The Family Zoning Plan: What 36,000 New Homes Actually Means for SF Streets

San Francisco just passed the biggest rezoning in a generation. Thirty-six thousand new homes. That's the headline.

Here's the number they don't want you to focus on. The city's *own* economist says the plan will probably produce somewhere between eight thousand and fifteen thousand units. And not by 2031 — over *twenty years*.

So you've got a plan that promises thirty-six thousand, a city economist saying maybe fourteen thousand if everything breaks right, and a lawsuit trying to shut the whole thing down before a single unit gets built.

Mayor Lurie's Family Zoning Plan — it passed seven to four in December, it's already the law, and it is already in court.

Today we're breaking down where the upzoning actually lands, who benefits, who's fighting it, and whether that thirty-six thousand number is a real target or just the number San Francisco needed to write down to keep the state off its back. [PAUSE: 2s]

It's a big one. Let's get into it.

Good morning, I'm Holden Carter.

And I'm Naomi Zhao. Welcome to the show.

So today we are digging into one of the biggest land use decisions San Francisco has made in years. On December 2nd, 2025, the Board of Supervisors passed Mayor Daniel Lurie's Family Zoning Plan. Seven to four vote. Lurie signed it into law ten days later.

And on paper, this is massive. We're talking about rezoning that creates capacity — at least on paper — for thirty-six thousand new homes by 2031. Mid-rise housing along major transit corridors. Geary, Taraval, Judah, 19th Avenue — all getting bumped to eighty-five-foot height limits. Van Ness gets the really dramatic stuff, we're talking tall towers.

But here's the thing. That thirty-six thousand number? The city's own chief economist, Ted Egan, looked at the math and said hold on. His projection? Maybe eighty-five hundred to fourteen thousand six hundred units over twenty years. Not thirty-six thousand by 2031.

So is this a housing revolution or a paper exercise? That is the central tension we're pulling apart today.

Right. And we've got a lot to get through. First, we're going to walk through exactly which corridors are getting upzoned and what that actually looks like block by block. Then we'll talk winners — property owners, pro-housing groups, the city itself avoiding state penalties.

Then the other side. Displacement fears. Small business owners worried about speculation. One bookstore owner told Axios this plan is, quote, "really designed to push out San Francisco's working class." And those concerns aren't just talk — there's now a CEQA lawsuit trying to freeze the whole thing.

And we'll close by stress-testing that thirty-six thousand number. What does the economics actually support? What else would the city need to do to turn zoning capacity into actual buildings with actual people living in them?

It's a big one. Let's get into it.

Okay, so to really understand what happened on December 2nd, we need to rewind and talk about why San Francisco was under the gun in the first place. Because this plan didn't come out of nowhere. The state of California essentially told the city: you need to zone for more housing, or we will make you.

Right, this is the RHNA framework — the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Sacramento looks at every city and says, here's how many homes you need to plan for by 2031. And San Francisco's number was big.

Huge. The city needed to show zoning capacity for roughly 36,000 additional units. And the deadline to get a compliant rezoning done? End of January 2026. So when Mayor Daniel Lurie introduced his Family Zoning Plan back on June 24th, 2025, the clock was already ticking.

And the consequences of missing that deadline weren't abstract, right? This wasn't just a stern letter from Sacramento.

Not even close. If San Francisco failed to adopt a compliant rezoning, it would've been exposed to what's called the "builder's remedy" — which basically means developers can bypass local zoning rules entirely. The city loses control. So supporters of the plan kept hammering that point: pass this, or developers write their own rules.

So walk me through what the plan actually does. Because "Family Zoning Plan" sounds cozy. What's changing on the ground?

Two big moves. First — and this is the headline — the plan upzones major transit and commercial corridors, especially on the north and west sides of the city. We're talking 65-foot height limits on east-west commercial streets like California, Clement, and Balboa. And then 85-foot limits on the big transit corridors — Geary, Taraval, Judah, 19th Avenue.

So we're talking five, six, maybe seven-story buildings along those streets?

Exactly. Mid-rise. And then there's the dramatic one — Van Ness. That corridor gets the most aggressive upzoning in the whole plan. We're talking very tall tower allowances, concentrated right along that transit spine.

Okay, but what about the neighborhoods in between? The residential blocks?

And this is the part that's actually kind of subtle. Most residential blocks keep their existing height limits — your familiar 40-foot, four-story envelope. But — and this matters — the plan removes density limits inside that envelope. It's what planners call "density decontrol." Same building size, but you can fit more units in it.

So your neighbor's building doesn't get taller, but it might go from three units to five or six.

That's the idea. It's a form-based shift. You regulate the shape of the building, not how many doors are inside it.

