Number 5. Monday June 30th, 2025
Oh Come On! Saying Zoning Density Decontrol = “Family Housing” Is Just Plain Silly
Nope. Mayor Lurie is trying to brand the proposed mega-upzoning of large parts of San Francisco as a “Family Housing Plan.” But allowing developers to stuff more studio and one bedroom apartments into a new building than now permitted via new “density decontrol” rules as included in the same legislation necessarily means there will be fewer large units built, like the three or four bedrooms that families really need.
It's not that no one has noticed this obvious technical oxymoron. So why not call it the “Techie Housing Plan”? Which is what the proposed mega re-zoning really is all about, transforming longtime City neighborhoods into upper-income enclaves for high-paid downtown workers. It's the logical next step in San Francisco’s Manhattanizing Transformation.
I suppose in our new era where fascism is being branded as freedom in our Nation’s capital, we shouldn’t be surprised to hear such outright propaganda double-speak from San Francisco’s City Hall too.
- John Elberling, Editor
What Is The SF Reality Check ?
The Future of Our City and its People is very much in doubt today. And almost every day the City’s elite and powerful, with their minions, media, and front groups, bombard us with Hype upon Hype to push their agenda and schemes to control that Future. For 50 years TODCO has been on the Central City communities’ side pushing back against this onslaught, especially challenging their urban development ideologies, from bulldozer redevelopment to trickle-down up-zoning scams. This bi-weekly Reality Check ✔︎will call out the funky economics, the empty assurances, the pseudo visions, the sucker bait at the heart of all this Hype. So many years, so many bad ideas … what fun! – John Elberling, Editor
