{"id":40872,"date":"2025-04-22T12:45:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T19:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=40872"},"modified":"2025-04-22T12:45:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T19:45:02","slug":"the-basic-idea-of-telling-people-about-development-runs-into-the-yimby-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/04\/22\/the-basic-idea-of-telling-people-about-development-runs-into-the-yimby-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"The basic idea of telling people about development runs into the Yimby agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Plus: The end of harm reduction as a primary policy. That’s The Agenda for April 20-27<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By TIM REDMOND<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

APRIL 20, 2025 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board of Supes will consider Tuesday\/22<\/strong> a proposal that would require the city to notify tenants and property owners of any new zoning proposal that would impact them<\/a>\u2014and it\u2019s going to be close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sup. Connie Chan is proposing the legislation, and has four cosponsors. The local Yimbys are against it. Two of the supes on the Land Use and Transportation Committee, Bilal Mahmood and Myrna Melgar, said it was either a bad idea or not necessary. The committee sent it to the full board without recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sup. Connie Chan wants people to know if their block is going to be upzoned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The City Planning Department said mailing postcards to everyone who will be impacted by the massive upzoning plan the city is proposing for the West Side would cost at least $200,000. Chan notes that fee waivers and other benefits for developers dwarf that modest price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Yimby concern, of course, is that 300,000 people might get a notice in the mail saying that height and density limits in their neighborhoods are about to increase dramatically\u2014and some might organize against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s pretty hard to say that neighborhoods shouldn\u2019t be informed about changes that will have a lasting impact on the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be a litmus test vote: Has the board moved so far to the right that even notifying residents and small businesses about zoning changes is such a threat to the Yimby agenda that it has to be stopped?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That meeting starts at 2pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s got seven co-sponsors, including all the \u201cmoderates\u201d and Sups. Myrna Melgar and Rafael Mandelman. So it will pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a fair amount of pushback, including from doctors at UCSF<\/a>, who argue that \u201cabstinence only approach to drug use can kill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cHarm reduction and treatment are part and parcel,\u201d said Dr. Ayesha Appa, a clinician investigator in addiction medicine. She described harm reduction as \u201cone of the most important tools\u201d in her kit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, she said, one of her patient\u2019s relationships with people offering safer use supplies made him feel valued, and that it would be possible to get on methadone. Since then, he\u2019s been moving forward with recovery. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dorsey touts the success of some residential treatment programs and AA\/NA, which focus on total abstinence. For a lot of people, that approach works. For a lot of others, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, San Francisco has embraced harm reduction as an important part of its substance-use policy. This was one of the first cities to allow needle exchange. Not long ago, Mandelman strongly backed a state bill<\/a> that would have allowed San Francisco to open safe-injection sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorsey\u2019s bill is a big step backward from that approach. It has no immediate practical impact, but it could be used to prevent things like wellness centers, which Dorsey wants to defund in favor of jail-based treatment programs.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it would underscore the current Lurie Administration approach of arresting anyone selling\u2014or publicly using\u2014drugs that are currently illegal, while encouraging other people to publicly use drugs that are currently legal.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That hearing starts at 10am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit\u00a0here<\/a>. We also invite you to join the conversation on our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plus: The end of harm reduction as a primary policy. That’s The Agenda for April 20-27 By TIM REDMOND APRIL 20, 2025 (48hills.org) The Board of Supes will consider Tuesday\/22 a proposal that would require the city to notify tenants and property owners of any new zoning proposal that would impact them\u2014and it\u2019s… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40873,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40872\/revisions\/40873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}