hilarious BS. Reality doesn’t work like that.
Who wrote those SBs, a pothead? Foresight, insight, concept of reality? Space and infrastructure are not infinite. See who benefits from development. Hm. Integrate and reno existing buildings around municipal/transport areas to meet mandate. And subsidize. If you think only ageism, luck, and wealth buy homes then you will never own. Carpe Futura, it’s for all. Weiner without a rudder/Plan, consider “if you build it they will come” – they who can afford it and want to live and work in SF will buy em up, but “unlucky” non-saving, non credit building, Non-cmty-mtg-attendees that skip through the Park wah-wah-ing will still be without affordable homes. Incredible.
I couldn’t agree more. The planned huge development at Stonestown is going to require an increase in the 28 and 29 buses and the M train in particular. The M is already really impacted by cuts.
A question for our humble journalists: are all of these planned (or to-be-planned) developments coming with the allowance for reduced required number of parking spaces? Is that just on Market and in the Mission? Is there any consideration for Muni funding while increasing density?
(I think I know the answers, but thought I would ask.)
More housing. Sunset boomers holding the city back once again.
It’s these same wealthy land owners who have been the driving force for our housing crisis. Housing is so hyperinflated because of these NIMBY’s. This is why we have so many homeless and so many people working paycheck to paycheck spending most of their take home pay on overpriced rent. No form of punishment could ever be enough against those who lobby against other people being able to afford a home. I hope NIMBY’s loose everything, especially their ability to have any politicians listen to them ever again. They have made life hell for everyone here not lucky enough to be able to afford their own home. Enough with their selfish mandates, enough of them wanting highways instead of parks; i hope the ugliest most brutalist skyrises get built in their back yards just for spite!
“No form of punishment could ever be enough against those who lobby against other people being able to afford a home.”
This may be the most plainly dishonest BS I’ll read today.
YIMBY say that rents need to rise by 25% from current levels to make market rate development pencil out.
Don’t lie to us that any of this is going to remotely benefit prospective San Francisco tenants and homeowners in the form of lower housing prices.
The west side needs to be upzoned to democratize the hits from YIMBY policies citywide so that all neighborhoods should share the pain.
In a word, bullshit. Developers don’t build low income housing, they build top of market housing unless absolutely forced to while YIMBY sellouts give them everything they want – and they still don’t build enough to meet the arbitrary 82,000 number that Wiener pulled out of his ass so as to force the Builder’s Remedy BS.
Stop selling out to YIMBY liars, tools.
Ask Wiener why the builder’s remedy is something to fear (and must be enforced), but many years of ignoring and not complying with state requirements for development of deeply affordable housing targets is perfectly fine. Puhleeze.
That’s not even factual. Move back to NYC with that tripe.
“Go back to where you came from because I dont like how youre changing my neighborhood,” sounds just as bad coming from “progressives” as it does coming from right wing freaks. Look within.
Lurie and Wiener are right and these NIMBYs are wrong. The ship has sailed and the City has to build these homes. The only question is whether we do it the easy way or the hard way.
Your lack of concern for gentrification demonstrates a fading intellectual capacity.
That ship has sailed. These neighborhoods voted for Scott Wiener and Dan Lurie who ran on building housing citywide and are getting exactly what they voted for.
I agree with you and frankly let the builds happen.
I am 50 years old. Born on Parnassus. Raised in the City and the Bay.
We. Need. More. Housing.
NIMBY is complete stick-in-the-mud ol timey b.s. and I highly agree that ship has sailed.
Additionally, I am ECSTATIC that London Breed is no longer S.F. Mayor. She was pretty awful.
marcos – SF is big city with a lot going on / problems to solve. West side voters may have supported Lurie on some key issues – like streets/crime, yet not agree with his support for upzoning.
The simple reason the boomers are making all the decisions about SF’s future is that they show up, organize and vote, instead of merely bombarding message boards with opinions. The meeting here is all grey hair because nobody else showed up.
We’re at work.
I’m not risking getting fired just to give public comment. That doesn’t mean my opinion should be ignored by elected officials who disproportionally listen to wealthier, older people. Nothing against those people, but we need to listen to everyone.
