Housing done right.
While San Francisco remains one of the most expensive places to live in the nation, District 8 includes some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city — places where it’s prohibitively expensive to own and rent homes. While there are many contributing factors, a main challenge is that we simply haven’t built enough housing for everyone who needs it. We have to do better. That means saying yes to housing at every level, for working people, families, seniors and people living with HIV/AIDS, those with disabilities, educators, and kids who grew up here and want to stay. If there is no place to live affordably, there is no path forward in our city’s economic recovery.
As you may have seen in recent headlines, a number of Safeway properties throughout San Francisco have proposed plans to redevelop their properties to provide an abundance of additional rental units - including their locations in the Fillmore, Outer Richmond, Bernal Heights, and of course, the Marina.
Safeway at Church and Market Streets
What’s missing from those conversations is our neighborhood Safeway at Church and Market Streets. That’s because the lot the Safeway sits on is made up of several parcels with a legal road, Reservoir Street, running through them. It’s a complicated nest of property owners and family trusts that could take years to untangle.
Today, the Castro Safeway is surrounded by vacant retail spaces and often empty parking spaces. This site can and should be transformed into desperately needed affordable housing, with a walkable green promenade, grocery store, and onsite childcare services, at our richest yet most underbuilt transit hub in the district.
I have a proposal to fix this while delivering affordable family and workforce housing. As your District 8 Supervisor, I will trigger the eminent domain process for all of the parcels of land Safeway sits on in order untangle that nest, and build 2,000 units of new housing. I would work to identify developers who would build 65-75% affordable rental units, the bulk of which would be 2-3 bedroom units for families, housing for extremely low income people, middle income workers, teachers, and families - and the remaining 25-35% will be market rate units. We’ll provide a long-term land lease for a new Safeway in the development and advocate for affordable retail, and sorely needed childcare services.
We can also build this the right way, with union labor and strong standards. That means a Project Labor Agreement that guarantees prevailing wages, local hire, apprenticeship pathways, and safe working conditions from day one through completion.
We already have the zoning tools to get this done. Eminent domain allows the City to acquire the fragmented parcels when there is a clear public benefit, and 2,000 units of housing at a major transit hub meets that test. We combine that with state housing law and the Family Zoning Plan, which are designed to increase density near transit and prioritize multi-bedroom housing for families. State laws have also streamlined approvals for projects that meet affordability and labor standards, cutting through years of delay. The result is a clear path to site control, faster approvals, and a development that actually pencils out while delivering the affordability we need.
This proposal is also good for our climate. Building dense housing with a green, walkable promenade at a major transit hub like Church and Market reduces car dependence, shortens commutes, and supports the transit system that our workforce relies on every day. More people living near Muni, BART, and safe walking corridors means fewer emissions and a more sustainable city.
This is not either-or. It is everything our city needs – affordable housing, middle-income housing and market-rate housing. For everyone that needs it.
