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

San Francisco officials want to make way for more housing. Where to put it? In quiet neighborhoods on the west side, historically known for single-family homes.

On Thursday, the city’s planning department will release details of a preliminary proposal to allow mid-rise apartment buildings, up to eight stories tall, along major streets in the Richmond and Sunset districts, along with some other neighborhoods in the northwestern part of the city. It’s also proposing to allow buildings up to 65 stories tall along certain major corridors.

The department will host an informational hearing about the plan, which will be livestreamed, on April 10.

For decades, city officials concentrated housing development on the southeast side of San Francisco, including the Mission District, South of Market and the Dogpatch, which allow for taller buildings. Meanwhile, large swaths of the Sunset, Richmond, Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods currently only allow for buildings up to four stories tall.

As San Francisco faces pressure from the state to plan for more than 82,000 new apartments by 2031, city officials are considering opening these northern and western neighborhoods to apartments six to eight stories tall along major streets, with some large boulevards, such as Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue, going up to 65 stories tall near the city’s downtown.

Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who represents several of the neighborhoods proposed to be rezoned, said the changes could help bring activity back to once-lively areas of the city.

“Post-pandemic, San Francisco has not rebounded in the way that other cities have, and we have an opportunity to really thoughtfully increase vibrancy in certain areas of the city,” Sherrill said. “By doing that with residents, we can be really effective in planning for the long-term future of the city that stays true with San Francisco.”

According to the city’s Principal Planner, Lisa Chen, the decision to add more apartments to the west side is thanks to a state mandate requiring the city to direct new development to well-resourced neighborhoods. People living in the northern and western neighborhoods have some of the highest incomes, home values, employment rates and better educational attainment rates than their eastern counterparts.

Chen said that if the city were to plan for housing in those areas, the people eventually living there would have access to better resources, such as public transit, parks, high-performing public schools, retail, and community facilities.

“The reality is that we have already rezoned many parts of the southern and eastern neighborhoods,” Chen said. “While we can continue to look for more opportunities to add housing in those areas, the state is requiring that the emphasis of this rezoning and the majority of units be placed in the well-resourced neighborhoods.”

This can be done sensitively, said San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, by focusing development along major corridors in the western and northern parts of the city.

“I think people are going to continue to want to work here and live here,” he said. “I think we do need to try as best we can to accommodate that. And I think we can do it without destroying what we love about San Francisco. I think we can balance those things.”

However, the plan is receiving mixed reactions from residents, some who want more activity in their suburban-style neighborhoods and others who worry it could displace vulnerable renters and small businesses if the properties they occupy are redeveloped.

“I can see people being forced out of their homes, rent-controlled apartments and buildings being destroyed and luxury market-rate housing being built in its place,” said Don Misumi, a member of tenants’ rights group Richmond District Rising. “There’s not really much doubt in my mind unless things start to change and I see some concrete proposals that are going to provide tenant protections, that are going to provide protections for small businesses.”

San Francisco’s planning department has already approved roughly 58,100 new apartments, largely to be built in the eastern part of the city, that are awaiting construction. However, to reach the state’s goal of planning for more than 82,000 new units, the department is proposing that some of the remaining homes be built in the north and west sides.

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.”