Be careful, you will be accused of ageism for pointing out that non-rich people with kids and jobs struggle to make it to community meetings compared to rich people with no kids in the house and no jobs.
“who disproportionally listen to wealthier, older people.”
You mean Billionaires like the ones that run YIMBY concerns with their dark money PAC donations? Yeah, it’s a problem.
Don’t be part of it. YIMBY lies need confronted.
I’m a renter and a YIMBY, have received a big fat $0 for my efforts. Not everything is a conspiracy, lots of us just want more housing to be built. Restricting housing supply has not worked well for SF, let’s try a new approach.
Nobody has “restricted” housing supply except the greedy developers who want only top $ condos.
Pretending you need to raze SFH’s to build housing is where you YIMBY tools go full toolshed.
Good move! working is the way to go! Yes, we have now grey hair, but we had chosen to work hard with no complaint, we have had to know bad luck and put-downs, sometimes sunny spells punctuated by fearful storms. We have had to be poor, wanderers and had to take plenty of kicks up the backside. Had holes in our shoes in winter, had to shiver with cold, and yet still gazed at the stars. And all this so that at last, our best days gone, we should become, as you describe vulgarly, some undesirable privileged boomers.
V. Hugo.
Well sure, they are retired, rich, and have time on their hands. Unlike the millennials with kids, many of whom have been driven out of the city to begin with.
They also paid millions less for their homes than the new ones that YIMBY tools are renovating cost. Back when SF wasn’t a yuppie-run town, which you probably don’t remember.
Sunset folks always crying about everything. They want their private beach front, no new buildings, they do nothing to help the homeless or shelters but want to throw a pity party at anything that will affect their home value. Yet living in the bayview we take the entire brunt of the city while paying the same property taxes as someone in the sunset.
Scott is a legend. Enough with this west side nimbys not carrying their load
Scott is a charlatan.
recallers in the sunset should remember that they are not a majority of the city.
You can’t be a sanctuary city if you don’t build enough sanctuaries. And as we can see from what’s going on nationally, we absolutely need to be a sanctuary city.
Texas builds more housing (and solar!) than California. Come on.
So move there. Texas is nasty, hot and sans environmental protections with the highest cancer rates in the nation. San Francisco is thankfully nothing like stinky, unregulated anything goes Texass.
I want to live in San Francisco, and I want everyone who wants to or needs a safe place to be able to live here. Texas is not safe for women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, or anyone. San Francisco should be a safe place, but if there’s no housing, it’s effectively not an option.
The Sunset is being traumatized by change. But they are acting like children. First, they lost that Great Highway they had not played with in years, so they threw a temper tantrum. Now they feel threatened by the announcement of a new sibling coming soon. “Not sleeping in my room!”
But the mayor has caught the district without representation, as they just ‘nuked’ their supervisor instead of turning him into their creature, which, frankly, Engardio probably would have been happy to become. Lurie will appoint someone he can work with, and the Sunset will — like it or not — get a bunk bed.
The issue isn’t just “upzoning” but the idea that they’re pushing for 8 story buildings in communities of 2 stories; shading out homes, increasing traffic, and destroying the reason folks move to these other areas of the city in the first place. Laurie & Wiener position this as the only option, YIMBYs claim it’s just NIMBYs and the old not wanting change, and the myriad of other excuses just keep flying. In reality, it sure doesn’t seem as if anyone is truly attempting to work WITH affected communities but just imposing their change upon them. Eg, couldn’t we upzone to 4 stories in a larger area to allow for the same amount of units over a larger portion of the city? I’m sure there’s a host of other suggestions that address the very real concerns but they aren’t being pursued. Easier for folks to demonize and keep blaming than to find compromise.
The “affected communities” want their communities frozen in time, how is the other side going to negotiate with that? One 4 story house every 10 years? That’s not gonna fix the issue.
“You can’t build a tallish building next to a short building without a medium size building in between” is toddler logic.
There is a big apartment building literally right next to the Painted Ladies that has been there for a century and it is FINE.
