The Facts

San Francisco has a new zoning map that will welcome tens of thousands of new families and preserve $100 million in state Affordable housing funds.

The Board of Supervisors voted 7–4 to approve Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Family Zoning” plan which covers about 60% of the city, largely northern and western neighborhoods. Along key transit corridors on the west side, height limits will rise into the 6–10‑story range, with some parts of Lombard and Van Ness allowing taller buildings.

The Context

Family Zoning is San Francisco’s answer to state law requiring the city to plan for more than 82,000 new homes by 2031 in its certified Housing Element. About 36,000 of those units must come from rezoning “high‑resource” western and northern neighborhoods by January 2026, or the city risks losing some local control and state housing and transit funds. The plan builds on former Mayor London Breed’s reforms.

The GrowSF Take

This vote is historic. It is the first meaningful residential upzoning since the city was downzoned on September 18, 1978 -- nearly 50 years ago!

The Environmental Impact Report of the 1978 downzoning was prescient:

The proposed amendments would reduce the allowable density in many neighborhoods, so that, approximately 180,000 estimated fewer housing units could legally be built in San Francisco. As a result the demand for housing in certain neighborhoods may not be accommodated. Prices and rents may be bid upward as a result of limited supply in some neighborhoods.

If housing prices and rents are forced higher than would normally be expected, adoption of the proposed amendments may displace low- and moderate-income and elderly households.

• Environmental Impact Report for the 1978 downzoning

In short: policymakers knew that downzoning would worsen affordability and displacement, and that is exactly what happened over the next fifty years. On tuesday, December 2, 2025, the Board of Supervisors finally took a step to reverse that damage.