by Christin Evans
As tenant activists decry development plan, one supe looks to drafting ballot measure as an alternative
In a heated session of the Board of Supervisors’ December 2 meeting, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s controversial “family zoning plan” to upzone the western and northern sides of San Francisco passed on a 7–4 vote. The board’s more left-leaning supervisors—Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Shamann Walton and Jackie Fielder—voted to oppose the plan.
Tenant rights and affordable housing activists had testified at City Hall public comment for months about their concerns that Lurie’s zoning plan would incentivize for-profit development at the expense of rent-controlled tenants and didn’t go far enough to build affordable housing that people who earn under $100,000 could qualify to live in.
“This is obviously a blow for tenants, at a time when San Francisco is facing its highest rate of evictions in over a decade,” said Fred Sherburn-Zimmer, director of Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco.
Supervisors Chan and Chen had introduced amendments to the mayor’s plan that would have included greater protections for all rent controlled units and tenants. However, Land Use Committee Chair Myrna Melgar and committee member Bilal Mahmood voted to table any amendments they argued would reduce the capacity the plan had to allow for housing construction. However, the plan’s focus is to accelerate the development of mostly luxury and market-rate housing—only about 10% to 15% of housing built would be required to include affordable units, and even then the developer could opt to pay an additional fee so that the affordable units would not be built at all.
“Supervisors Chan and Chen have drafted common-sense amendments. … They are pushing a pro-housing vision that is also pro-affordability, pro-tenant and pro-working families,” said Peter Stevens, director of Build Affordable Faster CA.
Because these amendments were not made before the bill was passed, they are eligible to become ballot measures in 2026 and 2028.
“As we all know, to build housing we need both land and money,” Chan wrote in a letter to the board. “And the housing San Francisco needs most is housing people can afford. In fact, it is my intention to request the drafting and introduction of an Affordable Housing Special Use District at a later date to identify all public land, including SF Municipal Transportation Authority-owned land, private land of 8,000 square feet or larger and merger lots, as well as vacant and blighted lots, and rezone them specifically for housing with a different set of local density bonus. We also must identify funding to build, and to this end I will continue to push forward conversations for a Regional Housing Bond in 2028.”
In the meantime, tenants rights groups continue to protest the demolition provisions in the mayor’s zoning plan, which would allow for sound housing, including rent controlled units, to be demolished and replaced with luxury housing. On December 8, Chen’s Tenant Protection Ordinance (TPO), which would ensure that the City would comply with existing local and state laws before demolition, was heard again at the Land Use Committee.
“We are focused on ensuring the TPO provides the greatest possible protections to tenants under existing laws,” Race & Equality in All Planning and the Anti-Displacement Coalition, two housing advocacy organizations, wrote in a letter to City Hall.