In 50 years it will be a neighborhood of 8-story homes, God willing 🙏🏼
A quick note for the b!tches who are making pejorative comments about folks who live in the Sunset. We don’t just delete public servants that misbehave, we also deny public funds if money is being misused. Remember those muni ballot measures where the SFMTA management who can’t balance their budgets put their hands out for more cash? Denied. Denied. Denied. The beatings will continue until morale improves. We are waiting for our infrastructure to be fixed to properly handle the citizens who currently reside here, and the budget money that has been greedily scooped up for downtown interests is managed better and shared properly.
And we vote in a thick bloc, and are well aware that we don’t need a majority vote to hold the wallet on tax measures. Have a nice day, the end.
And to the rest of you nice citizens who are not behaving like entitltled selfish brats – cool, thanks. Let’s have a dialogue about the best way to collectively support the city with reasonable growth in all the neighborhoods, with nobody holding a gun to anybody’s head.
We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The Sunset is not for sale, we don’t do hostage negotiations, and you should expect a commensurate response to your actions.
The hostage-takers don’t want to negotiate. Surprise, surprise. The tide of urbanization will win out in the end, even against these tactics.
The city currently has planned 90 foot tall affordable housing blocks that look like Pruitt Igoe in a clown suit. The state’s mandate is less, but still misguided at 75’ for low density communities. It appears that Lurie’s coercion to approve his 90’ “lower scale” housing than the state is misleading. These new designs are backed by cheap developers getting free taxpayers’ money, who are not abiding by SF’s design guidelines, and will result in the debasement of what was once a visionary city.
SF Planning’s own data exposes the stark truth that the YIMBY urbanist narrative about building dense inclusive walkable cities has produced ZERO new housing for working San Franciscans.
Currently the market rate stuff has been at a complete standstill in SF. It doesn’t matter if you have a conservative mayor or a progressive mayor because the margins aren’t there for private development; they just aren’t. Market rate developers (and all developers) AREN’T BUILDING, even with all the “streamlining”, “cutting of red tape”, elimination of fees and recent deregulation. Here is a clear example that the free market has failed us. The market fails to build the housing that San Francisco needs. And rather than trying to do something that is shown to work in cities all over the world by ramping up production of social housing programs, YIMBYs, corporate and real estate investment shills (paid for by the private development industry who literally make their living doing so) continue to focus on zoning and fees instead of focusing on building the housing SF needs (deeply affordable). TAKEAWAY: Developers only want to build if housing prices and rents keep going up.
Serious point imo. San Francisco has serious corruption problems, I think most ML readers would agree. I think social housing is basically a good idea in general. I wonder what’s possible here given the state of our local government. Hope someone with real knowledge of social housing can say something here, whether that knowledge comes from academic research, experience living in functional social housing, or..?
“both are already violating state and city mandates for the development and production of affordable housing yet neither has been punished or fined for ignoring these requirements (unfortunately). Why?”
You know exactly why. Market rate developers own Sacramento and enforce their will ruthlessly thanks to Wiener’s laws.
Affordable housing developers own the progressive franchise in San Francisco politics are are the submissive junior partners, only exercising power over their bases to keep ’em in line.
I know that architect guy from Germany made what he felt were such good plans for a new vision of the Sunset. I must ask; Are 8 story buildings on the sand dunes of the Sunset district the wisest in an earthquake famous town? You dig 5 feet in a Sunset back yard and youll hit sand. What about the throngs of empty buildings downtown? Why not rezone and convert those to lovely apartments?
It would be a shame to see the quiet and local character of that area change in such drastic ways.
How can we allow a few corporate Democrats to destroy San Francisco? For they are fostering crony capitalism and unbridled development in a city that is merely 7 by 7 miles wide, while disregarding the challenges our city–and nation–face in light of the looming Climate Emergency. In this manner, they reveal their hubris, their short-sightedness, their recklessness, and their greed.
In fact, San Francisco has one of the smallest urban forest canopies in the nation, but even these trees will not remain untouched, as the Corporate-controlled Democrats clearcut the Public’s lands and the Commons. Yet their buildings will not give us oxygen.
