Community News

---

BY PAUL VONG

In Jan., Daniel Lurie was sworn in as new mayor of the city. Since then, locals have wanted him to tackle important issues concerning the city, including the major problems of homelessness and a housing shortage.

A state mandate requires that San Francisco construct 82,069 more residences by 2031, a goal which Lurie has made a point to fix through a series of changes. A major issue that plays a role in reaching this goal is homelessness.

To many who cannot afford housing in the city, it’s no surprise that many rely on their RVs as a place to live. But Lurie approved into legislation a two-hour limit on RV parking, set to take place in Nov. of this year, and was a change originally proposed under former Mayor London Breed. “That is penalizing poor people for not being able to afford real estate,” said Martin Wolf, a teacher at George Washington High, who has lived in the city for the past 50 years. “And I don’t think anybody benefits from that.”

Focusing on the goal of establishing more affordable housing in the city, Lurie proposed a ‘family zoning’ plan in late June, which would allow the city to raise building limits. “Too many San Francisco parents are asking whether they can afford to raise their kids here, and too many young people are wondering if they’ll be able to stay in the city they call home,” said Lurie. 

On Sept. 11, and after about eight hours of comments from constituents, the Planning Commission voted 4-3 to push the approval of the ‘family zoning’ plan forwards. This would allow room for the construction of about 36,000 new homes, in an effort to meet the goal set by the state mandate. 

Some locals are still unsure about the ideas behind ‘family zoning.’ “Our neighborhood businesses are a crossroads of people, culture, language. Those folks do not move and go somewhere else,” stated Rich Corriea, a retired police commander during a town hall held in the Sunset District. 

However, despite fears, many remain optimistic, in the hopes that these changes will benefit the city in the long run. In response to Corriea, Lurie stated, “As a San Franciscan, I don’t want high-rises everywhere[...], I’m going to do everything in my power to protect our small businesses.”

“I think that San Francisco has done a bad job of protecting working class and lower-middle class people by concentrating what building there has been in sort of luxury one-family houses that are very expensive, at the expense of a bunch of not great, but affordable apartments,” Wolf said about this new plan.

“We need to build a lot of not great, but affordable apartments, those people need places to live; people can only afford that.”