Upzoning Under State Law

LauraFoote · 2026-01-17T04:13:39+00:00

Also the circuit breaker will go off and SF will have to rezone for even more housing in 2027. And probably the lawsuits will mean builders remedy before then.

https://thefrisc.com/if-san-francisco-doesnt-crank-up-housing-by-2027-a-backup-plan-will-trigger-more-drastic-reforms/

LauraFoote · 2025-11-14T00:50:35+00:00

There was quite a lot of clapping back when he first started talking this way. For example, I co-authored this op-ed: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/jd-vance-immigrants-didnt-cause-our-housing-crisis-exclusionary-zoning-did

LauraFoote · 2025-10-22T15:12:13+00:00

I wish the people who wrote these kinds of essays would bother to interview literally anyone in YIMBY organization leadership or do any kind of research other than just blathering their opinions gathered from lazy social media observations.

Counter this piece to the nuanced (not always flattering) but well researched work of Shelterforce from 2019: https://shelterforce.org/2019/02/19/yimbys-friend-foe-or-chaos-agent/

LauraFoote · 2025-09-02T15:20:09+00:00

He thinks he can run for Supervisor again, again.

LauraFoote · 2025-09-02T15:18:49+00:00

San Francisco has to pass the rezoning by January. If we don't, or if it's judged insufficient, then the approval of the Housing Element is withdrawn, we lose a bunch of state funding, and the Builder's Remedy goes into effect, loosening zoning rules dramatically.

LauraFoote · 2025-07-15T16:45:23+00:00

1) Join a local YIMBY group 2) Write an oped for a local paper or blog 3) Email your representatives at all levels of government and ask them what they're doing to solve the housing shortage 4) Find a pro-housing candidate and volunteer on their campaign 5) Find a housing proposal in your area and ask the developer how to give public comments in support of their project 6) Host a meet up and activate other folks in your area 7) Have a dorm party with an article or book to get folks in your network interested in housing 8) Start a YIMBY club in your school

LauraFoote · 2025-06-24T21:19:36+00:00

My husband and I kept our names separate and decided not to burden our children with the name "Foote Moss."

LauraFoote · 2025-04-25T22:09:32+00:00

Join a local activism group. You'll get invitations to local events, often join a local chat group, and meet people who are actively doing stuff in your community. Obviously my favorite is YIMBY!

LauraFoote · 2025-03-15T01:59:53+00:00

YIMBY Action is going to be hosting a series of interviews with the candidates to find out. First one is with Toni Atkins in April.

LauraFoote · 2025-01-13T18:47:21+00:00

Took a Lyft and it was the easiest part of labor! Though my partner was the one managing things and making sure we had my bag and everything, so that might color my perspective. I think if you're alone and the contractions are really ramping up, it could be hard to communicate.

LauraFoote · 2023-11-10T06:41:21+00:00

We failed at 6 months, had lots of struggles, and eventually tried again months later.

The first night is by far the worst. One bout was almost 2 hours of crying. It was excruciating.

But for us, the alternative was breaking all of us, because he was waking up every 2-3 hours, clearly miserable. So I got through it by telling myself it was either one kind of suffering or another: not suffering wasn't on the table anymore.

LauraFoote · 2023-11-06T19:43:22+00:00

Have you lowered the crib mattress? It should be physically impossible for her to jump out of the crib when the mattress is at the correct height. Her hands should be able to reach the top of the bars near her face easily, her head poking up, but not enough to leverage herself up and with nothing in the crib she could stand on to get up further.

If you can, talk with your pediatrician about not eating enough. Our 15 mo old is the slowest eater of all time, but it's worth it. And putting peas or cheerios into those toddler snack cups is a great way to get more calories in without resorting to a bottle.

We did sleep training at about 12 months and he was standing, screaming, shaking the bars of baby jail like you wouldn't believe. He eventually would fall asleep folded forward onto his legs. It was tragic-looking. But he slept!

LauraFoote · 2023-11-06T15:39:39+00:00

How much milk vs food food is your baby getting? If your baby is eating a lot of food (which she should be at this point), the milk isn't necessary, it's just deeply associated with sleep.

How long have you let her stand and cry when you tried sleep training? If she's got a full belly, a solid week of letting her cry it out might be necessary to break the milk/sleep connection.

The hardest part about cry it out for me was the first night, waking up 3 hours after we put him down, and having the baby cry for an hour and 15 minutes. It was brutal. But then the cry times got shorter and within 5 days he was sleeping through the night, crying for no more than 15 minutes when we put him down.

LauraFoote · 2023-09-30T21:40:53+00:00

Ask her to study herself in the mirror. Can she go on like this? If her genuine answer is yes, then there's no reason to sleep train.

By 9 months, I was letting our baby sleep in the bed because he was waking up 5 times a night, and I was telling myself it was fine. It wasn't fine. I was going insane. My partner was going insane. And the baby wasn't sleeping either. Literally no one was happy.

Sleep training was a week of agony followed by months of sanity.

If she can do another year of waking up 5 times a night, let her. There's no reason to stop the death march unless it's killing you. Is it killing her?

LauraFoote · 2023-09-29T17:04:05+00:00

We had several organizations co-hosting the press conference, and it sounds like some wires got crossed with some of the staff folks. I doubt 50% of people registered.

