At the end of the Planning Commission hearing on neighborhood upzoning last week, Commissioner Amy Campbell had a question. It got to the heart of the entire debate about density, housing, and affordability.
Here’s a transcript:
Campbell: It seems like there’s a lot of curiosity around like the legitimacy of some of these assumptions that people are are sharing around the fact that upzoning will translate to a diversity of housing or more inclusive options, and I wondered if we could provide some more research or data or maybe examples from other cities where similar up zoning has occurred and it’s had a positive windfall like that.
[Excellent question. Will upzoning actually make housing more affordable, or is this just about developers making more money and displacing existing vulnerable communities?]
Lisa Chen, a senior planner who presented the upzoning proposal, had an excellent, honest answer:
So we’ve been working on racial and social equity analysis for probably too long at this point because there’s a lot of research out there and we’ve been trying to take a balanced approach and really kind of bring all of it in.
Last year I went to a symposium in New York at the Urban Affairs Association and a conference that was convened with researchers and practitioners all about rezoning and what the impacts are across cities. It’s a really new area of research, relatively, because we’ve had, you know, many places that have downzoned over many years, but we haven’t had that many places that have upzoned and particularly in well-resourced neighborhoods.So you know, I think the answer is you can always find a study to make your point, you know things that are going to say this is going to bring very bad impacts or it’s not going to lead to affordability or it’s going to raise prices. But you can also find studies in the opposite.
And so we’re trying to kind of bring all that together and show what we actually know and what we don’t know. What we do know is that places that have very restrictive zoning are correlated with higher prices and and more challenging housing markets.
What we don’t know is what happens when we change the zoning.
And I think what the nuance to answer is it really depends, and that’s really what the research is showing because in the case of San Francisco I think we’re really good about pairing our rezonings with a whole suite of other policies like inclusionary housing and tenant protections that can help mitigate some of the unintended consequences. And so I think that’s really what our strategy is here.
We’ve always said all along that housing the rezoning is not a panacea and we really need the totality of the housing element and the policies to really back that up as well.
It’s true there are lots of competing studies, and that in the US, we don’t have a lot of examples of cities with high housing prices allowing much more density (except maybe Manhattan, where more density and lots of high-end housing development hasn’t brought down prices at all). We do know that Vancouver, BC, did exactly what the state wants San Francisco to do, and if the goal was bringing housing prices down, it was a spectacular failure.
Adding more high-end housing in the Mission hasn’t brought prices down, but it has caused displacement.
We also know that places with restrictive zoning may have higher prices, but that correlation is not causation. Higher prices are much more closely linked to an influx of high-paid workers and gentrification; “constraints” on new development don’t seem to be a major factor.
But what’s fascinating here is that the Planning Department really doesn’t know what will happen if we allow far more density, including demolitions, on the West Side of town. It’s an experiment—in communities that could see a huge negative impact.
San Francisco does have some policies like inclusionary housing (at a very low level right now) and tenant protections, but they are nowhere near strict enough to prevent massive displacement, largely because the state won’t allow cities the tools they need to accommodate these changes.
There are no protections at all for small businesses.
The West Side may be a “well resourced” area, meaning people there have more money than they do on the East Side, although that’s not always true. Some West Side homeowners are property rich and cash poor.
But more than that, along all these commercial corridors, tenants live in rent-controlled buildings, and hundreds of small businesses are struggling—and allowing developers to demolish those buildings will displace those tenants and put those shops out of business.
Chen said that the department does not support the demolition of rent-controlled housing. There are no policies against demolishing buildings with small businesses.
I really appreciate Chen’s honesty here. She’s a good planner and she told the truth: The city is using West Side neighborhoods as test subjects, without a clear idea of the result.
Just for the record, this city does not have a great record on planning “experiments” that impact vulnerable communities.
The commission will hear Thursday/17 a presentation on
The current state of small businesses within the “Housing Opportunity Area” and policies and programs that can support them as new housing development is built.
Meanwhile, four supes are asking that property owners be notified, by mail, of any potential upzoning in their neighborhoods. It’s a pretty simple idea: If you’re going to change the development rules, and it’s going to impact people who live in the area, they ought to know what’s happening.
But it will probably get pushback; already, the Planning Department is complaining about the cost (in the realm of a few hundred thousand dollars, at most, in a rezoning plan hose potential impacts will be in the tens of billions). And some in the Yimby world will say that it will only stir up more opposition to the upzoning.
It’s hard for any district supe to vote against neighborhood notice, but so far only Sups. Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, and Chyanne Chen are in favor. That’s generally the four-vote progressive minority.
The Land Use and Transportation Committee will hear that proposal Monday/14 at 10am.
San Francisco has a huge problem with family homelessness, and some city shelters have been a refuge for people who are trying to find more permanent shelter. But thanks to a policy that dates back to the COVID days, shelter stays are limited to 180 days—and families in the Mission have faced eviction.
Sup. Jackie Fielder, who has been on the front lines of this struggle, has a resolution urging the mayor to “rescind or drastically reform the family shelter length of stay policy and work with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) and the Board of Supervisors to develop reforms that avoid placing undue stress on families, while improving flow in the system, including increasing shelter and housing options to address family homelessness.”
That measure comes before the Government Audit and Oversight Committee Thursday/17. The meeting starts at 10am.
The city’s move to take over Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s local infrastructure moves another step forward Thursday/17 when the Planning Commission hears formal comments on the Environmental Impact Report on the project.
The Draft EIR is a bit technical and complicated, involving different ways of moving electrical cables, but the bottom line is simple: For more than a century, PG&E has operated an illegal monopoly in this city, costing the ratepayers and the city treasury billions of dollars.
For decades, public-power supporters have tried to get the city to take the final step necessary to create a full municipal power system: Seize PG&E’s transmission system by eminent domain.
The voters have already approved the revenue bonds. Now all it takes is a majority vote at the Board of Supes and the signature of the mayor.
Interesting to see if anyone other than PG&E lobbyists shows up at the hearing to oppose the plan.
That meeting starts are noon.
