The Facts

San Francisco may be on the wrong side of the law after it banned new construction in huge swathes of Soma and Bayview last May.

In response, YIMBY Law and two other pro-housing organizations have sued San Francisco to overturn the ban. State law allows industrial land to be exempted from upzoning, but only if that land doesn't already have housing. The suit alleges that roughly 1,900 parcels were thus illegaly exempted.

You can read their full argument at yimbylaw.org.

The Context

State Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 79 allows denser housing near major transit, but included provisions for Cities to enact alternative plans if they were roughly equivalent. San Francisco took the alternate plan route via Family Zoning.

But the Planning department and the Board of Supervisors added a permanent carve-out for land with warehouses that the state did not require, and, according to the lawsuit, doesn't allow. GrowSF warned in May that this was foolish.

The GrowSF Take

We think the plaintiffs are right. Preserving genuinely productive industrial land can make sense, but permanently blocking homes on transit-accessible land where housing is already legal does not. The Board should repeal Planning’s carve-out rather than spend years defending it in court only to lose.