City Hall Rm. 400, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl, San Francisco, CA 94102, USA

Attend Rally and Hearing on 9/11 that marks the first official step toward approving Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan that will trigger widespread demolition, displace longtime renters and small businesses, and supercharge land speculation across the city.  Let City Officials know where you stand!

Weds., Sept. 10, 2025,  7-9pm - Richmond Rec Center: 251 18th Ave

City Hall’s proposed “Family Zoning Plan” calls for up to 14-story building development along California, Clement, Geary, Balboa and Fulton Streets and 4-story (12 or more units) buildings on residential streets.

This will result in displacement of small businesses and tenants, will not result in affordability, will create problems with traffic, parking, air quality, wind tunnels, environmental concerns, infrastructure strain, endless construction & a myriad of other negative impacts to our neighborhoods’ unique character and our quality of life.

Come and learn about this Plan and how you can get involved to protect our neighborhood.

At PAR’s May 21, 2025, General Membership Meeting, Supervisor Connie Chan provided attendees with updates about our neighborhood.

Supervisor Chan began by providing a summary of City Hall’s expected budget shortfall, which will result in a 15% reduction for all City departments and an overall reduction in contract spending. Federal reductions to funding MediCal, MediCare, Section 8 and other social services will also create challenges for San Francisco.

Chan also answered audience questions about expanding rent control, which cannot be expanded without changing the state law, building more affordable housing, which is only possible if both the funds and the land is available, and possibilities for the Board of Supervisors to write and pass legislation preventing small businesses displacement from upzoning. One promising option that Supervisor Chan suggested is zoning control for legacy business, which would require developers to go through the Conditional Use Authorization process through the Planning Department. Supervisor Chan wants to make this permanent.

Supervisor Chan has introduced “Right to Know” legislation in anticipation of the approval of proposed upzoning legislation. If the City is upzoning in your area and you are impacted within 300 feet of a proposed upzoning, you will be mailed a postcard to be informed.

An additional question was asked about the Great Highway closure, and whether this closure was the result of “car dependence”. Sup. Chan responded that the Richmond is not a car dependent neighborhood and has some of the most effective and highly used bus lines in the entire City: 1-California, 5-Fulton, 38-Geary. Many people voted “No on K” because there are not enough North-South bus routes between the Richmond and the Sunset and the Great Highway remains a highly used road for commuters between the two neighborhoods and beyond.

This August, there are several (and a growing number) of private, ticketed concerts produced by Another Planet Entertainment (APE) planned for Golden Gate Park, including a 3-day Dead and Co.  concert announced by Mayor Lurie, tickets for which are over $600. This will result in the closure of parts of Golden Gate Park for almost a month. There has been minimal consultation with the neighborhood about these concerts and closures.

Supervisor Connie Chan’s office hours are on Fridays from 10am - noon at Community Youth Center at 12^th Avenue & Clement.

PAR’s well-attended General Membership Meeting on May 2, 2025, dealt with the most pressing issue affecting our neighborhood: the State Housing Mandates and the looming threat of the Mayor’s rezoning plan.

To better inform our members about this issue, PAR convened a panel discussion with experts to break down the upzoning issue and how it will affect tenants, homeowners and small businesses in San Francisco’s neighborhoods.

First, San Francisco Planning Dept staff representative Rachel Tanner presented Mayor Lurie’s proposed San Francisco Family Zoning Plan, a plan created to fulfill the State’s Housing Mandate requirements.

According to Tanner, while the market rate housing requirements have been fulfilled many times over, only 10% of affordable and mixed income housing has been built in “housing opportunity areas,” over 50% of the city. The Planning Department claims that the upzoning plan will create “affordable and mixed-income housing to overcome historic patterns of exclusion and segregation.”

Moreover, if San Francisco does not comply with rezoning, we risk loss of state funding, including for transportation & affordable housing, fines and lawsuits, and state seizure of local permitting powers, the “Builder’s Remedy,” which would allow developers to circumvent local zoning control.

Lori Brooks, Co-Founder of Neighborhoods United, laid out some of the major issues with the proposed upzoning plan. The State’s Housing Mandate targets are based on pre-pandemic levels and have not been adjusted to reflect the plateau in new residents. The Housing Mandate is an un-funded mandate meaning, it does not provide any funding or infrastructure for the increased population. Should all the units required by the Housing Mandate be filled, hundreds of thousands of new residents could move San Francisco with no new infrastructure. According to Brooks, the Housing Mandate is excessive, unpredictable, risky, speculative, and punitive, and the Builder’s Remedy is a bullying tactic.

Upzoning does not translate to affordability, because as we have already seen, market rate housing dominates, and will continue to dominate. Families cannot compete against investors and international capital. Speculators can buy housing and sit on it indefinitely. The upzoning legislation has irreversible consequences: the law does not allow for down-zoning. Berkeley and Vancouver both build significantly, and both cities became more expensive as a result.

San Francisco is one of the densest cities in the country and the Richmond is one of the densest neighborhoods.

Joseph Smook of Race in Equity in All Planning provided an analysis of the upzoning plan from a tenant perspective, contending that market rate developers have already built double the luxury housing they were allowed to build, and less than 50% of the affordable housing they were supposed to build. We cannot justify the upzoning plan by claiming there is a housing shortage, when there are at least 60,000 vacant units within San Francisco.

The Planning Department has approved nearly 70,000 units that developers have not built. They have not built it because they don’t see a demand.

These actions by the state have already led to an increase in speculation, which leads to an increase in displacement. Several existing state laws need to be reversed and repealed. We need to demand truly and permanently affordable housing, and that public lands be restricted for 100% affordable housing.

Sean Kim, Vice President of the Geary Merchants Association and owner Richmond District Legacy Business Joe’s Ice Cream helped to share the perspective of a small business owner and the concerns he has with the proposed upzoning.

Joe’s Ice Cream’s new landlord wants to demolish the current building and build a new building that is 8 stories high. If this is allowed under the new upzoning plan, Joe’s will be evicted. Sean Kim believes he would not be able to relocate because the same incentives to demolish and build higher could apply to any other replacement building in the neighborhood.

In conclusion, there are many reasons to be concerned with the State Housing Mandate, the Mayor’s proposed Family Housing Plan, and another proposed legislation that would allow for upzoning of the Western neighborhoods, including San Francisco.

Planning Association of the Richmond (PAR) will continue to follow the upzoning legislation closely, submit letters of opposition and facilitate community gatherings wherever possible.

The Richmond District is in the cross-hairs of an effort by the State of California and the City of San Francisco to significantly change our neighborhood. Plans are afoot to increase building height limits for housing throughout the Richmond, which will impact our quality of life in many ways. These plans will result in more traffic congestion, less greenspace, loss of small businesses and an overall decrease in the character of our community. The Richmond will be “Manhattanized,” and Ocean Beach will resemble Miami Beach. And these plans do not meet the pressing need for affordable housing.

Please come to a Community Town Hall on March 6, learn more about these plans and how our neighborhoods could change.

We look forward to seeing you.

Hello Neighbors,

We’re looking forward to seeing you at our Winter General Membership Meeting on Wednesday, January 17, at 7pm when We will be having a March Ballot Education Session with representatives from some of the Propositions on the Ballot.  

The meeting will be held at the Richmond Rec Center at 251 18th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121. Masks are encouraged.