Upzoned: Does It Measure Up?
San Francisco’s Family Zoning Plan could boost construction work — so long as key concerns are resolved
This is the second article in a three-part series exploring San Francisco’s Family Zoning Plan, which the City claims will expand housing affordability and availability by allowing for increased density along transit and commercial corridors. View all stories in the series here.
Opinions on the Family Zoning Plan (FZP) — San Francisco’s major rezoning proposal intended to meet state housing element requirements by creating enough zoned capacity for tens of thousands of new homes — span as widely as the Golden Gate Bridge. Some argue the plan isn’t worth a hill of sourdough, while others believe it could have a generational impact on the City, for better or for worse.
One thing is becoming clear, however: If done right, the FZP could provide steady work for the building trades for years to come.
A ‘Generational Opportunity’?
The FZP, introduced by the City’s Planning Department earlier this year, responds to a mandate from Sacramento requiring that California cities show where new housing could be built over the next several years or face penalties. The FZP is San Francisco’s effort to meet that obligation by creating zoning capacity for approximately 82,000 new homes, including 46,000 affordable units. Major corridors such as Van Ness Avenue, upper Market Street, and mid-Geary Boulevard would see significant height increases.
“If you ask any employer, they will say good housing for their workers is at the top of the list,” Mayor Daniel Lurie told the San Francisco Chronicle in April. “Housing is at the heart of so many of our challenges, from affordability and homelessness to economic recovery.”
Naturally, the prospect of new construction and taller buildings points to more work for the building trades.
The San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council underscored that potential in a recent letter to Lurie. The council wrote that the proposal contains “strong and thoughtful elements” that modernize outdated zoning, expand housing options for families, and “stimulate much-needed construction activity across the City.”
Looking ahead, the letter — signed by SF Building Trades Council Secretary–Treasurer Rudy Gonzalez — described the FZP as “a generational opportunity.”
Alex Lantsberg, research and advocacy director for the San Francisco Electrical Construction Industry, initially approached the FZP with skepticism. But he now echoes some of the same optimism, albeit cautiously. He noted that recent state streamlining laws, especially Assembly Bill 130, provide powerful tools for accelerating housing approvals. These laws come with varying labor standards.
“There’s going to be a lot of potential for construction activities that’s going to put a lot of union members to work,” Lantsberg said. “We want developers to understand that we would much rather be enforcing our contracts on their jobsites than enforcing prevailing wages.”
Lantsberg also noted that as office development continues to decline, housing construction offers the most viable replacement for lost work-hours across the trades. The FZP, he said, “will offer a lot of opportunities for that to happen.”
But What About…?
However, talk around the FZP is not all gumdrops and rainbows.
Quintin Mecke, executive director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, said that one of his biggest concerns is the potential loss of rent-controlled housing. He warned that the FZP leaves too much room for demolition without guaranteed protections for existing tenants.
“The idea that they would even leave [open] the possibility that a developer could eliminate rent-controlled housing and replace it with something else — without ensuring anything — is a hard one,” Mecke said.
Because of these concerns, the building trades’ support for the FZP is conditional, while the San Francisco Labor Council has taken an “oppose unless amended” stance.
Lantsberg noted that early analysis showed the FZP could unintentionally put tens of thousands of rent-controlled units at risk. Many of these buildings — often small, two-story structures — would see their allowable height doubled or even quadrupled, making redevelopment financially tempting.
In recent weeks, the SF Board of Supervisors, with the mayor’s support, voted to remove rent-controlled buildings with three or more units from the plan.
Lantsberg also pointed to a major missed opportunity: More than 51,000 single-family parcels remain essentially frozen at existing height limits, even with density bonuses. He said that unlocking those sites would shift the City toward “turning expensive single-family homes into relatively affordable apartments, rather than turning relatively affordable apartments into more expensive apartments.”
Train Leaving the Station?
Mecke feels that much of the zoning talk is just that — talk. He’d rather see the City focus on the thousands of approved units that aren’t moving forward and remain stuck in the pipeline — far more concrete than the speculative capacity figures in the FZP.
“Unless we create a tangible plan and pathway to fund it, finance it, and create true possibilities for unlocking the pipeline, none of this feels real,” Mecke said. “It feels more like just a zoning exercise.”
He argued that today’s economic conditions make it extraordinarily difficult to build any kind of housing. So, this moment calls for a far stronger public-sector role.
Mecke’s organization urged the City to create an affordable housing special-use district within the FZP and to deploy public land, especially several SFMTA sites well-suited for 100%-affordable housing. But neither proposal made it into the plan; the SFMTA might instead sell the parcels to plug short-term budget gaps, and the special-use-district language could be introduced later.
Mecke said that both labor and affordable housing developers want the same thing: real projects that put people to work.
“We’d love to see your members get work,” he said. “We’d love to have our folks at work. We know how it works when it’s actually humming.”
Despite the fanfare, Mecke views the FZP as more theoretical than transformative.
“Zoning doesn’t build homes,” he said. “This is the Family Zoning Plan, not the ‘family financing plan’ or the ‘family bonds measure.’”
Lantsberg has issued a similar warning that the FZP is a work in progress. The City, he said, is “laying the tracks as we’re heading toward the destination.”
“As I’ve said to a number of people throughout the process, there’s no question in my mind that it will be approved,” Lantsberg said. “The stakes for not approving it are too high.”