Do not be fooled! These buildings are not even for the Homeless! The upzoning is largely unneeded and unwanted and uncalled for. But it will be a boon to developers and a magnet for the ultra-Wealthy worldwide. Should their foolhardy, radical plans to commercialize every single foot of open space succeed, it will only enhance the gross economic disparity that is threatening the viability of our having a Democracy locally, statewide and nationwide. For free and fair elections necessitates that the Rich and the Indigent alike have equal representation. But they will control the media discourse and attempt to condition the people to believe there is no better alternative, and that there is no use in fighting oligarchy. They hide the true causes of urgent and important problems besetting us all. For in one of the richest cities in the world, the cause of poverty and homelessness is not a lack of housing, but a lack of goodwill.
Climate change is ravaging, SF is one of the most climate-stable places on the planet, and you think we don’t need more housing? We will have to take climate refugees in the tens of thousands. Maybe more. We need to QUINTUPLE our housing stock!
As ever, it’s unilateral top-down class war, by the banker-developer-landlord-realtor gang and their social and economic allies and minions, against blue-collar workers, low-income residents, rent-controlled elders, artists, disabled, and similarly marginalized and despised cohorts, comprised of a disproportionally high number of black, brown, and yes, older people. The attacks on long-residing fixed-income boomers as a bulwark of wealthy privilege impeding “progress” is a hoot, as if the biggest cohort putting upward pressure on rent isn’t callow boba-guzzling keyboard jockey parvenu bros.
tl;dr: Don’t feed the ageist trolls, who are simply trying to deflect attention away from the actual main cause of unaffordable housing (hint: it’s their business model).
That’s Lurie trying to push Senator Weiner’s High Density legislation in Communities that DO NOT WANT IT. Weiner’s legislation is already law, a feature knows as “builder’s remedy” – a poison pill 💊 added to push through high-rise towers, should another project not be approved locally! Scott Weiner is very unpopular Statewide, because of this alone. Also his Pro Density legislation WITHOUT funding the Neccessary Infrastructure that will be needed for all this extra housing is very short sighted. He should br VOTED out and Lurie should not support his pro developer plans without being advised of the public backlash EVERYWHERE. Not just in the Sunset District! In Menlo Park there are towers proposed on the former Sunset Magazine HQ land and the community is pissed!
So far Lurie has submitted 3 versions of his & Weiner’s garbage density upzoning plan, each more confusing than the last. As currently written, the plan offers ZERO protections from displacement/eviction for existing small neighborhood serving mom & pop businesses or for rent controlled tenants. Lurie dishonestly calls it “family housing”, but as currently written 75% of all development can be micro studios and one bedrooms (because that’s what market rate developers profit most from.) As currently written, the legislation has no plan whatsoever for the impact that increased density will have across the city’s public transit and MUNI. Here is a shit sandwich that paid shills & YIMBYS are trying to pass off as ready for human consumption.
“Fear in the community”?
Really?
Where are these people when the Tenderloin and Polk Street Area is a cesspool of illegal activity and persons who should not be running around in public but have been allowed to loiter and destroy the Tenderloin /Lower Polk street area for years?
Hoping the vagrants , addicts , zombies and thugs are removed and since this city will not jail any criminal
then place them in high rises in the western suburbs .
Or maybe build a united nations type refugee camp in golden gate park, the old cal pacific hospital or presidio.
Time to allow equality to be emphasized with city government and laws and share the crap thag goes on in the Tenderloin and has been tolerated there for years .
SF is not politically correct .
What a joke .
No one really cares here .
No one wants to fix the issues because they would not have a job and be on the grift ripping off taxpayers .
Actually wish sf would follow the Singapore or Nicaraga model; arrest and jail all drug dealers and addicts .
Cheaper and better for their health then allowing them to rot on the sidewalks
Legislation, because the alternative is a corporate decision.
The haves and the have-nots…
Folks bought stuff, other people want their stuff.
Oh well, welcome to Capitalism. It sucks when it doesn’t work in your favor.
During the extremely heated weeks leading up to Engardio’s recall, Lurie was mum and did not take a position. A few weeks back on special election night with a clear blowout supporting Engardio’s ouster, Lurie issued the statement: “As I campaigned for mayor last year, I heard countless Westside families say what San Franciscans have been feeling for years: That their government is doing things to them, not with them, and that government is not working to make their lives better.”
