Nearly a million dollars per affordable unit, a Tenderloin corner-store crackdown, and a school board reformer winning by double digits — San Francisco's reform agenda is getting very real, and so is the bill. This is San Francisco Politics and Urbanism Daily — I'm Cassidy, with Mark. Today we're looking at five stories that all hit the same question: what reform actually costs, who pays for it, and whether voters are moving faster than City Hall. Phil Kim's school board win by a wide margin is the first real electoral read of the week — not a theory, not an op-ed. Voters moved. Now we'll see what they expect next. And we've got $101 million for 107 units on Divisadero, a Dorsey push to zone out corner stores in SoMa and the Tenderloin, and the mayor's budget fight with advocates over what 'maintaining the safety net' actually means. Let's dig in. This one's from Mission Local:
Two San Francisco supervisors want zoning laws to limit new convenience stores from opening in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, part of an effort to curb illegal activity that proliferates outside the shops. The legislation, led by Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who oversees SoMa, would not affect existing convenience stores, but would eliminate the automatic approval of any new ones.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey is moving to freeze new convenience store openings in the Tenderloin and SoMa — not the existing ones, but any new applicant would have to show 'demonstrated neighborhood need' and pass a concentration test. It cleared Land Use unanimously today and heads to the full board next. Dorsey's been focused on the SoMa response-time problem all week, and this is the first concrete bill out of his office, so credit where it's due. But I keep coming back to the mechanism: there are already more than 75 of these stores, they're shutting and reopening under new names in days, and the city attorney is already forcing closures. If enforcement exists and the cycle keeps repeating, what does a zoning freeze on new applicants actually solve? That rebrand-and-reopen loop is the tell. The legislation's own findings say it. If a shop gets shut for illegal gambling or drug sales and it's back under a new name in 72 hours, that's an enforcement problem, not a zoning problem. Exactly. 'Demonstrated neighborhood need' sounds nice in planning-speak, but the Tenderloin's problem isn't that approvals move too fast. It's that bad actors treat enforcement like a cost of doing business and pop right back up. Zoning out new stores doesn't touch the 75 already there. Here's Adam Brinklow at The Frisc:
After years of post-COVID hangover, San Francisco’s housing market has lost its mind again. Real estate numbers can vary depending on who’s providing them. But two different sources concur: The first quarter of 2026 saw the city’s highest median prices ever for single-family homes ($2 million or more) and condominiums ($1.35 million), per Compass Real Estate, except for a short blip in 2022 that was goosed by that year’s eye-watering inflation.
The Frisc's Adam Brinklow has the number: SF's median single-family home hit two million dollars in Q1 2026 — the highest ever, up 10.3% since April of last year. In a normal market, that kind of signal says build more. Brinklow's point is that 2026 is anything but normal. We said yesterday that record home values still weren't turning into easy construction — and now we have the math. 650 Divisadero: $101 million for 107 units. That's $944,000 per affordable unit. You can't pencil that out no matter how hot the market gets. The Compass data also shows condos at a record $1.35 million median. So it's not just the trophy single-family homes — the whole stack is up. And somehow the cranes still aren't following the money. Because the financing math is broken at the affordable end and tariff costs are chewing up the market-rate end. That renter I mentioned Monday who got hit with a 22% rent spike? Here's the structure behind it: prices are yelling 'build,' and costs are yelling back louder. The working-class household is stuck between those two signals. This one comes via The Registry. The Registry says a 107-unit affordable tower at 650 Divisadero is moving toward permits — total price tag, $101 million. That's about $944,000 per unit for affordable housing. $944,000 per affordable unit. And a working-class renter getting hit with a 22% rent spike this year is supposed to wait around for that math to work at scale? Young Community Developers and Jonathan Rose Companies are the developers, working with MOHCD — that's the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development — and this project is still only inching toward permits, not breaking ground. This is what HCD has been flagging as 'development by negotiation' — every layer of subsidy, every discretionary approval, adds cost, and by the time you're done you've spent a million dollars to house one household. That's not a financing strategy. That's a monument to a broken process. From Jill Tucker at San Francisco Chronicle:
Incumbent Phil Kim soundly defeated two challengers for his seat on the San Francisco school board, giving him a few months before he is forced to run again. The result was clear from the first returns, with Kim pulling in more than 64% of the votes, while the challengers, Virginia Cheung and Brandee Marckmann, both district parents, split the leftovers.
Phil Kim just won his primary with more than 64% of the vote — his two challengers, Virginia Cheung and Brandee Marckmann, split what was left. Jill Tucker at the Chronicle had the result from the first returns. Kim is board president, was appointed by London Breed in 2024, and now has to run again in November to keep the seat for a full four-year term. Sixty-four percent in a three-way race is not a squeaker — that's a mandate. I've spent all week asking whether SFUSD reform had real political traction, and San Francisco voters just answered that directly. The reformers aren't just winning arguments in op-ed pages anymore; they're winning elections. Worth noting: he still has to win in November to lock in a full four-year term, so tonight is a preview, not the finish line. Fine — but a 64-point primary result against two district parents who ran specifically against the incumbent tells you something real about where San Francisco families are right now. The question isn't whether reform voters exist. They do. The question is what they're going to demand from a board president who now has a clear runway into November. From Gazetteer:
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie released a $16.9 billion proposed budget Monday that, he said, “strengthens our social safety” in the face of federal funding cuts. To community leaders who have spent months rallying in opposition to anticipated cuts, Lurie’s description was an attempt to mask a gutting of social services that confirmed many of their worst fears.
The Gazetteer is tracking the budget fight — Mayor Lurie put out a $16.9 billion two-year spending plan Monday, called it a strengthening of the social safety net, and advocates spent the rest of the day saying that sounded like spin at best, a gut punch at worst. $16.9 billion, and we're arguing about whether the safety net is intact. That number ought to settle it — this city is not underfunded, it's misallocated, and every time advocates say 'cuts,' I want to know: cuts from what baseline, and with what results attached? That's fair, but the advocates have three weeks before the Board of Supervisors vote locks in two years of spending — that's a real clock, not a rhetorical one. They're naming working families, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ residents as the people absorbing the reductions. And those are exactly the people I care about, which is why I need a program-by-program outcome record before I sign onto any petition. The Zoo audit, the nonprofit oversight gap we've been watching — that $16.9 billion has a lot of places to disappear before it reaches a working-class family in the Tenderloin. For a wider statewide lens, try California Governor's Race — daily 2026 race coverage on candidates, polling, debates, fundraising, and policy for voters who want more than horse-race takes. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
You'll find links to all the stories we talked through today in the show notes, so if one is worth a closer look, it's easy to pick up from there.
That's San Francisco Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Wednesday, June 3rd. This is a Lantern Podcast.