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Planning Department presents 5‑year citywide work program framed around housing, mobility, resiliency and neighborhoods
Summary
Citywide Planning Director Gil Kelly presented a five-year work program organized around four core challenges and five place-based initiatives (including a resilient waterfront and Greater Southeast quadrant). Commissioners urged clearer annual goals, six‑month check‑ins, and stronger regional collaboration.
Gil Kelly, director of Citywide Planning, briefed the Planning Commission on Jan. 15 on a proposed five‑year work program that takes a long‑range 2050 horizon and outlines four core challenges — inclusion and equity; access and mobility; resiliency and sustainability; and neighborhood place‑making — plus five place‑based initiatives intended to focus implementation.
Kelly said the program is intended to provide a strategic framework, noting the department has allocated staff time to core policy work (affordable‑housing implementation, a transportation‑element update, waterfront and sea‑level‑rise planning, and PDR protections) and five “place‑based” initiative areas such as the Heart of San Francisco corridor, the resilient waterfront, the Greater Southeast Quadrant and neighborhood‑level engagement.
Commissioners welcomed the long‑range approach but pressed for more specificity and accountability. Vice President Cindy Wu said affordability “is the number one issue in the city right now” and asked for annual or semiannual goal‑setting and follow‑ups. Several commissioners recommended joint hearings with transit agencies and the city’s economic development partners, and asked staff to bring back monitoring reports (for example, Eastern Neighborhoods and Market‑Octavia EPIC funds) to make implementation outcomes more visible.
Members discussed staffing and budget links: Kelly said the work program will inform the department’s upcoming budget requests, including two community‑development planner positions to support neighborhood engagement. Commissioners suggested more public outreach fora, regular six‑month check‑ins, and clearer commitments on transit coordination and affordable‑housing outcomes.
The presentation was informational; commissioners did not take formal action beyond discussion and direction to fold commissioner feedback into the work program and upcoming budget hearings.