Now the Planning Commission approved this on a pretty tight vote back in September — four to three — and then it goes to the Board of Supervisors. And that vote was heated.

Seven to four on December 2nd. The no votes: Supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Jackie Fielder, and Shamann Walton. Mayor Lurie signed it into law ten days later, December 12th. [PAUSE: 2s]

So let's talk about the number everyone keeps citing — 36,000 units. Is that real?

This is where it gets really interesting. That 36,000 is a planning capacity number. It's what the zoning would allow on paper. It is not a construction forecast. And the city's own chief economist, Ted Egan, ran the numbers. His analysis, which came out in late October before the vote, projected the rezoning would actually produce somewhere between 8,500 and 14,600 net new units.

Over what time frame?

Twenty years. Not six. Twenty. So even the best-case scenario is less than half the headline number, and it takes three times as long.

That's a massive gap. So what fills it? Hope?

Essentially, the argument from the technocratic side — and these are people who support more housing — is that zoning alone doesn't build anything. You still need financing, you need streamlined approvals, you need subsidies for affordable units. Construction costs in San Francisco are among the highest in the country. Interest rates are still elevated. Mission Local reported the rent impacts under even the rosiest scenario were quote "modest."

So you've got supporters saying this is necessary and historic, opponents saying it's a displacement engine, and the city's own economist basically saying — it's a start, but don't kid yourselves about the math.

That's exactly right. And that tension didn't go away after the vote. It escalated. On January 9th, 2026, a coalition called Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward filed a CEQA lawsuit to pause the whole thing. Christin Evans, who owns the Booksmith on Haight Street, told Axios — quote — "It really is designed to push out San Francisco's working class."

So the plan is law, but it's immediately in court.

Law on paper, contested in practice. And that's where we are right now.

Alright, let's get into the details of this thing, because the Family Zoning Plan is not one simple idea. It's a layered rezoning package, and where the changes land on the map tells you everything about the politics.

So here's the basic framework. The plan keeps most residential blocks at their current height limits — we're talking the familiar forty-foot, roughly four-story envelope that defines a lot of San Francisco neighborhoods. Your block of Victorians? Probably looks the same on paper. But — and this is the important but — density limits get loosened or removed inside that envelope. So you could fit more units into the same building size. It's what planners call a form-based shift.

Right, so the building doesn't get taller, but you might get three apartments where there used to be one. That's the quiet part of the plan. The loud part? The corridors.

The corridors are where the real action is. The Chronicle's map breaks it down nicely. East-west commercial streets like California, Clement, and Balboa get bumped to sixty-five-foot zoning. That's roughly six stories. Then your major transit corridors — Geary, Taraval, Judah, Nineteenth Avenue — those go to eighty-five feet. We're talking eight stories along some of the busiest bus and rail lines in the city.

And then there's Van Ness.

Van Ness is the headline. Multiple outlets describe it as the most dramatic upzoning in the entire plan. We're talking very tall tower allowances along that corridor. The logic is straightforward — it's a major transit spine, the BRT runs right through it — but the scale of what could go there is a real departure from anything the west side of the city has seen.

Now, notice what's happening geographically. A lot of this upzoning is concentrated on the north and west sides of the city. And that's intentional. Under the state's housing framework, San Francisco has to show it's creating capacity in what Sacramento calls "high resource" areas — wealthier neighborhoods that historically have not built much housing.

Which brings us to winners. Corridor property owners are obvious winners. If you own a parcel on Geary that was zoned for forty feet and it's now zoned for eighty-five, your land just became significantly more valuable on paper. Pro-housing groups like GrowSF treated the passage as a major victory. And the city itself wins in terms of state compliance — this plan is how San Francisco avoids the so-called builder's remedy, where developers can essentially bypass local zoning if the city isn't meeting its housing targets.

The vote was seven to four on December second. Mayor Lurie signed it ten days later. The four no votes — Supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Jackie Fielder, and Shamann Walton. And Naomi, the political fallout from those no votes has been immediate.

Immediate and sharp. GrowSF essentially put targets on the backs of those four supervisors, publicly vowing political pressure. This rezoning vote is going to be a defining fault line heading into 2026 elections. You voted no? The pro-housing movement is coming for you. That's the explicit message.

Okay. Now let's talk about the number everyone keeps throwing around. Thirty-six thousand units.

Thirty-six thousand.

Is that real? [SFX: DRAMATIC_STING]

It depends entirely on what you mean by real. And this is where the plan's critics — and honestly, even some of its supporters — get uncomfortable. Thirty-six thousand is the zoning capacity target. It's what state law requires San Francisco to plan for between 2023 and 2031. The city has to show on paper that its zoning could accommodate that many new homes. And the Family Zoning Plan checks that box.

