Environment, Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods, & Public Health, vs Corporate Real Estate

From 2010 to 2025 there have been multiple attempts at the local and state level to block the access of San Franciscans and all of California, to environmental protections that help us challenge bad corporate real estate projects that gentrify cities and drive rents sky high, while demolishing neighborhoods, waterfronts, and affordable housing.

These corporate attacks always attempt to 'streamline' (i.e. get rid of) environmental and public notification and review that allows communities to push the pause button on real estate development to make sure it will be good for cities, neighborhoods, public health, and the environment.

Behind the corporate attacks Big Real Estate always has the same objective - to more easily and quickly build unneeded, greenhouse gas polluting and gentrifying, high priced condos and rental high rises, to trade like gambling chips for profit on Wall Street.

The Fake "Housing Shortage"

These pro luxury housing bills are always peddled with the constant, repeated, completely false claim, that housing is too expensive because there is somehow a "shortage" of housing, and if we just build more housing (no matter how high priced) this will supposedly lower the price by increasing the "supply".

What these claims absurdly leave out is the fact that nearly every city and state in the developed West has a vast surplus of vacant housing. According to the U.S. Census, San Francisco has over 61,000 vacant housing units! Los Angeles has over 226,000 vacant units, and the state of California has a whopping 1 million vacant units! That's not a "shortage" its a huge glut of extra, mostly overpriced homes - enough to house every homeless person several times over!

The "housing shortage" myth is relentlessly repeated over and over again by a Big Real Estate funded, fake "nonprofit" front group known under multiple monikers such as "Abundant SF". But its most well known name is "YIMBY" (standing for Yes In My Back Yard). For an exposé on this industry front group and its funding, see: California YIMBY, Scott Wiener, and Big Tech’s Troubling Housing Push.

The YIMBYs make expansive claims of supporting afforable "working class" housing while doing exactly the opposite, and they have even engaged in disrespectful racist attacks on lower income people of color who are fighting to stop Big Real Estate gentrification from driving them out of their neighborhoods.

Local Victories Against Deceptive "Housing" Bills

In 2010 and 2012 Our City coordinated a broad coalition of environmental, neighborhood, environmental justice, and housing justice organizations, to fight back against deceptive San Francisco "housing" ordinances, cynically launched by politicians like then supervisors Scott Wiener and Michela Alioto-Pier (who had gotten major campaign donations from the real estate industry). The coalition not only sent Wiener, Alioto-Pier and the corporate gentrifiers packing, we won stronger environmental and community protections.

New State Level Attack Threatens These Gains

Unfortunately Scott Wiener, who is now San Francisco's state Senator, was recently able to pass the 2023 bill SB-423 to undermine local environmental and community protections against corporate real estate scams. The law directs California cities to build more luxury housing, even though San Francisco already has a 50% oversupply of luxury housing, and both the city and California have lost population due to vast numbers of telecommuting workers moving out of state (making new housing construction completely unnecessary).

SB-423 has made it much easier for Big Real Estate backed local politicians like Mayor Daniel Lurie, along with Supervisors Joel Engardio, Matt Dorsey and Myrna Melgar, to justify local San Francisco bills that seek to pull the rug out from under environmental and community review. These attacks are now being led by Mayor Lurie, who won his election riding on massive campaign donations from big tech and real estate investors.

Local Coalition Fights Back!

As in 2010 and 2012, Our City is again coordinating a coalition, San Francisco California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Defenders, to fight back against new attacks. The first such attack was a 2023 package of legislation from Supervisors Joel Engardio, Matt Dorsey, and Myrna Melgar, in league with then Mayor London Breed - a scorched earth attempt to almost completely repeal almost all environmental and community review of housing construction in San Francisco.

SF CEQA Defenders and the housing justice coalition REP SF (with the help of Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston) fought hard for months to heavily amend the bills. When the ordinances finally passed, local neighborhood noticing of housing construction was restored, the demolition of rent controlled housing was banned, and stronger protections against corporate real estate speculation were included.

But some previous protections gained in the 2012 fight were lost, and Mayor Lurie is now planning to exploit the weakened laws to destroy entire San Francisco neighborhoods and gentrify them with luxury high rises.

The Mayor is deceptively labeling this upcoming attempt to enrich his billionaire real estate buddies "Family Zoning"! But a first look analysis by the San Francisco Tenant's Union shows that this family friendly language is just a ruse.

Our City, SF CEQA Defenders, and REP SF are now coordinating to oppose the Mayor's cynical plan.