Connie Chan: Campaign Claims vs. Reality

I recently watched "People", the two-minute campaign video on District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan's congressional campaign website. About a minute in, the video cuts to a shot of a building at the corner of 6th Avenue and Geary. The on-screen text reads:

"CONNIE CHAN built real affordable housing."

I had just written about that exact building. The seven-story affordable senior housing project at 383 Sixth Avenue is one of the case studies in our Family Zoning Plan piece for what 85-foot height limits actually look like on a Richmond street.

The problem is she didn't build it. The project was started in 2019 by her predecessor, Sandra Lee Fewer, before Chan took office. And once Chan was on the Board, she voted against the 2025 Family Zoning Plan, which would allow more buildings of this height across the west side.

Watching the campaign claim credit for a project I had just walked past, whose backstory I knew, made me wonder what else might be overstated. And, just as importantly, what else she had promised in 2020 that simply hadn't happened.

So I went to the Internet Archive, which makes sure campaign claims don't disappear when sites get overwritten. The conniechansf.com domain has been used for three different campaign websites over six years: her 2020 Supervisor run, her 2024 reelection, and now her congressional bid. The Wayback Machine preserves all three. I pulled the 2020 and 2024 snapshots, her April 2020 SF Examiner op-ed, and her Green Party questionnaire. Then I cross-checked every promise and accomplishment claim against her legislative record on SF Legistar, her votes, and city outcomes.

The idea was simple. I wanted to compare what she said she would do in 2020 to what actually happened on the west side over the last six years. Chan's 2020 campaign made specific promises on housing, slow streets, police reform, and small business. The legislative record tells a different story on all four.

In 2020 Chan promised to "expand the paths to home ownership for first-time buyers," "create both low-income and middle-income housing," and protect tenants. Those commitments appeared across her campaign site, Examiner op-ed, and Green Party questionnaire.

6th and Geary wasn’t hers, but the Alexandria redevelopment at 18th is. Sort of.

Chan was the primary sponsor of a landmarking resolution, a landmark designation ordinance, and a Special Use District that unlocked 76 new units at the long-vacant site. In September 2023 she stood inside the deteriorating theater with owner Yorke Lee to celebrate the unveiling of the 76-unit redevelopment plan.

Her 2024 campaign site says she "secured … 76 new housing units." What’s interesting is that in April 2023, owner Yorke Lee had already proposed 74 units with 12% affordable housing and no landmarking, a faster arrangement that would have qualified for state CEQA exemptions. Chan rejected it as inadequate and pushed for her three bill landmarking and SUD package instead. Two years later, the project netted two extra units, one of them affordable. She blocked someone else's plan, ran it through two years of her own red tape, and claimed it as her own victory.

What’s worse is that the units still don't exist years later. It’s still a decaying building on Geary, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a campaign prop. While the redevelopment plan promises to preserve the marquee and other historic features, all of the decay from 22 years of neglect means much of it will have to be rebuilt rather than preserved. The same Family Zoning Plan she voted against would have allowed this kind of mid-rise housing on Geary, with no need for the two-year, three bill process her approach required.

Chan voted No on most of the significant housing supply measures that came before the Board since taking office in 2021.

In 2021 the Board rejected the 469 Stevenson Street project 8-3, killing 495 units of housing planned for a Nordstrom parking lot. No tenants would have been displaced. The state stepped in: Governor Newsom intervened to revive the project, and California's housing department warned SF to fix the rules that made the rejection possible.

Mayor Breed's response was an ordinance shortening the notice and hearing process for housing in less-displacement-vulnerable neighborhoods. The Mission and Bayview kept their full review. The Richmond District Chan represents would get faster approvals.

Chan voted No on the December 2023 final passage. Even progressive supervisors representing the most displacement-vulnerable districts voted Aye. The ordinance passed 9-2 despite her opposition and cut project approval times by 47%.

In December 2025 Chan voted No on all four ordinances of Mayor Lurie's Family Zoning Plan. At the November 17 Land Use Committee hearing, Chan called the rezoning "a state mandate legislated by a single-minded legislator based on unproven housing ideology." The plan upzoned much of the west side along transit corridors, including stretches of Geary, to allow mid-rise housing. It passed 7-4.

The Outer Richmond Safeway at 850 La Playa is a 526-unit redevelopment in Chan's own District 1. At the November 17 Land Use Committee hearing on the Family Zoning Plan, Chan moved an amendment to remove all coastal zone parcels, including this site, from the upzoning. The amendment failed in committee. Align Real Estate then moved forward under state density bonus law, which allows up to 85 feet on the site by-right and bypasses local discretion entirely.

Chan also voted as the lone No in June 2025 when the Board approved expansion of the 3400 Laguna Street Julia Morgan-designed senior housing landmark in the Marina. In July 2025, she primary-sponsored a resolution opposing SB 79 (the Transit-Oriented Development housing bill) unless it was amended to preserve local government control, add affordability requirements, and add residential and commercial tenant protections. The resolution failed 7-4 at the Board. Newsom signed SB 79 into law three months later. It takes effect July 1, 2026.