But checking the box and building the housing are two very different things.

Completely different. The city's own chief economist, Ted Egan, ran the numbers. His analysis, which came out in late October before the vote, projected that this rezoning would likely produce — in an optimistic scenario — about fourteen thousand six hundred net new units. And that's not by 2031. That's over twenty years. The lower-end estimate? Around eighty-five hundred units over two decades.

So the city's own economist is saying, best case, you get roughly forty percent of the headline number, and it takes four times as long.

That's the math. And even that best-case projection showed only modest impacts on rents. Mission Local reported on this — the affordability effects were described as marginal even under rosy assumptions. Which tells you something really important: zoning alone does not solve affordability. You need subsidies. You need below-market-rate production. You need construction costs to come down. You need interest rates to cooperate.

So where does the skepticism land beyond the numbers?

It lands on displacement. And this is where it gets emotional. Christin Evans, who owns the Booksmith on Haight Street, put it bluntly to Axios. Quote: "It really is designed to push out San Francisco's working class." The argument is that when you upzone a commercial corridor, land values spike, and that creates pressure — speculative acquisition, rent increases for small businesses, landlords looking to cash out. The tenants and the legacy businesses on those corridors are the ones who feel it first.

And that skepticism has now become a lawsuit.

January ninth, 2026. Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward filed suit under CEQA — the California Environmental Quality Act — seeking to pause the whole thing. Their argument is that the city didn't do adequate environmental review. They're citing infrastructure impacts, displacement impacts, all of it. And as of right now, in March 2026, that lawsuit is live and hanging over the plan's implementation.

So to sum up where we are: the Family Zoning Plan is law. It's the city's operative rezoning framework. But the gap between what the zoning allows and what actually gets built could be enormous. And there's an active legal challenge that could delay or reshape the whole thing.

That's exactly right. The plan is simultaneously a real policy achievement and a promissory note. The corridors are drawn, the heights are set, the capacity is there on paper. But paper capacity doesn't put keys in anyone's hand. The hard part — the building part — that depends on money, on permits, on political will, and right now, on a judge. [PAUSE: 2s]

And that tension between the plan on paper and the plan in practice — that's going to define San Francisco housing politics for years to come.

Okay, so the plan passed, the mayor signed it, confetti, handshakes, the whole thing. But now let's get into what this actually *means*. Because I think there are three very different ways to read this story, and they're all kind of true at the same time.

Yeah, and the first one is the most straightforward. If you're a pro-housing advocate, if you're GrowSF, if you're anyone who's been pushing for more supply in San Francisco for years — this is a landmark win. Full stop. The city just upzoned its major corridors. Geary, Taraval, Judah, 19th Avenue — those get 85-foot zoning. East-west commercial streets like Clement, California, Balboa — 65 feet. Van Ness becomes the big high-rise play. And critically, this hits the north and west side of the city, neighborhoods that have historically built almost *nothing*.

And that's the equity argument that supporters lean on hard. These are high-opportunity, high-resource neighborhoods. Good schools, good transit access, and for decades they've essentially said "not here." This plan says "yes, here."

Plus there's the compliance angle, which is huge. San Francisco had a state deadline — end of January 2026 — to show it had enough zoning capacity for its RHNA housing targets. If the city missed that deadline? You're looking at state intervention, potential loss of local control, and the builder's remedy, which basically lets developers bypass local zoning altogether. So passing this plan was also about keeping Sacramento at arm's length.

Right, so that's reading number one: necessary, overdue, a real policy shift. Now let's talk about reading number two, which is the displacement and small business concern. And I want to take this seriously because this isn't just abstract NIMBYism. Christin Evans, she owns the Booksmith — beloved independent bookstore in the Haight — she told Axios, quote, "It really is designed to push out San Francisco's working class."

And here's the mechanism she's worried about. When you upzone a corridor, you're not just changing what *can* be built. You're changing what that land is *worth*. A one-story commercial building on Clement Street that's zoned for 40 feet? That's one price. The same parcel zoned for 65 feet? That's a very different number on a speculator's spreadsheet.

So the fear is — and this has happened in other cities — property values jump, rents go up for existing tenants and small businesses, and the new housing that eventually gets built is market-rate luxury product that the people who got displaced can't afford anyway.

And you see this concern reflected in who voted no. Supervisors Chan, Chen, Fielder, Walton — these are members who represent communities with deep displacement anxieties. The Mission, the Tenderloin, Chinatown-adjacent areas. They're looking at this and saying, where are the guardrails?

Which brings us to the CEQA lawsuit filed in January by Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward. They're arguing the city didn't adequately study the environmental impacts — infrastructure strain, displacement effects — before passing this thing. And whatever you think about the merits of that lawsuit, it signals this fight is far from over.

