San Francisco Rezoning Push Falls Short of Housing Goals

A cornerstone of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s housing plan is too optimistic, according to the City Controller’s Office

It is meant to create tens of thousands of homes over the next two decades through a rezoning push, but even in the best-case scenario, the city will fall far short of that.

Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan expects to create 36,200 new homes by rezoning 92,000 parcels across the city. But in reality, the rezoning likely will generate between 8,500 and 14,650 new homes by 2045, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing a report from the Controller’s Office. 

The gap between what the city hopes to accomplish in the next 20 years and what it can reasonably expect to build largely comes down to housing prices and how they trend over the coming decades. 

If housing prices rise in line with the rest of the country, similar to before the pandemic, then it’s predicted that just 10,098 homes would be built on the rezoned parcels.

If the city’s housing prices rebound to pre-pandemic levels by 2030 and then grow faster than the nationwide market until 2045, then up to 17,845 new homes are predicted for the rezoned parcels.

Without rezoning, those same parcels likely would produce just 1,600 to 3,200 homes.

The city of San Francisco has been tasked with planning for 82,069 new homes as part of the state-mandated housing production cycle. A city report this spring showed capacity for 58,100 new units between permitted projects and existing zoning. 

It all comes down to whether developers and homebuilders can feasibly produce the number of housing units the city can make way for by rezoning. 

“We want it to be faster than what the numbers show, but that is not something we as a city can be in control of,” city planning director Sarah Dennis Phillips told the outlet. “We understand that the more capacity we create, the more we’re creating better conditions for the economy to work in. But we can’t change the economy.”

— Chris Malone Méndez

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