By Christin Evans, HANC Board
Following a September hearing at the Planning Commission, the Mayor’s ‘Family Zoning Plan’ moved forward to the Board with a vote of 4 to 3 (with the more progressive commissioners in the dissent).
A sprawling piece of legislation, Mayor Lurie’s proposed changes remove density controls, incentivizes demolition of rent control units, and lacks any meaningful plans to address affordability in new housing construction.
No fewer than Six Supervisors have proposed amendments to the Mayor’s plan, and as a result a series of hearings have been undertaken by the Planning Committee and the Land Use Committee to hear public comment on the various amendments.
At HANC’s October meeting, Quintin Mecke from the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) contributed to our community conversation about the predictable impacts of upzoning and the limitations of using zoning alone to try to incentive new housing production — notably that it redirects the conversation away from the real solutions to achieving affordable housing production. He recently recapped these concerns in a newsletter he sent out as follows:
“. . . here’s the truth: 56% of the required rezoned units—20,300 of 36,200—must be for low-income households in order for the City to meet its state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) goals.
This isn’t just a policy target—it’s a moral mandate to house those the private market will never serve on its own.
Yet nowhere in the Family Zoning proposal is there a realistic plan to achieve this. There’s no funding strategy, no framework for the use of public land, and no path to produce deeply affordable homes. The private market is simply not designed or equipped to deliver deeply affordable units, and inclusionary Below Market Rate (BMR) requirements—while important—produce only a fraction of what’s needed.
Without a plan for real affordability, this proposal risks zoning for numbers instead of people. “
His recommendation is for concerned community members to contact Supervisors and advocate for three things:
1. Create an Affordable Housing Special Use District (SUD) - Establish a clear framework to prioritize and incentivize 100% affordable housing in rezoned areas.
2. Prioritize Publicly Owned Sites for 100% Affordable Housing - Dedicate feasible public parcels—such as Kirkland Yard—for 100% affordable projects to ensure that upzoning results in equitable development, not speculative private gain.
3. Commit to a 2026 Affordable Housing Funding Measure - Pair zoning reforms with public investment. A voter-approved 2026 housing bond is essential to unlock the 17,675 affordable units already in the development pipeline—homes that are ready to build but stalled for lack of financing
The next major hearing is on November 17 at Land Use where a number of amendments and companion legislation will be voted upon, including Supervisor Chen’s tenant protections ordinance, and Supervisor Chan’s amendments to disallow incentives for demolition of sound housing including demolition of rent controlled units, removal of certain density decontrols and more. It’s expected that final votes on the Family Zoning Plan will be before the Board of Supervisors in December and January.