The Central SoMa Plan, Part 1: Threats to Our Community

The proposed massive rezoning will unload thousands of new jobs, office spaces, luxury housing units, and high-income residents into an area that is already facing extreme displacement from development and will further push out working-class families and people of color.​

Broader Context

The new Central SoMa Plan is a rezoning of the South of Market that caters to private interests and highlights the ongoing struggle of working-class communities in San Francisco. The South of Market has historically been viewed by City Hall as underdeveloped and devoid of community. This is in sharp contrast to the families, youth, seniors, artists, small businesses, and nonprofits that make up the SoMa and call it home. This gap characterizes the decades-long struggle that has existed between private interests and working-class people in the neighborhood. While City Hall has allowed rapid and destructive changes in the South of Market in the name of “economic growth” (i.e. Urban Renewal, the expansion of Downtown, and the first and second technology booms), low-income residents, immigrants, people of color, and the organizations serving them, have been pressured out, evicted, and displaced as a result.

 What is the Central SoMa Plan?

​In 2011, the City began the process of creating the Central SoMa Plan, a new “area plan” that changes the existing zoning for a large part of the South of Market to allow offices, hotels, and housing where they were previously banned. The plan covers the area roughly bounded by Howard Street, Townsend Street, 6th Street, and 2nd Street. The Central SoMa Plan could go into effect as early as mid-2018.

 Zoning is important because it determines what types of housing and jobs can go into an area, therefore determining who can live and work in San Francisco. The Central SoMa Plan will add roughly 50,000 new jobs and 7,600 new housing units. Almost all of the new jobs will likely be technology jobs, and the majority of new housing (77%) will be market-rate. The Central SoMa Plan is continuing SoMa's accelerated transformation into a neighborhood for a wealthier, more highly-educated group of people who can afford very expensive housing and who qualify for highly-skilled and highly-paid technology jobs.

Background

The Central SoMa Plan came about as a result of a Bay Area-wide effort to accelerate “transit-oriented development”– building housing and jobs near existing transit– spelled out in a 2013 regional land-use plan called “Plan Bay Area”. Plan Bay Area directs new development to pre-identified “priority areas” throughout the Bay Area’s nine counties. In San Francisco, these areas are all on the Eastern side of the city in traditionally working-class neighborhoods with predominantly people of color. In the South of Market, the new Central Subway goes right through the middle of a priority area and is a large reason why the City and the Planning Department are pushing the Central SoMa Plan.

​Threats to Our Community

Currently, the majority of the area in the Central SoMa Plan is zoned to protect blue-collar jobs that exist in what is known as space for “production, distribution, and repair” (PDR) businesses. For example, the SF Flower Mart is distribution and auto-body shops are repair. PDR jobs provide higher wages for working class residents who do not have a university-level education. This protective PDR zoning is being removed and changed to allow for tech offices, hotels, and housing where they were previously banned. The change in zoning also allows for buildings to be much taller and denser than previously allowed. 

The likely result of this change in zoning is the displacement of existing PDR jobs, and increased land values which means increased rents for both residents and businesses. There is much more profit that can be made from building offices, hotels, and luxury housing. With this zoning change, the land is worth more; therefore more money can be made by building office space and renting to tech companies, and more money can be made by renting and selling market-rate housing. The prices for commercial and residential rents will create a new comparable value for the area. This causes existing housing and businesses/non-profit/artist space to seek higher rents as well, resulting in the all-too-familiar narrative of eviction, gentrification, and displacement. When more money can be made, people who cannot compete get squeezed out. 

The Central SoMa Plan demonstrates how City Hall continues to view the South of Market as a source of profit-making rather than as a vibrant neighborhood that deserves to be preserved, protected, and developed without displacement. It does not provide any new policies or regulations that directly safeguard against the destructive effects of the rezoning. The Central SoMa plan is a displacement and gentrification plan, rather than a plan that that strengthens, protects, and benefits the existing community.

This ends Part 1 of our analysis on the Central SoMa Plan. In Part 2, we propose emergency steps and solutions to address gentrification and displacement that will be caused by the Central SoMa Plan. For questions or comments, please email dwoo@somcan.org.