San Francisco’s ceiling could soon rise. A plan is on the table to lift building heights along main streets of key neighborhoods and allow denser residential construction.
It could spur a population boom in areas that have been low-rise since an anti-development revolt capped heights in the 1970s.
More housing, advocates say, will make the city more affordable. A growing body of evidence backs them up, but there are local skeptics who say supply and demand doesn’t apply to rents and housing prices. Other critics of the plan raise fears of widespread demolition and displacement, or bigger buildings ruining views and casting shadows.
The Board of Supervisors must vote on these plans by the end of next January. Anything short of approval would violate state and local law, although the supervisors can ask for changes to the map and for a package of other rules, such as stronger tenant protections.
There’s likely to be a whirlwind of public hearings through the fall filled with arguments about what’s to be built in everyone’s backyard.
SF housing politics is already replete with hyperbole and speculation. Before debate heats up, it’s good to pause and review: Why are many San Francisco neighborhoods about to get taller and denser? We’ll start with an historic vote in early 2023.
How did we get here?
On January 24, 2023, SF lawmakers unanimously, but in some cases grudgingly, approved a sweeping blueprint for city housing — the Housing Element in planning speak.
Among other things, it called for new zoning, sometimes block by block, in “well-resourced neighborhoods” — where new home construction is spotted about as frequently as mountain lions. The idea is to have wealthier neighborhoods, with better schools and amenities and transit access, build their fair share of new housing to address a chronic shortage.
Zoning is a set of complex codes that determine what can legally be built on every lot in San Francisco. The codes include limits on the number of homes (or businesses) per block, on building heights, and more. Going beyond those limits requires special permission and a litany of public hearings.
Every California city must craft a new Housing Element every eight years. Before the 2023 cycle, state regulators didn’t hold cities accountable for shirking their plans. That changed with 2017 legislation championed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco.
The 2023 Housing Element gave SF three years to fill in zoning changes for neighborhoods like the Haight, Upper Market, Fisherman’s Wharf, Marina, Richmond, Sunset, and others – and finalize the map by next January 31.
For example, the current version allows 160-foot towers at some intersections in the Castro, and it doubles height limits from four to eight stories along commercial districts in the Sunset. (See map below.)
The final product must satisfy state regulators, who can otherwise force SF to consider more drastic changes handed down straight from Sacramento.
In addition to the city’s proposal, Wiener is pushing a bill to allow more density around public transit — up to seven stories within a quarter mile of BART stations and six-story buildings within a quarter mile of Muni rail and rapid bus lines. Those additions might not make a big difference around town (the SF map already calls for much higher limits around Glen Park BART, for example), but they could allow a couple more stories on busy blocks in neighborhoods overlooked by the current redesign, like Crocker-Amazon.
Why not just build affordable housing?
Upzoning skeptics say San Francisco needs affordable housing far more than market-rate homes. The state’s goals agree, designating nearly 47,000 of the 82,000 unit goal as below-market-rate.
The good news: in 2024, nearly two-thirds of SF’s housing production was affordable. The bad news: the affordable total was a measly 1,114 units because overall housing production was awful, due to economic doldrums, rising costs, and investor queasiness about San Francisco.
An affordable housing project in SF can cost nearly $1 million per unit. Cheaper modular construction will require the mayor to spend political capital. Some money comes from SF’s inclusionary system — developers must either include a percentage of units in market-rate projects or pay into a city fund. But when market-rate construction suffers, so does affordable.
With the city and state clinging to the edge of fiscal cliffs, November’s election also dashed three other hopes for funding: a $20 billion Bay Area bond; an attempt to make state bonds easier to approve; and the election of Donald Trump, killing chances of federal largesse.
SF’s own affordable housing budget could soon be $90 million lighter. Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to shift some of the city’s earmarked funds to open more temporary shelters instead.
In recent years, SF has used state grants to convert hotels into low-income housing — cheaper than new construction, but unclear how much — but there are only so many vacant hotels to go around. The often-floated idea of converting empty offices to housing, as The Frisc has reported, is much easier said than done for design and financial reasons.
Unless local and state voters approve new taxes or bonds, SF’s best chance in the next couple years for an affordable housing surge is a revival of market-rate construction.
Build 82,000 homes by 2031? Not exactly
It’s sometimes reported that the state is demanding SF build 82,000-plus homes by the end of 2031. This is not correct.
The demand is more subtle, and understandably misconstrued. California housing regulators say SF must add capacity for 82,000 new homes. It’s all about potential. The city can loosen restrictions, and even dangle financial carrots such as affordable housing grants, but private developers build the housing.
“The rezoning plan must be designed to achieve the overall housing target. The key ingredient here is the city’s commitment,” says UC Davis professor of land use Chris Elmendorf.
There is, however, a much firmer quota the city must hit. If SF does not issue permits for at least 29,049 new units by January 31, 2027, the entire rezoning design starts again, with even looser regulations. This is thanks to a Housing Element provision called the “circuit breaker” — or the “dirty bomb,” as its critics call it.
An issued permit doesn’t guarantee construction, but the 29,000 goal is more closely tied to actual construction than the 82,000 “capacity” requirement.
