Capital Planning in San Francisco

Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground

The Fiscal Year 2024-33 City and County of San Francisco Capital Plan (the Plan) is the City’s commitment to building a more resilient, equitable, and vibrant future for the residents, workers, and visitors of San Francisco. Updated every odd-numbered year, the Plan is a fiscally constrained expenditure plan that lays out anticipated infrastructure investments over the next decade. This document is the product of input from Citywide stakeholders, who have put forth their best ideas and most realistic estimates of San Francisco’s future capital needs. 

Through the application of consistent funding principles and fiscal policies, the Plan prioritizes departmental capital needs within defined fiscal constraints. The result is a road map for investments in San Francisco’s streets, facilities, utilities, parks, waterfront, transportation network, and affordable housing. 

Developed on the centennial of the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco’s first Capital Plan described the City’s renewed dedication to investing in public facilities and infrastructure for FY2007- 2016. Since that first Plan, the City’s commitment to its capital portfolio has grown substantially. In addition to addressing the seismic, modernization, and maintenance needs of City buildings and infrastructure, the Plan has added new challenges related to climate change and affordable housing. 

This FY2024-33 Capital Plan comes at a time of significant change and uncertainty in terms of hybrid work environments and the use of office space, the return of public transit use and tourism, as well as higher interest rates and inflation that are impacting costs and revenue. While COVID-19 appears to be waning, the lasting impacts on capital funding are considerable. This includes three years of significantly lower Pay-As-You-Go program funding along with a reduction in the capacity of the City’s General Obligation (G.O) bond program.       

The current Plan recommends over $41 billion in critical infrastructure improvements over the next 10 years. 

The $41 billion total level of investment recommended here is 9% higher than the previous Capital Plan, which was highly impacted by shortfalls caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing reductions in the General Fund Pay-As-You-Go Program, as well as enterprise department budgets. This increase represents an effort to restore pre-pandemic levels of capital investment in San Francisco, and the recommendations in this Capital Plan reflect confidence in the City’s capacity to navigate near-term budget constraints and administer capital projects and programs in a responsible manner. San Francisco understands that ongoing investment in public assets is an essential function of government and will continue to act as a good steward of the City’s public spaces, facilities, and infrastructure.

This Plan begins to restore the severe COVID-19 induced funding reductions to previous levels by starting at a higher baseline and making large annual increases so that backlogs begin to decline in the second five years of the Plan

San Francisco's voters have approved nearly $5.6 billion in G.O. Bonds since 2008, more than the previous 50 years of G.O. Bonds combined. 

 

San Francisco's voters have approved $5.6 billion in G.O. Bonds since 2008, more than the previous 50 years of G.O. Bonds combined.

Table 2.1: G.O. Bonds Passed Since 2008

Year G.O. Bond Program

Amount

(Dollars in Millions)

2008

Neighborhood Parks and Open Space

180

2008

Public Health Seismic Facilities (SFGH rebuild)

887

2010

Earthquake Safety & Emergency Response

412

2011

Road Resurfacing and Street Safety

248

2012

Neighborhood Parks and Open Space

195

2014

Earthquake Safety & Emergency Response

400

2014

Transportation

500

2015

Affordable Housing

310

2016

Public Health and Safety

350

2018

Seawall Resilience

425

2019

Affordable Housing

600

2020

Earthquake Safety & Emergency Response

629

2020

Health and Recovery

488

Total

 

5,623

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