Far from over. Okay, but Holden, I think the most interesting reading — the third one — is the math critique. And this comes not from opponents, but from the city's *own* economist.

Ted Egan. The Controller's Chief Economist. [SFX: DRAMATIC_STING]

Ted Egan. His office ran the numbers, and here's what he found. The headline — 36,000 new units of capacity — that's real on paper. That's how much the zoning *allows*. But what will actually get built? His best-case scenario? About 14,600 net new units. And not by 2031. Over *twenty years*.

So roughly 40 percent of the headline number, over three times the timeline. And the low-end estimate was around 8,500 units.

And here's the kicker — even at that optimistic 14,600-unit projection, Mission Local reported the rent impacts would be *modest*. We're not talking about some dramatic affordability breakthrough. Zoning is necessary but it is not sufficient. You still need financing in a high-interest-rate environment, you need construction costs to come down — which, good luck in San Francisco — you need streamlined approvals, you need subsidies for below-market units.

So the 36,000 number is doing a very specific job. It's a compliance number. It tells Sacramento, "Look, we have the zoning capacity you asked for." But it is not a forecast. It's not a promise. And I think the danger is when politicians treat it like one.

Exactly. And even some housing advocates who *supported* the plan will privately tell you — this is step one of like twelve steps. Without fee reform, without approval streamlining, without converting some of that empty office space downtown, zoning alone is a permission slip that nobody can afford to use.

So where does that leave us? You've got a real policy achievement that satisfies the state, a real displacement concern that's now playing out in court, and a real math problem that nobody in City Hall wants to talk about too loudly. [PAUSE: 2s]

Welcome to San Francisco housing policy, everybody. Where every answer creates three new questions.

Okay, so let's bring this home. You live in San Francisco, you're listening to this right now — what does this actually mean for you?

Right, let's break it down by who you are. If you're a renter — and most San Franciscans are — the honest answer is: don't expect dramatic rent relief anytime soon. The city's own economist projected only modest affordability impacts even in the best-case scenario. Zoning alone does not solve affordability. You need subsidies, you need below-market-rate construction, you need a whole ecosystem.

And if you're a renter on one of those upzoned corridors — Geary, Clement, Taraval — pay attention to your building. Increased development potential can mean increased land values, which can mean new incentives for landlords to sell. Know your tenant rights. Document everything.

If you own property on one of those corridors, this is potentially significant. Your lot may now allow a much larger building than before. That's real value. But — big but — actually developing it still means navigating San Francisco's entitlement process, securing financing in a tough interest rate environment, and dealing with construction costs that are among the highest in the country.

And here's the number everyone should have in their head. The headline says 36,000 units. The city's own chief economist says the realistic range is 8,500 to maybe 14,600 units — and that's over twenty years, not six.

So manage expectations accordingly.

If you're a small business owner on a commercial corridor, watch the CEQA lawsuit. Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward filed in January. If the court pauses implementation, that changes timelines for everybody. If it doesn't, development pressure on those corridors could accelerate.

And honestly? The single biggest practical takeaway for everyone is this — this plan is necessary but not sufficient. It's the zoning permission slip. The actual housing still needs financing, streamlined approvals, and political will to keep pushing. The rezoning is step one. Not the finish line.

Watch what happens next. That's where the real story is.

Alright, rapid fire — let's rip through the Family Zoning headlines. Lurie's plan passed the Board seven to four on December 2nd, signed into law ten days later.

The four no votes — Supervisors Chan, Chen, Fielder, and Walton — and GrowSF is already targeting them politically heading into 2026.

Geary, Taraval, Judah, 19th Avenue — all getting bumped to 85-foot zoning along those transit corridors.

Van Ness is the big one — that's where the real tower heights land, the most dramatic upzoning in the entire plan.

Now here's the number everyone needs to hear — the city's own chief economist says expect maybe 8,500 to 14,600 units over twenty years, not 36,000 by 2031. [SFX: DRAMATIC_STING]

And it's already in court — Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward filed a CEQA lawsuit in January trying to pause the whole thing.

So the plan is law, the lawsuits are flying, and the actual construction math? Still very much TBD.

Alright, that is going to do it for today's show. Quick recap: the Family Zoning Plan is law, the CEQA lawsuit is live, and the real number to watch is not thirty-six thousand — it's somewhere between eighty-five hundred and fourteen thousand six hundred units over twenty years. That's the gap between the headline and reality.

Watch the lawsuit, watch the construction permits, and watch those 2026 supervisor races. This story is far from over.

We'll stay on it. Thanks for spending your morning with us. I'm Holden Carter.

I'm Naomi Zhao. Have a great day, everybody.