People enjoy Precita Park in Bernal Heights in 2021. There have been few new homes built in the neighborhood in recent years, and the area is not part of San Francisco’s upzoning plan.

There are few better places to raise a family than in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. For my kids, hiking to the top of Bernal Hill to soak in the awe-inspiring panoramic view of the city or picking up special treats at Black Jet Bakery never gets old. On Saturdays, we stroll down to the Alemany Farmers Market, which I’d argue might be the last remaining farmers market where you can find fresh produce at a reasonable price point.

However, this lovely little corner of San Francisco is increasingly out of reach for anyone but the most affluent. The median price for a home in Bernal is $1.5 million, which is 15% higher than elsewhere in San Francisco.

Longtime neighbors of mine often lament this fact, recalling the days when the neighborhood was an affordable refuge for working-class immigrants, and then later for artists and lesbians. I consider our family lucky, having moved to Bernal in 2019 as part of a more recent wave of sometimes-maligned stroller-pushing millennials in search of a family-friendly part of the city.

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But not everybody is a lucky as we are.

This is why several of my neighbors and I have publicly asked San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and his Planning Department to include Bernal Heights in their city-wide rezoning plan.

On April 10, close to a dozen Bernal Heights-based members of our neighborhood group, 

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