Planning Commission advances Mission anti-displacement plan

The San Francisco Planning Commission on Thursday voted unanimously to endorse the Mission Action Plan 2030 — an updated version of the city’s existing plan to fight displacement in one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by gentrification.

The plan, said Miriam Chion, the director of community equity at the planning department, “becomes the compass for city strategies, program legislation and investments.”  

The new plan largely maintains the city’s current priorities for the Mission — “secure funding at all levels” to build affordable housing, strengthen tenant protections for “vulnerable Mission Latino residents,” protect businesses and nonprofits in the area, and “preserve and promote cultural resources” across the neighborhood. 

But, in a nod to changing post-pandemic conditions along the Mission’s commercial corridors, it adds new priorities to “enhance cleanliness along Mission Street and 24th Street” with community ambassadors, maintenance, and using public spaces. It also proposes to “support both street vendors and storefront businesses” by working more closely with the city.

Unpermitted street vending exploded along Mission Street after the pandemic, particularly at the 16th Street and 24th Street BART plazas. Longtime stalls and other permitted vendors, meanwhile, have faced an uphill battle returning to the street.

The plan does not have any legislative power but it serves mostly as a list of recommendations from the community to the Planning Department. Once approved, the city agency commits to make decisions and investments in the neighborhood that align with the Mission Action Plan.

Supporters say that while the plan only secures support from the Planning Department, they hope it serves as an incentive for other city agencies when they make decisions that impact the Mission community, too.

While the plan does prioritize street conditions, it largely focuses on the systemic displacement issues that have long faced one of San Francisco’s most popular neighborhoods for newcomers. The Mission, the city noted, has “doubled its number of unsheltered” homeless people between 2017 and 2022, and averaged a 2 percent loss of Latino residents in the past decade.

The loss of Latino residents in the Mission occurred while San Francisco’s overall Latino population went from 14 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2022, indicating Latinos are being displaced from the Mission in particular. “The goal,” the report read, “is to reverse this trend.”

The report did note marked improvements. The production of affordable housing in the Mission “more than doubled” over the past decade compared to the prior one. The Mission’s sales tax revenue in 2023 was almost at pre-pandemic levels, even as the city’s overall rate was 13 percent lower than in 2019. Vacancy rates of 4 percent in the Mission are more than half the citywide rate.

On Thursday, in a room filled with nearly 50 people largely urging the Planning Commission to adopt the plan, commissioner after commissioner lauded the plan and urged its adoption.

“It’s my great pleasure to make the endorsement of the Mission Action Plan 2030,” said Planning Commissioner Gilbert Williams, who called the plan a “direct result” of the “pain” felt by the Mission community during years of displacement. 

“For me, growing up there and being there most of my life, it’s very painful what happened in the Mission,” said Williams, who has lived in the Mission or its environs for decades. “It is a little emotional for me to sit here and listen to everyone’s stories.”