SF Board overrides mayor’s veto on zoning, choosing history over density

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has overridden a mayoral veto, saying that politics, not policy, in this election year are behind Mayor London Breed’s motives to upzone for development the Northeastern Waterfront and Jackson Square neighborhoods. 

The board voted 8-3 to push through possible mayoral challenger and Board President Aaron Peskin’s legislation, which blocks upzoning in three northeast historic districts Peskin represents. The new zoning, which allows increased density in housing projects, will impact the rest of Downtown but not the neighborhoods the Peskin bill exempts.

The ordinance first passed last month with the same vote. Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar and Joel Engardio were the three nays in both cases. 

“Today’s vote to override my veto is a setback in our work, but I will not let this be the first step down the path back towards being a city of no,” Breed said in a statement immediately after the vote. “We will not move backward.”

SF YIMBY echoed the mayor’s words, writing on X that, “We’ll keep fighting to ensure that bad votes like this are outliers, not steps backwards.”

Peskin said in the meeting that he had worked with the mayor to upzone the entire downtown and northeast neighborhoods through adaptive reuse legislation last summer but did not realize that the local changes could be combined with state law to build “270-foot towers in historic districts.” 

Peskin and other supporting supervisors repeatedly pointed out that the Planning Commission, including four members appointed by the mayor, were in favor of the legislation. He said the “most troubling,” “depressing” and “unprofessional” part of the veto was that there was no outreach from the mayor’s office beforehand or attempts to work with his office to modify the legislation to address her concerns. He added that supporting the veto would be “rewarding bad behavior.”

“This is not a policy discussion, it’s a political discussion, and it’s very unfortunate,” he said referring to Breed’s veto.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai, another mayoral contender, said that the mayor’s veto highlighted “inconsistency” in her policies and also questioned why she didn’t bring her concerns forward earlier. 

“The power rests with the mayor and now she’s coming at the end of the conversation to veto to confuse everyone,” he said. “This isn’t about affordable housing. That’s a complete misconception.” 

Pointing to the age and character of the buildings in Jackson Square and the northeast  waterfront areas, Safai said the legislation would “keep charm while encouraging reuse and stopping unnecessary demolitions.”

“Change is hard,” Breed said in her statement. “There are those who say they want to see change, and yet when the proposals come, they will say not here, not this way. But we will never address our housing shortage without bold and sustained action — and real solutions.” 

Supervisor Catherine Stefani voted against the veto but said that she would be bringing a modified version of the legislation back to the Planning Department to “strike a sensible balance that maximizes housing unit mixes while ensuring that density bonus programs are not used in a way that is adverse to these two small areas rich with community history and outside the Housing Element.”

Dorsey, the lone opponent of the veto who spoke at the meeting, said that the carve out was not just about these small neighborhoods. Rather, the legislation “set a dangerous precedent” that would stop the city from reaching its “morally and legally required goals” of creating more housing, as many other neighborhoods could now legitimately call upon their own historic resources to shut down dense development. 

“Taller buildings won’t hurt our city,” he said. “But exclusionary zoning will.” 

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