With Engardio’s crushing defeat, and considering the national and local political mood, Scott Weiner, Mayor Lurie and the individual supervisors should take note: neighborhoods feel unheard. Recall supporters emphasized the feeling that decisions are being made “to them, not with them.” Engardio’s ouster is widely seen as a protest against top down governance that disregards the will of local communities, neighborhoods or districts. Engardio’s successful recall sends a clear message to all city officials: ignore the specific wishes of your constituents, even if you are aligned with citywide sentiment, at your peril.
The rest of the city will not be held hostage by unhinged Sunset boomers. You may have the power to politically rabble-rouse at the District level, but your ilk will fail at the City level thanks to YOUNG, FUTURE MINDED PEOPLE who understand that a city crystallized in amber helps nobody. Look at the photos of this event — almost every attendee has gray hair. They have no stake in the future of our city. Why don’t these elderly folks step aside and leave the adult-decision-making to the people who will actually be around to live with the consequences of the decisions being made today.
Way to rabble rouse for not yet conceived and unborns!! Fanning the flames of tribalism is such a winning strategy. Not. Youngs versus olds. Breeders versus childless. Cyclists versus cars. Landlords versus renters. Homeowners versus unhoused. Ooga booga boo. Everyone loses. Quit it.
Speaking as a 40 year old tenant with a kid (sf native kid for those who gaf, yeah you ever wondered where they come from?), I have to say that I never felt any sense of community, solidarity, or really any good vibes at all the decade I lived in d4. From where I see it if d4 homeowners want solidarity from me they need to alter their message to explain how we can work together. “Go back where you came from transplant” isn’t going to do it. You want to sell me on an alternative plan that involves demolishing mansions in pacific heights or whatever? I’m listening.
The kids don’t yet care about these things. They prefer to protest Israel. It’s sexier.
“unhinged Sunset boomers”.
Different take: Mom-and-pop landlords who aren’t in debt to their eyeballs so they can rent you a 2BR for $2,500. As opposed to corporate landlords who will squeeze $4,000 from you without batting an eye.
I don’t see how bigoted comments like this are appropriate. It’s no better than saying the meeting has too many black attendees and the future belongs to white people.
Found the petulant child who thinks they own the world…
Someone needs a nap.
If the Sunset has no representation, it is because they killed their own champion.
Well…..the Breed appointed Task Farce gerrymandered a win for YIMBY tool Engardio. They ousted the decent and honorable Gordon Mar for a 3 time loser and recall whore. Engardio died by the recall sword though because he lied. Lurie, Sauter, Melgar and Mahmood: take note.
Wiener is WRONG are y’all serious I’m born and raised in SF he has been wanting and has already passed laws for more housing AT MARKET RATE AND BELOW MARKET RATE (which is literally $1 below Market Rate🙄) since he was supervisor and all it did was attract MORE GENTRIFICATION no one I KNOW WHO IS BORN AND RAISED HERE were able to afford ANY of this new housing in the past 10 years. The same is going to happen here. Don’t be fooled this is just to ATTRACT more WEATHY people to the City and NOT to solve any homeless problems as y’all like to throw around for the premise of passing whatever y’all want. With LIES. Your comments are extremely ageist. Maybe they are the only ones that are going to the meetings because they are retired. It doesn’t mean they’re not human. It doesn’t mean that they should be punished because they own their homes. These are hard-working blue collard people that have lived in San Francisco forever and made it what it is for many many years (ironically they molded the very City you are all attracted to and want to change 🙄) This is just another excuse to turn this city into an elitist city that is only afforded by the rich no one told you that you could not attend the meeting maybe put your phone and computer down and stop working instead of commenting online and on articles because that’s all y’all do is stay behind a screen well get up get into your car take public transit and go attend the meetings. I’m tired of hearing the same rhetoric that it’s time for modern “young” voices to take over or It’s time for new approaches BS go back to your own hometowns and go apply that over there. We’re not stu*d we know money talks and influences are high in this City therefore this is about power and control for the most wealthy… the more money and influence you have the louder the voice. True affordable housing is not being built for those that are struggling and not making paychecks like some of you are well kudos for you, but some other people are the ones that serve you every day in your favorite restaurants who work at your grocery stores, who teach your children, and where you buy your clothes are not having their needs met with their salaries, and then you wanna say well maybe they should pick another job or maybe all of them should up and leave then. Who will be left these are people with full-time jobs not getting paid enough to meet the ability to pay rent in the city they would have to work 2 to 3 jobs in order to do that. You all feel privileged and entitled to want to do whatever you want and have it happen cause somehow you think you are special and better than those who sat in that room. Some of y’all sound like grown a** people throwing rant tantrums online when you don’t PARTICIPATE in ANYTHING
I gotta say, for as much as your post sort of seems at first glance formatted like endless screed, and will certainly tick off some people who are in denial, I have read through it a couple times and cannot escape the conclusion that you are 100% spot on. Well done.
