Committee forwards city’s $52 billion 10‑year capital plan after climate‑funding push from public

The Budget and Finance Committee on April 9 voted to forward the City and County of San Francisco’s 10‑year capital expenditure plan (fiscal years 2026–2035) to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation.

Brian Strong, Chief Resilience Officer and director of the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning, told the committee the plan lists roughly $52 billion of investments over 10 years, driven largely by enterprise and external agencies (airport, PUC, Port, and outside agencies such as SFMTA and BART). Strong said the plan reflects constrained municipal capacity and noted a roughly $1 billion facilities backlog that the plan aims to reduce if the city maintains pay‑as‑you‑go funding levels described in the plan.

Public commenters urged stronger, near‑term funding for greenhouse‑gas reductions. Joni Eisen of the San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition said a Berkeley report recommended a climate bond be put “into the queue for near‑term inclusion” and urged the committee not to approve the plan without a specific climate bond. Several other speakers, including Elena Engle (San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition and 350 San Francisco), Dr. Robert Gould (San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility) and Julie Lindo (San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility), urged either a separate climate bond or clear requirements that every bond include greenhouse‑gas reduction provisions.

Strong told supervisors the capital plan already includes climate‑related investments across transportation, affordable housing and infrastructure and said electrification is being required in many projects consistent with Chapter 7 of the Administrative Code. He also said the Waterfront Safety and Climate bond planned for 2028 would include a significant climate component and that many capital projects build resilience and climate mitigation into their scopes.

Supervisors emphasized further conversations on climate financing and bond capacity. Chair Connie Chan and Vice Chair Matt Dorsey both said they would support the capital plan but wanted follow‑up briefings from the Office of Public Finance and the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning on “authorized but unused” bond dollars, potential mechanisms to reprioritize or accelerate debt retirement, and the composition and membership of the capital planning committee (commenters had noted that the Department of Environment was not a formal member of the committee).

The committee’s motion to forward the plan to the full Board passed on a 3–0 recorded vote (Dorsey, Engardio, Chan).