Letter to Land Use re: Upzoning Plan
District 1Dear Chair Melgar, Vice Chair Chen, and Supervisor Mahmood:
I first want to thank Chair Melgar for your efforts in organizing the agenda for today's hearing and allowing us the opportunity for a robust policy discussion on the Mayor's proposed upzoning plan and our proposed amendments.
It is our full intention to meet the State's housing mandate and I believe that San Francisco can both meet this goal and develop without displacement.
Since this summer, I have not only been studying the Mayor's proposed upzoning plan, my team and I have also been in conversations with many stakeholders and community members in the Richmond and citywide. We have heard from many San Franciscans who are questioning whether they will be part of our City's future or whether they will be left in the past because of this proposed upzoning plan.
Together with stakeholders, we have gone to great lengths to study the Housing Element's Site Inventory and Rezoning Program previously submitted by the City and approved by California Department of Housing and Community Development (California HCD). We used the approved guidelines to evaluate the Mayor's proposed upzoning plan and have found that the Mayor's proposed plan is a significant departure from what was already approved, with a great increase of upzoning and density to sites that have existing dwelling units. This ignores the overarching principle already agreed upon by both our local and state governments, that "change that the city needs must not harm
people", as clearly stated on page 36 in the Site Inventory and Rezoning Program document.
As a result, the amendments we propose before the Land Use Committee today, will remarkably improve this Plan and add a balanced approach to encourage housing production and meet the state housing mandate, without incentivizing displacement.
Based on the model used for the Existing Sites Inventory in the Site Inventory and Rezoning Program, again a document approved by California HCD, there is a list of characteristics used to determine non-vacant sites to be excluded for rezoning unit potential. With this model determining site inventory and excluding specific non-vacant sites, the City can still meet the mandate of San Francisco's Regional Housing Needs Allocation and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing laws to accommodate about 36,282 new units in Well-Resourced Neighborhoods.
In fact, as indicated in the very same document on page 42, "Sites with existing residential uses of any amount that have not otherwise been wholly excluded from the Rezoning capacity assessment were deemed to have very low reasonable likelihood of redevelopment and, as a result, had their net capacities reduced downward (generally by 98%, leaving only 2% of their theoretical capacity represented in the Rezoning capacity)."
With that in mind, we are proposing language ranging from:
- Furthering demolition controls to protect tenants;
- Implementing nexus studies and impact fees to ensure adequate infrastructure investment, especially given the fact the City is facing existing funding challenges to build out the emergency water firefighting system for well-resourced neighborhoods, a deficit in public transit, and increased risk of tenant and small business displacement;
- Placing a "shot clock" to require developers to build within 30 months to boost housing production in the near future to meet the state mandated timeline of 2031;
- Limiting Form-Based Density to the Local Density Bonus Program to provide meaningful incentives to build family housing with 2-3 bedroom requirements; and
- Strengthening historic preservation to protect the unique characters of our neighborhoods and history of San Francisco;
In the end, when the proposed amendments are overlaid with each other, they meet one policy goal: that the is placement of tenants and small businesses should not be the cost of doing business. Instead, we can meet our housing mandate and provide incentives for developers to drive housing developments at vacant sites.
We have been in discussion with Mayor Lurie and his team almost weekly since the end of summer. Our conversation has been productive and I want to especially thank the Mayor's Deputy Chief of Staff Aly Bonde for her efforts. We have been sharing with her our amendments and continuing our conversations.
As we all know, to build housing we need both land and money. And the housing San Francisco needs most is housing people can afford. In fact, it is my intention to request the drafting and introduction of an Affordable Housing Special Use District at a later date to identify all public land, including SF Municipal Transportation Authority owned land, private land of 8,000 square feet or larger and merger lots, as well as vacant and blighted lots, and rezone them specifically for housing with a different set of local density bonus. We also must identify funding to build, and to this end I will continue to push forward conversations for a Regional Housing Bond in 2028.
I appreciate all the months of dialogue and the incredible amount of work that has gone into this upzoning plan and I know that it is our intent as a City to meet our housing needs without harming San Franciscans. I believe the amendments I have before you today will do just that. We can develop without displacement.
So again thank you, Chair Melgar and the entire Land Use Committee, for doing your due diligence of evaluating the Plan accordingly and reviewing our proposed amendments. I look forward to having your support.
Sincerely,
Connie Chan
Supervisor, District 1