Do NOT trust the developers – the number of sh!ts they give about any of us is exactly zero. This is a ful-tilt shakedown. Wake up SF and unite.
Whether it comes from Donald Trump and Tom Homan, or Scott Wiener and Daniel Lurie, cold-hearted authoritarianism is a dish best served raw.
Newsom rallies against Washington overreach and we suffer from Sacramento’s overreach.
California’s flavor of authoritarianism
Come on , you are embarrassing yourself. Comparing these guys to trump?
Sorry. The truth hurts. Doesn’t it.
Weiner and the YIMBYs want to tell you what to think. Tell you how to live and tell you what your neighborhood will look like. Funny. They think that they know what’s best for us yet they never asked us, Follow the money. They only listen to their corrupt wealthy special interest donors.
oooh ouchy, you hurted me.
I’m no fan of Dan and Scott either. But where are their secret police, tear gas, and tame judges? Don’t let your emotions get in the way of reasonable conversation.
Demonizing Scott Weiner isn’t going to make people who are desperate for affordable housing listen to you. If you have a plan then let’s hear it.
PS I don’t like Donald either! surprise!
All these threats of the state of CA as the boogeyman are such BS. Who cares what the state wants? The citizens will revolt, there will be a ballot measure, and all those requirements will go away. We also have a redistricting commission, but Newsom is about to eviscerate that. And that was passed by voters.
Stop pretending the state’s demands are permanent. They’re not. The developers love all this BS. They just want $. You can’t build your way out of an affordability crisis. It has never worked anywhere in the world. Once a place is expensive, it remains expensive.
This process is playing out in municipalities all across California and there does not seem to be much in the way of organized resistance that could beat real estate at the state measure ballot box.
The fate of SB-79 will be instructive in this regard. If Newsom vetoes it, then that will probably be because polling indicates that it would damage his presidential prospects more than it would benefit his real estate base.
YIMBY liars need run out of town on a rail. They are parasites funded by Billionaire developers and doing their bidding accordingly. They know nothing.
San Franciscans, when will you vote out or recall Wiener who is the cause of all this uncontrolled building throughout this State. His laws is a one size fits all mentally which is very bad for all of us. We are losing all our neighborhood character. Big cities and small towns alike. We all need to get Wiener out of office.
Because the silent majority likes Wieners policies.
No dude! The silent majority doesn’t bother to vote cuz there’s no one else running against this schmuck. Every 4 years we get this creep on the ballot with no competition. Last time he ran, we had novice Jackie Fielder running against him and even though she was an unknown commodity, she got 42% of the votes. And while Wiener garnered 52% of the votes, a large number of people didn’t vote for either of them. That’s why we’re stuck with this schmuck and I sure hope that the Sunset folks remember this when it comes time for this creep to run for Pelosi’s seat. Anybody BUT Wiener!
Scott Wiener won reelection with 77.8% of the vote in 2024. He is arguably the most popular elected official in San Francisco.
If people like you were in charge in 1920, 1940, or 1960, there would be no urban and vibrant San Francisco. The Sunset that people want to set in Draeger stone still be sand dunes.
“Uncontrolled building throughout the state” – is this a joke? California is about to lose multiple House members in 2030 because we are not building new housing and other states are.
Lurie’s, Weiner’s and the YIMBY rationale of spreading terror about state mandates and fear mongering about a “builder’s remedy” gun-to-the-head is complete BULLSHIT; both are already violating state and city mandates for the development and production of affordable housing yet neither has been punished or fined for ignoring these requirements (unfortunately). Why? Lurie’s and Weiner’s density upzoning plan has hundreds of flaws. It is TOO BIG and will fail.