Rezonings Are Redevelopment 2.0: Grassroots Organizations Reject Mass Demolitions Proposed by SF Planning

PRESS RELEASE for Thursday, February 1, 2024

San Francisco – Today at noon in City Hall, the San Francisco Planning Commission held a hearing focused on the Planning Department’s Final Zoning Proposal also called “Rezoning.”

The Race & Equity in all Planning coalition (REP-SF), which is comprised of dozens of grassroots housing justice organizations from across the city, spoke about the severe negative impacts of the proposed rezonings/upzonings for historically marginalized communities and neighborhoods.

“These rezonings threaten to displace a huge number of small businesses and tenants throughout San Francisco and will destroy our communities. This is Redevelopment 2.0 and we reject this plan. The rezonings have been arbitrarily rushed to completion two years ahead of the state's January 2026 deadline, and are not the result of any meaningful community engagement. Meanwhile, there are no plans to get to the 57% affordable housing mandated by the state,” says Jeantelle Laberinto of the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF).

“I want residents to look at the map of the proposed rezoned areas and think of all the small businesses and homes that are effectively slated for demolition through these rezonings, by encouraging developers to redevelop these areas. The grocery stores, restaurants, medical office buildings and shops we all rely on everyday – mom and pop shops and their employees that got us through the pandemic – will all be gone if all of these plans come to fruition. The same goes for all the tenants that live above these buildings,” says Dyan Ruiz of the REP-SF coalition.

“This isn't planning – it's simply a plan to redevelop our communities through market deregulation and developer giveaways. This upzoning proposal does not provide anything our communities need – it only benefits for-profit, market-driven interests. It is completely the opposite of a plan that was supposed to be centered around racial and social equity. We need to protect and stabilize tenants and small businesses across the city – not displace them,” says David Woo of SOMA Pilipinas, a member of the REP-SF coalition.

“The Japanese community in the Fillmore suffered through the Redevelopment era and now decades later, we are seeing the that neighborhood I live in is being targeted with upzonings that will create the same type of urban renewal and severe harms for my community,” says Don Misumi of Richmond District Rising, a member of the REP-SF coalition.

“Planning’s rezoning proposal silences historically marginalized communities, provides no truly affordable housing, and decimates the community networks and infrastructure that low-income and communities of color rely on to be able to survive in this city,” says Gilbert Williams of People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), a member of the REP-SF coalition.

Please read the attached educational resource to learn more about the rezoning and upzoning included SF Planning’s Zoning Proposal. The resource defines key terms and highlights key points of the Zoning Proposal, reflecting REP-SF’s housing and land-use analysis and the perspectives of our communities.