How one lawmaker is shielding wealthy neighborhoods from mayor’s housing plan

Getting ahead in San Francisco politics isn’t all about shaking hands or kissing babies. You can block condo towers, too. 

So it goes for Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, a moderate ally of Mayor Daniel Lurie. Sherrill recently submitted amendments to the mayor’s Family Zoning Plan that would exempt portions of his tony district from sky-high towers. In doing so, the supervisor won over community leaders who endorsed his reelection in 2026.

A hot-button issue in housing-starved San Francisco, Lurie’s rezoning proposal aims to fulfill a state mandate to add tens of thousands of units over several years. The growth will be achieved largely by building more in the city’s western and northern neighborhoods, which are typically averse to development.

Sherrill, who represents wealthy north side districts such as the Marina, Pacific Heights, and Jordan Park, filed a request to exempt three prime lots from tall towers: the site of the Marina Boulevard Safeway; Ghirardelli Square and an adjacent block; and the site of a seniors home and dialysis center on Geary Boulevard.

Under Lurie’s proposal, the latter site was zoned for a 14-story residential tower at Geary and Wood Street. Records show Sherrill proposed that the development be limited to five stories. 

That amendment earned Sherrill, who was appointed in 2024 by former Mayor London Breed and is up for election in 2026, an endorsement from John Andreini, vice president of the Jordan Park Neighborhood Association.

Andreini said neighborhood residents — which includes wealthy and politically connected San Franciscans, such as former Mayor Mark Farrell —  found Lurie’s plan to be “way overboard.” Andreini said he endorsed Sherrill after the supervisor pushed to limit zoning in the area in a way that is “more consistent with the majority of other corridors.”

“When he can make things happen and pull strings, he’ll tell you, and when he can’t, he’ll tell you,” Andreini said. “But at least he can try, and that’s the most we can ask for people in politics.”

Andreini’s endorsement is featured prominently on Sherrill’s campaign website. 

Julie Paul, president of the Jordan Park Neighborhood Association board, is also on Sherrill’s endorsement list.

Sherrill has been affiliated with the YIMBY movement (opens in new tab) and has said Lurie’s plan is a more modest way to add housing than what Sacramento officials would dictate. But his proposed amendments to shield sites from large towers could gain him favor in what’s expected to be a heated campaign for control of District 2 against Lori Brooke, a neighborhood organizer who is one of the city’s most vocal critics of development.

Exempting the Safeway site from rezoning was a constituent request by the Marina Community Association, according to a letter from the association obtained by The Standard. The group argued that a high-rise there would “create a one-off development out of place with both the surrounding neighborhood and the abutting public park spaces.” 

Sherrill said he didn’t need a letter to tell him that the neighborhood’s “only significant grocery store” shouldn’t be redeveloped for housing.

Proponents of the mayor’s upzoning plan were sanguine about Sherrill’s move to selectively block housing in his district. “It is politics at the end of the day, whether we want it to be or not,” said Jane Natoli, organizing director of San Francisco YIMBY, a pro-housing group.

Other supervisors are also jockeying for carveouts to Lurie’s plan. Board President Rafael Mandleman has requested that historic landmarks be excluded from the proposal, Connie Chan wants to shield small-business corridors and the coast from development, and Chyanne Chen is seeking protections for low-income areas and communities of color. 

The board’s three-member Land Use and Transportation Committee is set to vote on the amendments Monday, before the plan goes to the full board for approval. The plan is due to the state by January.

Planning Department staff said greenlighting all the supervisors’ carve-outs would almost certainly put San Francisco’s plan out of compliance with the state. 

Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who chairs the Land Use and Transportation Committee, noted in a Nov. 4 meeting that the board should negotiate with the mayor’s office on amendments. That means if Sherrill wants to exempt Safeway, Ghirardelli, and the Geary site, he’ll have to offer up somewhere else in his district where the city can build towers.

“I did my darndest to make sure that my colleagues understood that they have work to do,” Melgar said. 

Quintin Mecke, executive director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, said some of the amendments — like Chen’s, to exempt low-income communities from upzoning — are consistent with San Francisco’s stated goals against gentrification. But when supervisors let wealthy northern neighborhoods off the hook, it puts low-income tenants, especially people of color who live in the eastern half of the city, at heightened risk of displacement.

“This town is so frustrating,” Mecke said.