San Franciscans of previous generations would scarcely have recognized the 2024 mayoral race. Of the five major candidates, four shared nearly identical, YIMBY-tinged views on housing, with vows to reduce development times and make it easier to build both market-rate and affordable housing.
Outgoing Mayor London Breed spent years honing her image as SF’s housing mayor. Corey Smith, director of the SF-based Housing Action Coalition, called her “a unique champion and advocate” in a post-election talk with The Frisc.
But Breed might have changed the conversation too much for her own fortunes. Her major rivals, including Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, were able to stake out similar housing positions and blunt her advantage.
Many voices in SF politics remain skeptical of private markets and development. “Who is the housing constituency: developers, or the people and communities who need access to affordable housing?” John Avalos, onetime Breed colleague on SF’s Board of Supervisors and current director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, asked via email.
But of the major candidates, only longtime supervisor Aaron Peskin tried to appeal to that skepticism. On the campaign trail, he locked arms with a neighborhood coalition vehemently opposed to building in low-density districts.
When one of his bills inadvertently allowed residential towers near his Telegraph Hill home base, he convinced most of the rest of the board to undo the new rules – a quintessential Peskin moment.
Even then, Peskin played on both sides of the housing debate, as he has for decades. In 2024, the board passed his bill for new bonds that promised to pay for new middle-income homes at virtually no cost to the city. Peskin came in third behind Lurie and Breed.
Voters also showed that support for a more market-rate approach through Lurie isn’t incompatible with support for affordable housing. SF passed a $300 million bond in March, then said yes to Prop. G in November, a Peskin proposal that locked in rent subsidies for low-income seniors.
Now Peskin and fellow skeptic of market-rate housing Dean Preston are off the board, replaced by pro-density members. But if the YIMBY-minded are feeling transcendent about City Hall tilting their way, actual housing construction should bring them back to Earth.
Year-end estimates show SF added about 1,200 new units in 2024, a dismally low number – worse even than 2023. It’s less than 10 percent of an annual quota needed to meet state-mandated goals, which call for 82,000 new homes built or locked in by 2031.
Housing analysts agree the city can only do so much to work against a deep economic slump that has made investors queasy. “We’ve taken aggressive steps, from implementing state laws to reducing fees and processes, but we also need to see economic conditions improve,” Breed’s director of housing delivery Judson True told The Frisc.
A year of state muscle
The year in housing 2024 will go down as yet another victory for state muscle over local control. After demanding in 2023 a blueprint for a denser city, Sacramento regulators this year filled in details. For example, they ordered the end of nebulous design and building standards to take the guesswork out of SF’s infamously long development process.
Regulators also moved to blunt the power of individuals over housing projects. The ability for neighbors to challenge and delay any plan has been at the center of SF’s housing wars for decades. But state law is pushing SF towards “by right” rules – which means a builder who follows all the rules and regulations can’t be blindsided or delayed.
It’s a big bureaucratic shift for SF. “The state has come down, and the hands of the Planning Commission are somewhat tied,” said SF architect Christopher Roach. Planning Commissioners still oversee the approvals process, but their power is diminishing with each state mandate.
Meanwhile, what could have been the biggest housing story of the year turned into a waiting game. As part of SF’s ambitious eight-year housing cycle, city planners must upzone huge swaths of the city to allow for taller buildings.
They had a plan ready in early 2024 to concentrate new homes, some in buildings of 12 stories and taller, along major transit and business corridors in the Sunset, Richmond, and other low-slung neighborhoods.
The state has come down, and the hands of the Planning Commission are somewhat tied.
SF architect Christopher Roach
But in April, Mayor Breed ordered planners back to the drawing board and said she wanted midrise apartments (up to eight stories) spread out over more streets. The planning department has been working on the new map ever since, with no updates as the mayoral election played out.
Downzoning 50 years ago capped building heights in nearly all residential neighborhoods. That’s why most new housing these days is squeezed into a handful of neighborhoods like Dogpatch, SoMa, Mission Bay, and the Tenderloin, while burghs like the Sunset and North Beach often add just a few units, if any.
However the city decides to loosen those decades of restrictions, state regulators will be watching. “The rezoning plan must be designed to achieve the overall housing targets” or the state can hit SF with sanctions, UC Davis land use professor Chris Elmendorf said via email.
The final map could end up as the most consequential housing story of 2025, but perhaps not until the end of the year. By the state’s timeline, the map needs final approval in January 2026, which likely means a contentious debate right up to – and maybe through – next year’s holiday season.
Article fails to mention the hundreds, if not thousands of in-law units built in the Richmond and Sunset over the parts 2 decades.