On her 2020 Supervisor Campaign site, she made a promise to help first-time homebuyers. It never produced legislation or budget action. The same commitment now reappears, in nearly identical language, on her 2026 Congressional Housing page.

Chan has authored legitimate tenant bills, including allowing association representatives at landlord meetings (2023) and enforcement against algorithmic rent-setting (2024). In the same December 2025 week that the Family Zoning Plan passed over her opposition, she co-sponsored a resolution urging the state to roll back parts of Wiener's SB 330 so San Francisco could block demolition of rent-controlled units.

Together with her votes against new supply, they form one consistent position: strengthen protections for people in existing buildings while limiting the addition of new ones. While this stance is consistent, it is also the opposite of her 2020 commitment to "create both low-income and middle-income housing." The protection works for tenants who stay. For everyone else, including growing families, adult children leaving home, and new arrivals, the housing she voted against is the housing they would have moved into.

In 2020 Chan's transportation page was pretty clear:

She started somewhat consistent. In September 2021 she primary-sponsored a "Beach to Bay" car-free connection resolution that passed unanimously, though Streetsblog and The Frisc criticized it for keeping cars on the busiest car-free segment of JFK Drive, near the museums and Music Concourse.

Then the votes flipped:

May 2022. JFK Drive permanent closure in Golden Gate Park: Chan voted No, even though an SF Parks and Rec community survey showed 70% support and voters later confirmed the closure 63.5%.

December 2022. Great Highway weekend closure pilot: Chan voted No on final passage.

November 2024. Prop K, the ballot measure to permanently close the Great Highway and create the new oceanfront park west-siders now know as Sunset Dunes: Chan publicly opposed it. It passed anyway.

As recently as April 2025, Chan told the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon she would "explore a ballot measure" to reopen the Great Highway to weekday vehicle traffic. The opposition is ongoing.

If you live on the west side, Sunset Dunes is now a daily reality. The plan that delivered it passed over Chan's opposition. One year in, Streetsblog reports, the park has hosted twenty permitted events with tens of thousands of attendees, including the 13,000-runner Skechers Hot Chocolate Run and the 9,500-runner SF Half Marathon. 300 volunteers planted 2,200 dune grasses to stabilize the shoreline. 87 bird species have been documented, including nesting white-crowned sparrows. One in four visitors is from the Sunset neighborhood.

In 2020 Chan ran on reducing police funding, rejecting invasive surveillance technology, and transforming the department.

By 2024 the same campaign site told a different story. Chan was now celebrating increased policing and surveillance technology as wins on her reelection page.

In November 2022, Chan voted Aye on the Law Enforcement Equipment Policy, an 8-3 first reading that authorized SFPD's "killer robots", remote-controlled robots that could deploy lethal force. Her 2020 platform had pledged to "end the use of military-grade equipment." After a week of national backlash, the Board reversed itself in another 8-3 vote, and Chan flipped to the ban side. The three supervisors who voted No on the original authorization could claim consistency with that pledge. Chan couldn't.

From 2023 onward, Chan voted Aye on every SFPD supplemental appropriation, contradicting the 2020 pledge to refuse a police budget increase. In December 2023 she also voted Aye on the SFPD ALPR Surveillance Technology Policy. The ordinance authorized 400 new Automated License Plate Readers across the city, precisely the "invasive technology" she had campaigned against.

In 2020 Chan ran on cutting red tape for west side merchants.

Chan primary-sponsored the Neighborhood Anchor Business Registry in 2021, recognizing longtime west side merchants. This was a direct match to her 2020 promise of expanding the Legacy Business program.

The streamlining promise is more complicated. Her 2024 reelection site claimed to have "supported a first-year permit fee waiver for new small businesses." But the First Year Free legislation was authored by Supervisor Hillary Ronen with the Mayor's office, with Engardio, Dorsey, Mandelman, and Stefani as co-sponsors. Chan is on neither sponsor list. She funded continuation as Budget Chair, which is real but not authorship.

When reading her campaign materials, keep this in mind: the 98 homes at 383 Sixth Avenue exist because Sandra Lee Fewer started the project before Chan took office. The 469 Stevenson Street project survived because Governor Newsom intervened over the Board's rejection. Sunset Dunes exists because Prop K passed despite her opposition. The Family Zoning Plan is now law even though she voted against it. Despite running on creating "low-income and middle-income housing" and preserving "car-free spaces including slow streets," she has fought both at nearly every turn.

The other two sections of this audit show a different pattern: a police platform that reversed itself between 2020 and 2024, and a small business credit on her site for legislation Hillary Ronen authored.

A candidate seeking higher office should face a higher bar. Promises that appeared in three separate 2020 documents, went unfulfilled locally, and have now reappeared for a federal campaign are fair to examine. If she couldn't keep these commitments from a seat on the Board of Supervisors, the question voters should ask is what makes Congress different.

Ashley and Larry write The Fogline, a newsletter about San Francisco's western neighborhoods. Our CA-11 coverage also includes our recent piece on Saikat Chakrabarti and a forthcoming look at Senator Scott Wiener. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox.