San Francisco supes pass amendment to ease office-to-housing conversions
The amendment will remove some fees and application deadlines for certain downtown spaces being converted from non-residential to residential use.
Development impact and inclusionary fees—the largest source of city-imposed costs for commercial to residential projects—will be waived for these projects. City staffers have estimated that about $70,000 to $90,000 can be saved per unit for these developments.
Projects that were approved before this year and have yet to be granted construction permits are also allowed to request a modification to their development impact fees.
The resolution will also abolish the December 2028 application deadline for the Commercial-to-Residential Adaptive Reuse Program, which the city established in 2023 to streamline approvals by easing zoning and building requirements for office-to-housing conversions.
Mayor Daniel Lurie sponsored the resolution along with cosponsors Supervisor Matt Dorsey and Supervisor Danny Sauter.
Nine supervisors voted in favor of the resolution and Supervisor Shamann Walton voted no.
The amendment was originally proposed by former mayor London Breed as part of her plan to boost occupancy in a downtown struggling with office vacancies and to transform the area into a 24/7 neighborhood.
It is also intended to remove bureaucratic barriers to getting housing built as required by the state to meet the city's Housing Element, a mandate that San Francisco must deliver 82,000 residential units by 2031 in order to meet the housing needs of its residents.
"Transforming vacant offices into housing will help drive our recovery downtown while creating new homes for San Franciscans," Lurie said in a press release last week when the resolution was passed by the supervisors on first reading.
"This is a win-win for our city thanks to the new era of collaboration at City Hall so we can create a thriving, 24/7 downtown that benefits both residents and business," he said.
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