Membership Meetings: 2nd Thursdays ~ 7-9pm
Park Branch Library, 1833 Page St, SF, CA 94117 (except August)

HANC Membership Meeting - May 2026

 

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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.

HANC sent this letter regarding upzoning to the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor:

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To All members of Board of Supervisors

Copy to Mayor

November 3, 2025

The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) has devoted much time and attention to the proposed rezoning of the central and western portions of San Francisco, the largest City initiated re-zoning in the last 50 years.  Two General Membership meetings in February and June  2024 were solely devoted to the issue and again two more General Membership meetings were again devoted to the issue in May and October, 2025.  In addition, an evening meeting with Principal Planner Lisa Chen and Planner Sara Richardson was hosted by HANC which included both the Haight Street Merchants and the Cole Valley Merchant organizations in June of this year to discuss in detail the proposals impacts on the wider Haight-Ashbury. Finally, nearly every monthly HANC Board of Directors meetings over the last two years have included a report on the issue.

By Alice Mosley, HANC Board

A coalition of advocacy groups called “Muni Now Muni Forever (MNMF)” met on Oct. 30th to discuss the latest prospects for addressing the fiscal cliff faced by Muni.

Mayor Lurie convened a Muni Funding Working group to address the gaping hole in funds of $322 million beginning July 2026. (Members include the SF Board of Supervisors, Controller’s Office, SFMTA Board of Directors, Business, Labor, Community advocates and transit experts.)

In its report so far it has found that (surprise surprise!) there was little support for major cuts to services (including eliminating multiple bus lines and ending service at 9 pm, to name just a couple of ideas).

The most innovative revenue raising measure is an initiative adopted around the state known as a Variable Rate Parcel Tax. Rather than a flat rate parcel tax, whereby a small condo is levied the same tax as a mansion in Pacific Heights, or more flagrantly absurd, Salesforce Tower or Chase Center, the tax would be levied on a per square foot basis. It is seen as more equitable, and has proved successful as a ballot initiative in 17 out of 18 municipalities, in some cases getting more than 70% of ballots cast.

By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Board

 

On September 16, 2025, in a special election in his home district, D4 Supervisor Joel Engardio was recalled. By a landslide. This was the first election since a rightward political shift at City Hall and just nine months into new Mayor Daniel Lurie’s term. 

Engardio was the driving force behind the controversial Proposition K, a citywide measure that permanently closed the Great Highway to vehicle traffic to create a park. In 2022, the 3 time loser barely won his district election after a dubious redistricting process and after centering his campaign on the two recalls of then DA Chesa Boudin and members of the SFUSD school board. Today Engardio is a casualty of the recall machine he helped build, one that incited voters to remove electeds not for misconduct, but for policy differences. So here we are.

By David Woo, HANC Board

The application results for affordable housing at 730 Stanyan show the actual nature of the affordability crisis in San Francisco. This past July, 8,599 households applied for 95 available units at 730 Stanyan (translating to 90 applications per unit!) through the city’s affordable housing program (“DAHLIA”) administered by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD). There are certain “preferences” when applying with MOHCD that put you higher on the list for a unit (units are decided by a lottery). Of the 8,599 households that applied, 1,103 qualified for the Neighborhood Resident Housing Preference, and 7,270 qualified for the Live or Work in San Francisco Preference. (Find application results here: https://housing.sfgov.org/listings/for-rent#lottery-results).

By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC President

At our September meeting, we heard from Bruce Hartford, from Indivisible-SF and from Ted Lieser from the Doolan-Larson House.  (We had invited the ACLU of Northern California to update us on their activities, but they were unable to attend).

Bruce Hartford let us know that Indivisible is an independent organization, not affiliated with any other group or any political party, although it is anti-Trump and anti-MAGA.  He came to urge us to support California Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act.  Prop. 50 is a response to Texas, Missouri, and Ohio, states that are redistricting their Congressional districts in the middle of the decade, instead of shortly after the census.  They are doing this because the MAGA policies are so vile, the Republicans would likely lose control of Congress in 2026 without changing the rules of the game.

By Calvin Welch, HANC Board

Mayor Lurie's massive rezoning of the entire Haight-Ashbury, all of western and most of central San Francisco and  its policy of demolition and displacement of  rent-controlled housing and neighborhood-serving and legacy businesses, its elimination of any  public participation in the approval process,, repealing  affordable housing and transit impact fees requirements from market rate housing proposals and its abject failure to provide funds needed to maintain and expand transit service to the affected areas will be discussed at HANC's October 9th General Membership meeting.

Quintin Mecke, Executive Director of the 16 member Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) will present his concerns over the failure of the proposal to address the affordable housing needs of the vast majority of San Franciscans and the plans actual uselessness in the actual production of needed housing.  CCHO members are the City's major affordable housing producers having built or rehabilitated some 30,000 permanently affordable housing units in San Francisco

HANC devoted its entire May meeting to the topic (see https://youtu.be/NWjV1dkE2QQ for a full video of the meeting). On September 11th the Planning Commission passed the proposal on a 4-3 vote where it failed to get one vote of any of the Supervisor-appointed Commissioners, showing the distinctly partisan character of the proposal. The growing opposition to the proposal was starkly shown at a press conference the same day when Lurie was booed for extended periods during his remarks.  With political insight sure to cause even more problems Lurie had Sup. Engardio speak in support of the plan over the crowds booming shout of "five more days.,  five more days" referring to his recall election on September 16th at which he was  recalled, in part because of his support of  Lurie's rezoning proposal.

  1. Calendar
  2. New Park Station Captain Angela Wilhelm
  3. HANC Officer and Board Nominations are Open
  4. American Civil Liberties Union Update on Local Community Work
  5. Doolan-Larson House Update
  6. Has the Commission Streamlining Gone Off the Rails?

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