Is Eviction, Displacement & Homelessness in Your Neighborhood’s Future?
High-Rolling Housing Hucksters
The only families that will benefit from Lurie’s “Family Housing” plan already live on easy street.
• • • • • • August 2025 • • • • • •
Why didn’t the San Francisco Land Use and Transportation Committee’s District seven (D7) Committee Chair, Myrna Melgar want to notify San Francisco residents of the massive rezoning changes to the planning code that would impact their neighborhoods? The Committee was counting on an uninformed public. Public ignorance is political bliss.
In opposition, Sup. Connie Chan (D1) introduced legislation that would require the Planning Department to send a notice by US mail to every residential or commercial tenant and every property owner within 300 feet of a proposed zoning change. Chan’s legislation won at the Board of Supervisors on an eight to three vote. The three votes against the legislation were Myrna Melgar (D7), Bilal Mahmood(D11) and Matt Dorsey (D6).
Melgar said that the rezoning notification to the public is “not necessary.” Why would Melgar be worried about 300,000 notifications? Well, maybe 200,000 residents might be concerned and another 50,000 residents might be angry.
For the D7 supervisor who represents a moderate district with the most residential housing, Melgar is starting to act more like a YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) every day. It might be time for her to have lunch with Scott Wiener and Joel Engardio to discuss strategy.
Replacement of Demolished Units for Tenants and Small Businesses
“In the neighborhoods I represent, many have a lot of concerns and doubts about displacement,” Chan said. “Not just tenants, but small businesses and aging homeowners, are worried they could fall victim to speculative real estate investors and be displaced.”
Under the plan, stipulations require that any demolished rent-controlled unit be replaced with another rent-controlled unit and that the displaced tenants have the right to return to the new building in areas targeted for increased density and potential demolition. Real-life experience has shown that rent-control residents usually cannot afford to wait while their housing is torn down and rebuilt.
Every homeowner and renter should attend these two meetings
Thu • Sept • 4th
D4 & D7 Town Hall is to ensure west side residents are aware of what’s happening with the rezoning, and energize them, after they receive the public notices and ahead of the Sept 11 Planning Commission Vote & Sept 16th D4 Recall Election of Joel Engardio. There will be press coverage and potentially a live stream.
RSVP HERE Limited space
Location: Irish Cultural Center
CRITICAL Planning Commission Meeting
Thu • Sept • 11th
City Hall • Room 400 • Noon
Planning Code and zoning map amendment
Case# 20021-00587CWP / Board File Nos: 250700 and 25076
QR Code LINK
Mayor Lurie’s “Family Zoning” plan in San Francisco is the subject of intense debate among tenants. Many concerns have been raised about its potential impact on existing tenants. While the plan aims to increase housing availability and affordability, opponents argue that it will lead to displacement.
While Lurie’s plan will succeed in making developers rich, the quality of life in San Francisco will be greatly diminished for many tenants and small business owners. Rent and housing prices will increase — not decrease — because of the scarcity of land. Less affordable housing will be built, and fewer small businesses will remain open. There will be less affordable housing — not more.
“This isn’t an affordable housing program. This is a real estate development plan, a plan for speculators. … Haight Street will see the displacement of roughly 50 percent of neighborhood businesses. There is nothing in this plan to preserve neighborhood-serving retail,” Calvin Welsh writes In a 48 Hills, August 3 article, titled “Small Business Commission rejects (for now) Lurie’s upzoning plan,
Further, “If you want it in this plan, this commission [Planning Commission] must come up with the language. … You should amend the plan to require preservation of neighborhood businesses and neighborhood shopping districts.” Welsh is right.
The upzoning plan is difficult to understand
Developers and billionaires run San Francisco (Lurie is a billionaire). Billionaires and developers donate to local politicians, and this gives them immense power over City Planning. So…this provides the simplest explanation of Mayor Lurie’s “Family Zoning plan.
Ask former Planning Director Rich Hillis, “I’m looking forward to taking some time off and thinking about what is next for me,” he wrote in his May 3rd resignation letter.
The Family Zoning plan was never about affordability. The Planning Department was ordered to create as much height and square footage as possible for developers. The plan was designed to demolish huge chunks of residential housing and Neighborhood Districts (NCDs). The demolition zones are permanent. Now that most of Planning’s permit and CEQA and building guidelines have been removed or reduced, developers can do just about anything that they want to.
