Mayor’s Upzoning Plan Is Money Down the Drain

Future Growth in San Francisco?

by Glenn Rogers

• • • • • • • November 2025 • • • • • • •

Some say the economy of San Francisco is rosy. Businesses are asking employees to return to “in person” work. Mayor Lurie asked 34,000 City employees to return to City Hall. Realizing how “at home work” has hurt the city’s economy, private businesses have also asked their employees to return to “in person” work. Visitors to the City have increased. Visitors have helped the transportation sector revive.

WILL AI DIMINISH THE CITY’S WORKFORCE?

The darker perspective of the future of San Francisco has to do with the next tech sector bubble. San Francisco is the industry’s new artificial intelligence (AI) center. Salesforce had 9,000 employees, now they have 5,000 employees replaced by AI. Most of the jobs replaced by AI at Salesforce were in the customer service sector. Marc Benioff was quoted as saying, “I need less heads”, as half of his company’s interaction with customers is now with AI agents.

Amazon is planning on replacing 600,000 employees with robots by the year 2033. The company plans to automate 75% of its workforce. Other corporations laying off workers include Klarna, UPS, Duolingo, Intuit and Cisco. In fact, it is estimated that 92 million jobs will be lost to AI by the year 2030!

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said entire categories of employment may be irradiated by AI, especially the customer service sector. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei forecast that half of all entry-level “white collar” jobs will be eliminated. Unemployment could reach 20% when this happens. Also, recent college graduates find that hiring has declined 50% since 2019 at 15 of the largest tech giants. Instead, employers are hiring more experienced workers familiar with AI. Other sectors vulnerable to replacement by AI include database administrators, IT specialists, and data engineers. In these sectors, hiring has declined 31%. The Pew Research Center conducted a poll and found that either half or a third of all employees believe their job will be impacted by AI. Adding to the growth of AI is Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan, which will accelerate innovation and do away with regulation. Nationally, the AI sector has grown 31%. This growth has surpassed all other sectors.

ENTER THE MAYOR’S UPZONING PLAN

Clearly, if the economy is rosy, new homes may be welcome; however, what if the economy in the City declines by 20%? The fall of the dot-com tech industry created a recession. From the information we have gathered about AI, we could expect another loss of employment in many different sectors.

WEALTHY AMERICANS

If 10% of the wealthiestAmericans represent 50% of all economic purchasing power, expect the housing to be purchased by the wealthy. It will lie vacant. Sadly, that’s the ultimate outcome of Mayor Lurie’s Upzoning Housing Plan. Regardless of who buys these market-rate houses, it is safe to say that working-class folks will not benefit from “Family Planning” housing. Why? The Upzoning Plan does not provide housing for low or middle-class residents. Moreover, it does not provide affordable housing either.

THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

MOHCD provides subsidies to build Affordable Housing. MOHCD is broke, so only expect market-rate housing from developers and the Mayor’s Upzoning Plan.

THE AUXILIARY WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM

With the increase in housing, new infrastructure will need to be provided and should be prioritized before densification. The Auxiliary Water Supply System which provides seismically-stable fire protection to the northeast part of the City, has not been extended to the west side or southeast parts of town. The plan was to to build the pipeline using Kubota pipe, which is made in Japan and is capable of withstanding a 9.0 earthquake. If the Mayor is serious about development, that infrastructure should be part of his program.

ENCROACHMENT OF HOUSING ON THE COASTAL ZONE

Tall housing along the coast — part of Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan — is now being considered. The California Coastal Zone, which is designated from high tide 1,000 yards inland, at the narrowest point, and 5 miles inland, at the thickest part, is now vulnerable to development. Construction of tall buildings in these areas completely ignores the line drawn by the Coastal Commission, restricting growth along the ocean. The streets affected by the upzoning encroachment of the CA Coastal Zone would allow buildings as tall as 65 feet on Lincoln and Irving, 85 feet on Judah St. and Fulton and lastly at Sloat, 105 feet.

The proposed construction will block coastal views and could be vulnerable to rising sea levels. The Mayor, the State and developers — intent on building housing carte blanche — intruding into the California Coastal Zone ignores previous environmental guidelines. When asked to include language to protect the coast, the Mayor demurred, providing excuses for delaying the legislation. State Senator Scott Weiner has announced that he believes the California Coastal Zone is too “expansive.”

A PREDICTION THAT CAME TRUE

In July 2020, in the Westside Observer, I predicted a downturn of the economy based on the COVID-19 epidemic. I called living in the City with COVID-19, an economy functioning at 80%. Unfortunately, the state of the economy has deteriorated much further. Today, we face another economic downturn based on the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

GET INVOLVED

If you disagree with Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan, contact the Land Use and Transportation Committee: Supervisors that are in this committee include:
Myrna Melgar, Connie Chen, Bilal Mahmood.

Email John.Carroll@sfgov.org or call 415 554-4445 and make your complaint. Meetings occur every Monday at 1:30 at City Hall.

Glenn Rogers, RLA, Former President, Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods (CSFN)
Landscape Architect, License 3223

November 2025