Neighborhood groups sue to block mayor's zoning overhaul
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The new law would add taller and denser housing to single-family home neighborhoods. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A coalition of neighborhood organizations and small businesses is suing the city to halt Mayor Daniel Lurie's newly enacted family zoning plan, arguing the sweeping rezoning law was approved without a legally required environmental review.
Why it matters: The legal challenge puts a major obstacle in front of Lurie's key housing initiative and intensifies the debate over whether upzoning helps working families or accelerates displacement.
Driving the news: The lawsuit, filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court by Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward, invokes California's landmark environmental review law — the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) — to require further analysis of the zoning overhaul's effects on public infrastructure and displacement.
- The groups behind the lawsuit contend the plan could replace rent-controlled homes with luxury units, threaten longtime small businesses, strain public transit and allow for building heights and densities that were never fully studied.
Of note: Some amendments were included in the plan to ensure protections for small businesses and renters and to exempt historic properties.
What they're saying: "It really is designed to push out San Francisco's working class," Christin Evans, who owns The Booksmith on Haight Street, said of Lurie's plan. "We need affordable housing more than we need market rate housing. We don't want to see a future where all new housing developments cater to the very wealthy."
The other side: City officials and the mayor's allies have said the family zoning plan is necessary to meet state housing mandates and retain local control over development decisions.
- The measure aims to add taller and denser housing to help fill a 36,200-unit shortage and address the state's housing crisis. The city is behind on meeting a state goal of building 82,000 new homes by 2031.
- "The family zoning plan will help us build the affordable homes (families) need to stay here," the mayor's spokesperson Charles Lutvak said in a statement. "The status quo isn't working for families in this city, and we're not going to wait around for someone else to do something about it."
- In a statement to Axios, Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city's attorneys office said the plan is the "product of years of study, outreach, and hearings" and that the city "took deliberate steps to comply with its obligations under state law, including CEQA."
- We will review any lawsuit once we are served and will have more to say in court," she added.
What's next: The plaintiffs are seeking a court-ordered pause of the plan while a full review is conducted.
- A potential 2026 ballot measure to overturn the plan is also being considered.