Developers can also dodge the affordable housing requirements by paying an inclusionary housing fee or In-Lieu fees to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD). By paying these fees, Developers can now purchase the Planning Department’s permission to build much more profitable Market-Rate structures. As they carve-up San Francisco’s NCDs and residential housing, developers will make a fortune.
The Mayor’s “Family Zoning Plan” should be renamed “The Developer’s Demolition and Displacement of NCDs and Residential Neighborhoods” plan.
Over 50% of San Francisco’s storefronts have already closed: A San Francisco Chamber of Commerce study from August 2020 revealed that 54% of storefront businesses in San Francisco closed due to COVID-19 — approximately 1,300 closures.
Data from the city planning department suggests that a significant number of small businesses in neighborhood commercial districts (NCDs) could face displacement under Mayor Lurie’s plan to allow more housing density. Developers might be encouraged to demolish existing small buildings, which often house small businesses, to build larger residential structures. San Francisco’s small business community may start to face extinction.
No small business can survive waiting for four years to have its location rebuilt. Some San Francisco Supervisors are discussing creating a small business relocation fund. Where will the business go, and what will it cost to relocate? How much money would a developer be charged? Supervisor Myrna Melgar is trying to create legislation to develop this fund.
It’s important to note that the Mayor’s plans are multifaceted, and some aspects can potentially displace existing residents. Where will these residents go?
Under San Francisco’s 2022 housing element and state law, the city must expand housing affordability and availability. This proposed citywide rezoning may increase the height and/or density limits of your neighborhood or other neighborhoods.
The main purpose of this massive rezoning was to build more affordable housing. The only affordable housing that will be built will be subsidized by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD). The MOHCD is broke. Developers will not want to build new affordable housing because it will not be profitable.
While Lurie’s plan will succeed in making developers rich, the quality of life in San Francisco will be greatly diminished for many tenants and small business owners. Rent and housing prices will increase — not decrease — because of the scarcity of land. Less affordable housing will be built, and fewer small businesses will remain open. There will be less affordable housing — not more.”
Under existing planning guidelines, developers can pay the city extra money (inclusionary housing fees and/or in-lieu fees) to circumvent affordable housing rules. So the city makes money on projects that do not abide by affordable housing guidelines, and developers sell residential units at market-rate prices.
While some YIMBYs will still be living in their parents’ basements, San Franciscans with an average median Income (AMI) of $150,000 or less could not afford to purchase “affordable housing” without being subsidized.
“This rezoning legislation is a key step toward meeting our state housing goals. We are laying the foundation for small and midsize housing projects in areas of the city where we have seen little housing production, allowing us to welcome new residents while supporting long-term tenants and small businesses,” said Sarah Dennis Philips, Director of San Francisco Planning Department. “The mayor’s Family Zoning plan effectively balances the preservation of our city’s character with the necessary flexibility to ensure San Franciscans across all income levels can continue to call this great city home.” Phillips was appointed by Lurie to be the new planning director in June.
Phillips’ statements regarding the Mayor’s Family Zoning Plan is pure puffery. The Family Zoning Plan is only partially about height, density and affordability; its real purpose is to create permanent demolition zones throughout San Francisco — especially on the Westside.
Ninety percent of the Planning Department’s revenue comes from issuing permits.
The endgame “Density Decontrol” in San Francisco. Density Decontrol is a zoning policy being proposed in San Francisco that would remove unit limits on properties, allowing developers to build as many or as few residential units as possible within a building’s height and space limitations. This proposal is a key part of San Francisco’s efforts to address its housing crisis and meet state-mandated housing targets.
Residents should certainly be aware of Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan, especially if they wish to save San Francisco’s small businesses, residential housing, and special character of our neighborhoods, and be allowed to respond before the legislation becomes law.
If you love San Francisco, please don’t support Mayor Lurie’s housing plan. Neighborhood character will be destroyed as 40-foot-high housing will be allowed in residential mid-block streets and 55+ foot residential housing will be built on corner lots. NCDs will be built at 65 - 140’+.
PLANNING COMMISSION HEARING DATE: Thursday, September 11, 2025
Place: City Hall, 1 Dr. Carleton B. Goodlett Place, Room 400, 12:00pm (noon)
CASE TYPE: Planning Code and zoning map amendment
San Francisco Planning Commission
Project Name: San Francisco zoning plan (Housing Element Rezoning program)
Case# 20021-00587CWP / Board File Nos: 250700 and 25076
QR Code Link: https://sfplanning.org/sf-family-zoning-plan
George Wooding, Neighborhood Activist Emeritus
August 2025
