San Francisco officials are seeking exemptions for swaths of the city it is classifying as industrial employment hubs or “low-resource” zones, including the Bayview.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco is swapping a controversial state law that would allow taller housing along transit corridors for a similar but more tailored plan despite objections from some pro-housing groups.
SB 79, a state law that upzoned transit corridors in California’s cities, will go into effect on July 1. The law contained a provision that would allow cities to propose alternative plans, and San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed its answer to the state law on Tuesday, exempting some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and industrial zones from the new rules.
The plan, sponsored by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office, passed the board unanimously.
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Some pro-development groups criticized the plan, arguing the city should do whatever it can to increase its housing capacity amid an ongoing affordability crisis and state mandates that require 86,000 homes be permitted by 2031. So far, the city has permitted very few of the homes required and is not expected to meet its goals.
The state law mandates minimum height and density requirements in commercial and residential areas within a half mile of train and light rail stations and some bus stops. San Francisco is one of the most transit-rich cities in the state and roughly 80% of parcels are within the zones the state law would apply to, according to Joshua Switzky, the Planning Department’s deputy director of citywide planning.
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But San Francisco is also unusually dense already compared to other big California cities, like Los Angeles and San Jose. Lurie’s “Family Zoning” plan, which added density and increased height limits in the city’s western and northern neighborhoods when it passed last year, means San Francisco is eligible to circumvent SB 79’s requirements provided state officials sign off the exemptions.
“After the ‘Family Zoning’ plan we … have way more capacity than other cities by a long shot,” Switzky said.
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Still, officials are seeking exemptions for swaths of the city it is classifying as industrial employment hubs or “low-resource” zones.
The low-resource zones, including most of the Bayview, parts of the Mission and some areas around the Excelsior, are home to low income residents who could be particularly vulnerable to displacement or gentrification, Szwitzky said. They will be excluded from SB 79 height and density requirements until 2032. Those neighborhoods were also excluded from family zoning as well.
The industrial areas — three zones in the South of Market, Mission Bay and Bayview neighborhoods — will be permanently exempted from SB 79. Supervisor Myrna Melgar, one of the proponents of the exemptions, said that keeping industrial zones intact is important to preserve “blue collar industrial jobs” which are “sort of the backbone of working class communities.”
GrowSF, a moderate political group with ties to Lurie, and SF YIMBY, a pro-development group, urged supervisors to reject the industrial exemptions in a letter last month.
“This section permanently exempts several transit-rich areas of the city from SB 79 … meaning mixed-income housing will be illegal to build there,” the groups wrote.
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The groups’ opposition to the plan marks an unusual split between the influential political groups and Lurie, who has made housing a key part of his first term in City Hall.
Brandon Powell, the Bay Area organizing director for YIMBY Action, called the city’s push to exempt the industrial parcels “baffling” in a statement last week.
“It’s disappointing that our government continues to treat new housing as a punishment instead of the foundation of the city’s thriving future,” he said.
But Switzky pointed out that the exemptions merely mean that current zoning won’t be immediately overwritten by the state’s legislation. City lawmakers would still have the power to allow housing in industrial areas in the future, should they choose to do so, he said.
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“People who think we should not have any industrial land say we should just let it go forever, but that’s not the city’s current policy,” he said. “We’re not obligated to let SB79 override our existing policy.”