Urban Planning Resources

Page updated: 16 June 2008

The San Francisco General Plan and Planning Code are an important model for planning for several reasons:
1. It is developed within the legal system and litigious environment of California. It is therefore heavily-tested and heavily-challenged.
2. It is a code that serves a city of middle and high density. Most American cities will develop in this direction in the future, and need to learn from how this mid-density city is administered.

The General Plan is the statement of philosophies that backs up the particular rules found in the Planning Code. If the city is sued for a particular regulation, the General Plan is important for showing why the regulation was created in the first place; if it needs to be modified, the General Plan can be used as a guide for how to refine the regulation and still pursue the overall policy goal.

In 2006 I reformatted the Planning Code into A4 size, and embedded the graphics, so that you can download the sections for reference and use. For other cities, the first sections are the most important. Later sections are more particular to San Francisco; they may be useful for comparison as you think about adopting parts of this code. Note that both the General Plan and the Planning Code are constantly being updated and refined; they are living documents. So the files I have here will become increasingly out-of-date and should be used for reference only.