Sherrill, Brooke split on housing at heated District 2 debate

Housing split the District 2 race in the sharpest way possible, with Stephen Sherrill and Lori Brooke offering two very different answers for the Marina, Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights and the rest of San Francisco’s west side.

At Tuesday night’s debate at Convent & Stuart Hall, about 200 people heard Sherrill argue for building aggressively, while Brooke pushed back on that approach. The divide was more than campaign posture. In District 2, where voters are asked to balance neighborhood character, traffic, density and affordability, the next supervisor will help decide whether new housing is encouraged near transit and commercial corridors or slowed by local resistance.

The stakes in this district are unusually concrete. District 2 has added just 1,465 housing units since 2005, about 3% of the city’s 52,711 units built in that period. That history helps explain why every proposal lands as a fight over the future shape of places people know well, from Chestnut Street storefronts to the blocks around Lombard Street and the Marina waterfront.

Brooke drew the loudest reaction of the night when she criticized the city’s upzoning plan for allowing six- to eight-story buildings on bright, walkable commercial corridors. Her skepticism points toward a more cautious, neighborhood-centered approach, one that would treat larger projects as an intrusion unless they clearly fit the existing streetscape.

Sherrill, by contrast, has already staked out the more pro-building lane. He voted yes on the Family Zoning Plan, which San Francisco approved on December 2, 2025, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed on December 12, 2025, and which took effect on January 12, 2026. SF Planning said the plan took more than three years to develop and was designed to help San Francisco meet a state-law deadline for a compliant rezoning plan by January 31, 2026. KQED reported that it creates capacity for about 36,000 new homes, with the Board of Supervisors passing it 7-4.

That broader zoning fight now lands in District 2 through projects people can picture. In December, Align Real Estate and Safeway proposed a 25-story redevelopment at the Marina Safeway site with about 790 apartments and a new grocery store on the ground floor. Mayor Lurie has said he wants more housing across the city but opposes that project at its current size. Eric Kingsbury, president of the Marina Community Association, has said more housing is needed, but at a scale that makes sense.

The contrast between Sherrill and Brooke is therefore not abstract. It is the difference between a supervisor likely to clear room for more homes, including taller buildings near transit and retail, and one likely to press harder on scale, design and neighborhood input. In a city where a one-bedroom rents for more than $3,200 a month, that choice will shape not just zoning lines, but who can afford to live in District 2’s most coveted neighborhoods.