Citywide Community Coalitions Urge Planning Commission to Reject Mayor Lurie’s Upzoning Plan
PRESS RELEASE for Thursday, September 11, 2025
San Francisco, CA – Today on the City Hall steps, the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF) and our allies are holding a silent upzoning counter-rally in response to a rally hosted by Mayor Lurie and developer lobbyists. Tenant advocates, small business owners, affordable housing groups, and families are sounding the alarm about Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan, which, if passed, will increase speculation and accelerate the displacement of tenants and small businesses across the city. At today’s hearing, the Planning Commission will vote on whether to approve the Mayor’s destructive upzoning. This is the final step before the upzoning goes to the Board of Supervisors.
“REP-SF strongly opposes Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan, which does not serve families, will make rent more expensive, will increase the displacement of tenants and small businesses, and will make it impossible for San Francisco to develop the affordable housing we desperately need. We are running out of time and must act now to change course. We urge the Planning Commission to say no to the Mayor’s displacement plan, and instead invest in a real community plan to refocus on affordability and real opportunities for families, seniors, and working people,” says Jeantelle Laberinto of the REP-SF coalition.
“The upzoning plan threatens tenants and small businesses in ways that disregard decades of community-based policy making that has built a resilient city through a network of strong neighborhoods. Instead, the upzoning provides developers of expensive, market-rate condos with extraordinary tools and incentives – giveaways for them to use for profit and speculation – while tenants and small businesses suffer and are displaced,” says Joseph Smooke of REP-SF.
“It is a grand deception to state that our city's lack of affordable housing is due to a limited supply of market-rate condos, and that we should therefore remove all restraints to profiteering developers. Why are we equating the basic need for dignified, truly affordable housing with the need for greedy developers' profits? The past has shown us that relying solely on private investment to fund housing will ONLY lead to expensive and unaffordable housing being built,” says Don Misumi of Richmond District Rising, a member of REP-SF.
“While the State's Housing Crisis Act already creates vulnerabilities for tenants, the Mayor's upzoning plan creates new threats to tenants that cause us great concern. The upzoning rolls back decades of work by tenant and housing advocates to create a network of tenant protections that have given us tools to fight back to save our neighbors and communities. This plan encourages and enables demolitions, conversions, and mergers of existing housing citywide, including in areas designated through prior legislation as being part of the Priority Equity Geographies Special Use District (PEGs),” says Fred Sherburn-Zimmer of the Housing Rights Committee, a member of REP-SF and the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition (SFADC).
“The Mayor’s upzoning plan creates new threats to small businesses that are already struggling to survive. It marks our businesses for demolition, and it will incentivize the development of overpriced luxury housing that will be unaffordable for small business owners and workers,” says Justin Dolezal, co-founder of Small Business Forward. “This is a plan to destroy the essential fabric of neighborhood-serving small businesses that provide critical linguistically, culturally, and economically accessible goods and services for San Francisco's low-income and diverse communities, and that provide jobs, vitality, and resiliency to San Francisco's network of neighborhoods.”
We are united with communities across the city in urging Mayor Lurie, “Don’t demolish our homes or small businesses!” Members of REP-SF and our allies will speak during public comment at today’s hearing to voice strong opposition to the upzoning. There is another path forward for a more inclusive, affordable, and resilient San Francisco. The City’s Housing Element, and the required rezoning plan, must be rooted in racial and social equity, and refocus on prioritizing affordability and community stability. For more information, please read REP-SF’s full letter to Mayor Lurie, the Board of Supervisors, and the Planning Commission. Read REP-SF’s Advocacy Platform to learn more about our community solutions:
Truly Affordable Housing First
Community Stability
Real Family and Dignified Housing
Affirmatively Further Fair Housing
