After three years of labor and argument, San Francisco passed the Family Zoning Plan in December. It lifted 50-year-old restrictions on building heights and densities across many neighborhoods, including the Sunset, Richmond, and Marina Districts.
But the plan avoids many other neighborhoods considered “priority equity” areas where residents are more likely to be low-income renters than in other neighborhoods. The Tenderloin is one of the city’s lowest-income, for example, and Chinatown, the Mission, and the Bayview are home to minority populations that at various times in SF history have been subject to restrictive racist policies and redevelopment.
But the city’s decision not to loosen building restrictions in these neighborhoods doesn’t mean they’re off-limits. Thanks to a new law from SF’s own state Sen. Scott Wiener, whose earlier work also led to the Family Zoning Plan, select parts of south and east neighborhoods, including the Bayview, Mission, and Excelsior, must be unlocked as well.
The law, SB 79, also calls for changes to parcels in Potrero Hill, along Guerrero and Valencia Streets, and in other areas that are not designated for equity protection.
SB 79 requires California cities to make housing easier to build near major transit lines. In many cases, this new round of zoning only means small-bore changes, such as making room for a single new home near St. Mary’s Playground in the Outer Mission. But some parcels will be zoned for more, such as 20-plus units next to the former Candlestick Park site or at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Guerrero Streets. In all, planning documents call them “modest zoning changes.”
All affected sites are all within half a mile of BART, Muni, and Caltrain stops and stations. The first local hearing is at the Planning Commission Thursday afternoon. The new rules will then make their way to the Board of Supervisors, which must approve them by July 1.
If SF doesn’t meet that deadline or tries to modify the rules, SB 79 could trigger more dramatic upzoning across much more of the city. “Even if they are against this type of legislation, supervisors don’t really have a choice,” says Zach Weisenburger, policy analyst at SF-based Young Community Developers.
The train has left the station, in other words. But that doesn’t mean new housing is coming to these key neighborhoods anytime soon. The Family Zoning Plan was one of SF’s most substantial land-use changes in decades, but actual production will depend on the economy and other factors. The city’s chief economist last year made rather modest projections.
Like it or not, SB 79 will now make more room. The current changes encompass some 2,080 sites, mostly in the city’s south and east, but planners have not projected how many actual homes those sites could reasonably produce.
The ‘spirit’ of 79
On its own, SB 79, or the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, would drastically boost height and density limits in San Francisco, well beyond the changes spelled out in the Family Zoning Plan. (See map below.)
When it was on the verge of passing last year, former Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin called it “a betrayal.”
But SF will almost certainly be spared from these upper limits. That’s because the law has a loophole that lets cities create their own new zoning maps around transit. SF’s Family Zoning Plan does that for the most part. It “provides a way for the city to satisfy the spirit of SB 79 — which is to place homes near transit — in ways that support San Francisco’s urban fabric,” SF’s Director of Community Planning Rachael Tanner tells The Frisc.
This “local alternative plan” also presents a legal pincer that Wiener also used in his legislation that led to the Family Zoning Plan: Cities can plan for more housing or else lose some or all local control to the state, which would likely mean even more housing.
But while the Family Zoning Plan satisfies most of the state’s demands, it leaves the city a few homes short in some areas, including those given equity priority. The most new extensive changes are in Districts 9, 10, and 11, which were spared from the Family Zoning Program except for a sliver of D11. Because SB 79 focuses on housing near major transit corridors, the map reflects the influence of Mission Street (BART and Muni) and Caltrain.
The supervisors representing these districts, Jackie Fielder (D9), Shamann Walton (D10), and Chyanne Chen (D11), voted against the Family Zoning Plan and voted to condemn SB 79 last year for “encouraging land speculation, displacement, and gentrification.”
None of the supervisors or their staff returned requests for comment. Erick Arguello of the Mission’s Calle 24 Cultural District is fiercely protective against neighborhood change. When contacted, he said he wasn’t aware of the SB 79 mandate to add housing capacity on and near 24th Street.
It’s unlikely Fielder, Walton, and Chen will vote for the SB 79 changes, but a density-friendly majority of the board is currently in place.
The deadline to pass the changes is July 1; the Planning Department says the package should reach the board in April.
Timing is important. The pro-density majority could change after June’s two special elections, in which challengers are vying to oust supervisors Alan Wong and Stephen Sherrill. Both voted for the Family Zoning Plan.
If the board decides to put a stick in the SB 79 spokes, the city could face state sanctions and would default to a map that allows even more housing density across the city.
There’s another twist. In large chunks of SF’s southeast neighborhoods, roughly mapping to the priority equity designation, the SB 79 zoning won’t kick in until 2032.
Weisenburger of Young Community Developers says the changes “completely contradict” planning priorities around equity neighborhoods. He echoes criticism of other upzoning plans, saying SB 79 doesn’t guarantee affordable housing: “Here in the Bayview, people are interested in new housing, but the interest is in housing they can afford.”
Legally, SF can’t zone for affordable housing. Zoning only accounts for the size and footprint of buildings. For affordability, city law requires new developments of 10 or more units include at least 12 percent affordable housing, although developers can use state law to go as low as 10 percent in some buildings. Any site can be used for 100 percent affordable housing, but as developers of those properties note, having room for midsize buildings via upzoning is an important first step toward building them.
At least a few local voices not only support SB 79 but hope for more aggressive options if local lawmakers undercut the current rules. One Bernal Heights neighborhood group was disappointed to be excluded from the Family Zoning Plan. “Bernal Heights remains a wealthy enclave of single-family homes,” says Upzone District 9 spokesperson Brandon Powell. “SB 79 could be one way to allow the neighborhood to do its part to keep working families in San Francisco.”
For now, room for more Bernal Heights housing would only happen if the supervisors reject the current SB 79 plan and trigger a more drastic map. In the city’s housing politics, a lot can happen in three and a half months.