State regulators demanded the provision but have no specific directive how it should work. Even looser rules will almost certainly mean higher ceilings across more neighborhoods. “It’s not as strong as we would have liked, but it’s good that they did something,” says David Broockman, a UC Berkeley political scientist speaking in a personal capacity as a YIMBY volunteer lead. Broockman lobbied the state in 2022 to demand the breaker clause.
Isn’t there plenty in the pipeline?
Critics of looser zoning often note that the city’s “pipeline” has about 70,000 homes in some phase of production. If we’re already building all that, they ask, why rezone?
However, as The Frisc has reported, the pipeline is far from a guarantee, especially when megaprojects make up big chunks of it. The fiasco at Parkmerced (5,700 proposed new homes in limbo) shows how the more ambitious a project, the more ways it can face delays or perhaps not happen at all.
In fact, the state rejected an early version of SF’s 2023 Housing Element for relying too much on pipeline numbers. “The state has prescribed how many units our megaprojects can count toward long-term housing goals,” SF’s director of citywide planning Rachael Tanner tells The Frisc.
What about all those vacant homes?
Another argument against upzoning: SF should free up tens of thousands of empty homes instead.
In 2021, the U.S. Census tallied nearly 61,500 vacant units citywide. But a closer read reveals a statistical illusion. About two thirds of these homes were either for sale or lease, listed as rented or sold but not yet occupied, or listed as “occasional use,” such as vacation homes or short-term rentals. Some of these seem wasteful, but there’s no law against owning more than one home. SF law, however well enforced, also requires short-term rental owners to live in their units.
The other third of the Census count were in a gray “other vacant” area, which could mean in probate, under renovation or condemned, and so forth.
Some critics say homes that are rented or sold, but not yet occupied, are a symptom of a sick housing market. We don’t know how many are being held empty in bad faith, but it’s certainly much less than 61,500 or 40,000 (another number often cited). The critics’ solution — an empty homes tax passed in 2022 — isn’t helping tease this out; it’s been held up in court.
Is a wave of eviction and demolition coming?
According to Neighborhoods United, which opposes the new housing plan, upzoning is a formula for “speculation, demolition, and displacement.” Requiring tens of thousands of new homes means tearing down smaller homes and apartments and building larger ones, they say, because SF doesn’t have enough empty or underdeveloped sites.
“Upzoning without meaningful affordability requirements is not progress, it’s displacement in disguise,” Neighborhoods United cofounder Lori Brooke tells The Frisc.
As The Frisc reported in 2023, new rules accompanying the Housing Element make demolitions difficult. San Francisco also has some of the nation’s strongest renter protections, including free eviction defense.
Yet tenant unions and anti-eviction activists say there’s a loophole for developers to exploit with “renovictions” — that is, long-term renovations designed to evict tenants.
The fear of mass demolitions stems from racist 20th century “urban renewal” schemes, which wiped out the Fillmore, Manilatown, and Skid Row. In addition, SF has a limited stock of rent-controlled homes: anything built before 1979, but nothing after. That’s still a majority of SF apartments, but building more is almost impossible, leaving tenant advocates to face a slow war of attrition.
State and local law require that if developers demolish rent-controlled units, they must include the same amount in their new building. Displaced SF renters get first dibs on the rent-controlled units in the new building, although most folks end up finding long-term housing elsewhere during the wait.
Even if they plan to return, SF renters pushed out by redevelopment receive $8,000 in relocation fees from landlords, or more than $13,000 if the tenants are elderly, disabled, or have minor children in the household. (These costs can go higher for owner move-in evictions.)
Small businesses don’t enjoy these same protections and are more vulnerable to displacement. Last fall, supervisors approved a temporary layer of protection for so-called legacy businesses; SF planners have promised to include something more comprehensive with their final proposal. Those rules, along with more tenant protections, should be unveiled in coming weeks or months.
Is SF about to get uglier?
Opponents of new development have long been able to file objections based on neighborhood character. It just doesn’t fit in or look right, they might say.
As Castro business owner Alvin Orloff recently told The Frisc, “People would be less anxious about a lot of this new construction if the buildings just looked a little nicer.”
No longer. State rules now forbid objections based on neighborhood character. City planners have to craft objective standards that govern everything from facade details to the distance set back from the street. No more aesthetic moving targets.
However, city planners are also mindful that SF does have a certain look, depending on which corner you turn or hill you climb. Neighborhood character isn’t just a NIMBY tactic. Under state law, cities now have fewer sticks at hand to demand certain aesthetics. So the Planning Department has switched to carrots.
Under Planning’s “local zoning” initiative — a work in progress — fast-track project approvals and extra height will be on offer to developers who abide by certain design rules. “Right now through the state you can get exemptions from design standards,” SF planner Tanner tells The Frisc. “We want to offer an alternative of our own.”
Tanner calls the initiative a response to the state’s density bonus laws (see here to learn more) that allow builders to go higher in exchange for more affordable housing. These trade-offs have been appealing, she adds, but also produce buildings that don’t always fit their surroundings.
The initiative would give developers extra stories, and the city would get back a measure of control, all on a faster timetable.
As with the displacement protections, Planning has yet to issue these new design incentives. There will be plenty to debate in coming months.