Don’t risk bankrupting and displacing 9,800+ San Francisco families

Over 9,800 San Francisco families living in pre-1975 high rise buildings — more than 15,000 people, many of them elderly, infirm, on fixed incomes — are facing drastic financial and life consequences due to an amendment to the city’s Fire Code adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2022.

This amendment, mandating retrofitting of automatic fire sprinklers in the affected buildings, reportedly was adopted without adequate notice to affected parties and without thoughtful consideration of its effects. Its terrible effects, including costs up to $300,000 per unit plus displacement of residents for construction, are just now becoming apparent.

The Supervisors need to undo the chaos they have caused, and your help is needed now to convince them to do so.

How did we get here?

In 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring automatic fire sprinklers to be installed in every residential unit of pre-1975 high-rise buildings. The ordinance affects approximately 9,800+ homes in 126 buildings, including in neighborhoods like Western Addition, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, the Marina, and lower Pacific Heights¹².

The ordinance applies to residential buildings of 12 stories or more (as well as shorter buildings that lack certain stairways). While the final installation deadline is 2035, condominium homeowners associations must begin planning and levying assessments on residents now, to get building permits required by January 2027³ (with proposed extension to 2030).

History of the Sprinkler Retrofit Ordinance

The ordinance was adopted during a period when San Francisco experienced a spike in residential fires. However, most of these fires did not occur in the high-rise buildings that would be affected by this mandate⁴. The legislation was sponsored by Supervisors Connie Chan, Rafael Mandelman, Myrna Melgar, and Shamann Walton, and introduced by Aaron Peskin.

According to reports, the Board of Supervisors did not conduct any formal cost studies or consult with any affected residents before passing the ordinance⁵. Many affected people learned only recently about the mandate and its potential costs, causing widespread concern, confusion and fear.

The Consequences

Financial Impact

The financial burden of compliance on residents of affected buildings threatens to be staggering:

To meet the 2035 deadline, many homeowners associations may need to begin assessing residents an additional $2,500 or more per month immediately. For residents taking out loans, monthly costs could reach $3,000 when including interest⁷. These new costs will devastate people on fixed incomes and young families.

Displacement and Disruption

The installation work will require:

• Temporary displacement of residents for one or more months during construction
• Relocation costs that residents must bear while continuing to pay their mortgages and HOA fees
• Extended construction periods building-wide, potentially lasting years

For elderly residents, many on fixed incomes, temporary displacement poses significant health and safety risks. Residents like 101-year-old Elaine Hilp, who has lived independently in her Russian Hill apartment for 40 years, may be forced out of their homes⁸.

Impact on Property Values

The ordinance is already affecting the real estate market:

• Difficulty selling units in affected buildings
• Depressed property values due to pending assessments
• Prospective buyers unwilling to take on the financial uncertainty
• Owners forced to sell at losses to avoid the mandate

Teachers, retirees, and middle-class homeowners who purchased condos as long-term residences now face financial devastation. Many report they cannot afford to double their HOA fees or temporarily relocate while still paying mortgages⁹.

Where things are now

In December 2025, facing significant backlash from hundreds of affected residents, Mayor Daniel Lurie introduced legislation to delay the ordinance and establish a study committee¹⁰.

Recently enacted change:

• Extending the permit deadline from 2027 to 2032 and water supply deadline from 2030 to 2032

Proposed changes include:

• Creating a “Technical Advisory Committee” possibly including condo owners, supervisors, building trades representatives, and city agencies.
• Studying the feasibility of the ordinance
• Developing criteria for potential exemptions

However, Supervisor Stephen Sherrill notes that “just pushing the time limits down the road doesn’t solve anybody’s problems¹¹.” The fundamental issues of cost, displacement, and feasibility remain unaddressed.

The updated fire code, which includes the sprinkler requirements, must still be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Community meetings have been packed with concerned residents, with over 300 people attending a recent Fort Mason meeting¹².

Why “Extensions” and “Exemptions” are not the solution

The current proposal (scheduled for consideration in January 2026) calls for extending some interim-stage deadlines but not the final deadline. During the extended period some research may be done and a commission my be formed to consider criteria for exemption from the mandate.

Neither time extensions nor possible exemptions remove the peril that residents and owners face – they simply add uncertainty and push the peril down the road a few years.

A cloud remains on the salability of and ability to finance affected units and buildings. And ultimate possible exemptions will revolve around technical matters such as accessibility of water sources and ceiling heights in buildings, leading to some residents possibly being spared the consequences of the mandate while others may still be hit with the full force of it.

Repeal is the solution — and other cities and states have seen the light

While resistance to repealing the retrofit mandate is coming from those with an economic interest, such as the Building Trades Council (whose members stand to receive an up to $3 billion payday if the mandate is not repealed), a rigorous cost benefit analysis suggests retaining the mandate does not justify the costs.

San Francisco’s own commission considering fire safety improvements recommended against a retrofit mandate — but its recommendation was ignored.

Retrofitting sprinklers would indisputably increase protections for life and property where done. But good governments balance costs with benefits even in matters of safety. For example, Caltrain’s tracks have many grade level track crossings even where it is obvious that construction of underpasses would improve driver and pedestrian safety.

Other jurisdictions that hastily imposed sprinkler mandates have since thought better of them.

• In 2018, the Maryland State Fire Prevention Commission required all existing residential high‑rise buildings (including condos and co‑ops) without full sprinklers to be retrofitted by January 1, 2033. In January 2024, the Office of the State Fire Marshal determined that “the mandate to retrofit high‑rise residential buildings with sprinkler systems would not be enforced,” so owners of existing high‑rise residential buildings are no longer being compelled to retrofit under that statewide mandate.
• Since 2000, Florida law has required older residential high‑rises (condos/co‑ops, typically 75 feet or higher) to retrofit with either a full automatic sprinkler system or an Engineered Life Safety System (ELSS). The Legislature repeatedly softened this mandate by allowing high‑rise associations to vote to opt out of in‑unit sprinklers (and later, in 2017, to opt out of certain ELSS requirements), significantly weakening the original retrofit obligation for many older multi‑unit high‑rises even though some form of life‑safety system is still required.
• San Diego adopted an ordinance in the late 1980s requiring automatic sprinkler retrofits in all existing high‑rise buildings, with compliance deadlines that were extended multiple times (e.g., from 1996 to 1999, then further extensions for some buildings). A later national review reports that “the city had a sprinkler retrofitting law, but it was taken out of the municipal code … leaving no active across‑the‑board retrofit mandate in force for all existing high‑rise residential towers.
• No other California city has a sprinkler retrofit mandate for older residential high rises. Los Angeles specifically exempts residential buildings from its mandate.

San Francisco Supervisors should reconsider the advice of the city’s own fire safety commission, and the examples of other jurisdictions that have reversed themselves, and bypass the confusion of extensions and exemptions to simply repeal the mandate.

What You Can Do

Contact Your Supervisor

Let your District Supervisor know how this ordinance affects you. Personal stories are powerful advocacy tools.

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References