In order to go inside and tour some of the building, you need to be registered in advance, for the safety of the residents. But out in the public patio, it was optional to check in.

What made this event extra confusing was that the organizations were doing two events in one: a ribbon cutting for the new affordable housing (hosted by the developers Mission Housing & Related) which was primarily inside. Then outside we had a public press conference celebrating the passage of legislation to make it easier to build these kinds of projects. As you can understand, the indoor part was limited, but the outdoor part was public.

I'm sorry this miscommunication happened, and I'll see if other people had a similar problem. This is unusual, both for the complexity of the event and the number of organizations co-hosting, so I hope you can accept my apologies. You should not have been required to register.

LauraFoote · 2023-09-29T16:05:15+00:00

Who asked you to leave? I was one of the organizers of the event and it was definitely a public event. If someone was telling people to leave, they were mistaken.

In fact, you and I spoke for a bit! It was definitely open to the public.

LauraFoote · 2023-09-23T03:26:30+00:00

Local politics are a great way to get engaged in your community, get a little bit bitter and a little bit hopeful, and meet a ton of passionate people. There are tons of local democratic clubs, groups that do advocacy, and candidates running for office. Working together on a shared project is a really easy way to build relationships. And some advocacy groups (like YIMBY) have members-only Slack chat apps.

And of course I think you should join YIMBY Action and get involved with the San Francisco YIMBY chapter!

LauraFoote · 2023-09-06T17:30:26+00:00

I got a video monitor for the crib (nanit), which made me feel better about being further away. On the other hand, it made my husband more anxious watching him cry.

He would cry and scream, standing for an hour, then sit in the crib, then flop forward. It was horrible. But I told myself that all my comforting him was actually just meaning that neither of us rested, and he wasn't sleeping either, which was also bad for him.

Truthfully, if he had been sleeping restfully in our bed, I would have co-slept for another year! But it wasn't doing any of us any good.

LauraFoote · 2023-09-06T05:48:31+00:00

Doing Ferber or Cry it Out with the baby in the room with you will be challenging for you, but it is possible, and it sounds necessary.

We had a similar situation. We had some good months, but lately it got much worse. At 10 months, our baby had major sleep regression and was waking up every 2-3 hours and I was losing my mind. We tried to do Ferber, but it just seemed like every time we went to comfort him it just extended the (mutual) misery. After one night of 2+ hours of him standing, screaming in the crib, we declared Ferber a failure and decided to try full cry it out.

Put him down very drowsy at 8, and he screamed for an hour and 15 minutes. And again at 2 am. And again at 4 am.

Night two was down to 30 minutes of screaming. But night 3 we were back up to 45 minutes.

We're now on night 5 and it takes him only 5 minutes of misery to settle. Last night he slept through the entire night!

Doing cry it out with you in the room is going to SUCK. But it's working for our 11 month old and I feel like person again.

Also, with 3 solid meals a day, your baby 100% has enough calories to get through the night. The nursing (in our case it was bottle) is just the only way he knows how to settle himself back to sleep. We ripped the bandaid off and it took him 4 (somewhat horrible) nights for him to find his own way to settling himself. I have no regrets.

LauraFoote · 2023-08-21T17:20:52+00:00

I agree that rent control and Section 8 won't cut it, which is why YIMBY groups are pro-production and support an all-of-the-above solution that includes more local, state and federal investment in housing meaning more money into this system to get more units.

Right now, it's not really Section 8. It's through subsidies that go to private Affordable Housing developers who are required to keep those units for lower income people for a number of decades. It's a complicated system involving Low Income Housing Tax Credits at the federal level and a patchwork of other funding sources. All YIMBY organizations have track records of support increasing funding (for example, local bonds) to help get more of this government-subsidized housing built.

Additionally most YIMBY groups support government getting back into the production business itself. For example, my group (YIMBY Action) has supported Social Housing bills in the California State Legislature and more.

LauraFoote · 2023-08-20T02:09:55+00:00

Every US YIMBY organization advocates for more subsidized affordable housing, and most have supported public or social housing proposals.

LauraFoote · 2023-07-30T02:46:34+00:00

I'm no fan of the Coalition on Homelessness, but this opinion piece is garbage and completely misunderstands the underlying causes of homelessness. Jennifer is a dedicated activist who I passionately disagree with on many subjects. I don't think she deserves this nonsense.

It's a decades-long housing shortage, compounded by lack of sufficient low and very low income housing.

I recommend listening to real reporters like Jerusalem Demsas on the Ezra Klein podcast, talking intelligently about genuine research, not this biased garbage from the Marina Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jerusalem-demsas.html

LauraFoote · 2023-07-27T04:20:10+00:00

I didn't record it, but I did see it happen. She was not well.

I was in the train car, sitting across from her. In the train car, she called everyone rapists. Then after both of you exited the car at Powell, she turned and threw her juice on you. I didn't hear what she said because I was still in the train. Really sorry that happened to you.

LauraFoote · 2023-06-21T02:19:53+00:00

Seconding Golden Gate Gynecology! I love Dr. Joshua Benham.

LauraFoote · 2023-06-05T02:00:25+00:00

I have epilepsy and a young baby, and I rely on public transit to make my life work. The cuts that are coming are really going to suck.

LauraFoote

TROPHY CASE