SF’s Single-Family Home Neighborhoods Could See More Apartments, 65-Story Towers Near Downtown | KQED

The city’s preliminary map proposes to rezone commercial corridors, including 19th Avenue, Geary Boulevard and Clement Street. The bulk of the proposed rezoning would stretch from Russian Hill to Parkside and could allow for taller buildings — up to 65 stories on certain commercial corridors — creating opportunities for thousands of new homes. The plan also includes increasing height limits in other neighborhoods throughout the city, including along Market Street in the Castro.

After multiple informational hearings where residents can offer comments and voice concerns, the proposal will go to the planning commission, where it could be amended or changed. It will ultimately have to go before the Board of Supervisors before the end of January 2026, when the city faces a state-mandated deadline to approve a rezoning plan.

If it misses that deadline, it could lose state funding for affordable housing and public transportation, risk lawsuits, fines and be subject to the builder’s remedy, a mechanism that allows developers to circumvent local building rules if the city is out of compliance with state housing law.

“The process for our rezoning is a bit of a fait accompli — we already agreed to this,” said Jane Natoli, San Francisco Organizing Director for the pro-housing lobbying group, YIMBY Action. “All we’re trying to do is honor the commitments we told the state we were going to do, at the end of the day, to build the housing we need for San Franciscans.”

From sand dunes to suburban homes

San Francisco’s decision to rezone the western part of the city marks a break from the area’s historically low-density character. Western neighborhoods were some of the last parts of the city to be developed.

During the mid-to-late 1800s, the Inner Sunset and Richmond districts were home to a handful of dairies, ranches, a chicken farm — even a dynamite factory — while the Outer Sunset stretched out in a yawning sprawl of sand dunes.

In the aftermath of the devastating 1906 earthquake, refugee camps sprang up on the city’s underdeveloped western side. Woody LaBounty’s great-grandparents even met at one of those camps in the Richmond area, he said. The lifelong Richmond resident and president of the preservationist organization San Francisco Heritage said tract houses soon began popping up atop sand dunes to replace the temporary camps.

After World War II, most of the Sunset and Richmond districts had been developed into suburban-style neighborhoods with single-family homes, LaBounty said.

“You have a yard for your family to play in, you have multiple bedrooms, you’ve got your own sort of little plot — your little estate,” he said, “even if it’s a 25-by-100-foot lot in the Sunset District.”

It’s for that same reason why many westside residents enjoy this part of town today. Paola Soto said she moved to the Outer Sunset five years ago so she and her husband could raise their daughter in a rented single-family home.

“We just loved the neighborhood and how family-oriented it is,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like part of the city, but you’re still in the city.”

But Soto said there aren’t many amenities or small businesses to patronize on her block. She welcomes the rezoning if it could bring more business activity to her neighborhood but said taller buildings could mean losing “this kind of neighborhood vibe” that she likes.

Picking and choosing

While residents like Soto are hoping the rezoning could bring new small businesses to the Sunset and Richmond, existing business owners are concerned they will be forced out. Yoland Porrata, an esthetician and board member of nonprofit Small Business Forward, owns a skincare studio in the Lower Haight.

Right now, she is trying to work with the city to establish new protections against displacement for small business owners, even if they do not own the building.

“Do we have a right to return?” she asked. “We already have super vulnerable commercial leases that are not nice and tidy in the way that some of the residential leases are.”

Along with small business owners, tenants’ rights groups are equally concerned about the city’s plan. San Francisco offers a bevy of tenant protections, but local groups worry the rezoning might encourage landlords to pressure renters to move out or evict them unlawfully.

Dyan Ruiz, a member of Race & Equity In All Planning Coalition, said her organization wants to make sure developers are following the city’s laws and that it can make sure tenants aren’t displaced.

“We want to increase the accountability and enforcement of existing laws and making sure that there aren’t gaps and loopholes that tenants are falling through,” she said.

LaBounty hopes the city can strike some kind of balance — allowing more housing while still retaining the neighborhoods’ quiet charm. Pointing out the coffee shop across the street from where he lives, he said he doesn’t want to see it go.

“You got a cafe, a dry cleaner and a bakery right in a row — everybody loves them, you know? Maybe don’t upzone those,” he said. “It feels to me like you could do some picking and choosing, and the neighborhood could totally help you with it too.”