“Family zoning”: More homes coming soon to San Francisco

The Facts

A new zoning map that makes it legal to build more homes will take effect later this year. The changes, which are required by state law, enact “family zoning” across most of the city to allow homeowners to add new units with separate entrances (and kitchens!) to their homes, promotes bustling commercial corridors with modestly higher height limits (up to about 6 or 8 stories, generally), and much more height & density along Van Ness north of Market.

These changes don’t require anything new to be built, they just change what is allowed to be built. The vast majority of changes don’t touch height limits, which remain between 3 and 4 stories almost everywhere.

The Context

State law requires San Francisco to update its zoning map to make it likely that 82,000 new homes will be built. If the City fails to do so, the state will take over our housing approval process, automatically allow almost any project to be built, and disqualify San Francisco from essential state funding that we spend on public transportation and subsidized working class housing. Because the city’s existing zoning has room for about 58,000 more homes primarily on the East side of the city, the new map adds extra homebuilding capacity on the West and North sides.

GrowSF polling indicates that building more homes is extremely popular.

The state requires that this new zoned capacity be primarily located in “high resource” areas, which doesn’t have an exact definition but generally means something like “wealthier” or “with more neighborhood amenities,” and to exclude lower income and historically disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is why the map focuses on Pac Heights, Noe Valley, the Castro, the Richmond, and the Sunset, and why the Mission, Outer Mission, and Bayview Hunters Point are not changed.

Prior zoning changes from years past, under the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, and the Central SoMa Plan, already made room for new homes in those neighborhoods. Despite these changes, though, under current zoning apartments are illegal to build in over 70% of the city. This new plan shrinks that number to near zero!

The GrowSF Take

It’s time to build! Thanks to leadership from the Lurie administration, San Francisco’s future will be more affordable. We strongly support this new zoning map, loaded with “family zoning” that will give homeowners the legal right to subdivide or add new units to their homes. That will legalize aging parents moving into a backyard addition, or kids coming back from college to have a launch pad in a convenient studio apartment in Mom & Dad’s house, complete with separate entrance and kitchen.

We’re particularly excited that this new family zoning is going to unlock a ton of workforce development in the craftsman trades. Small scale builders conquered the sand dunes to build San Francisco, and they’re going to build our future, too.