Brookfield Properties asked the San Francisco Port Commission on 14 July 2026 to lift the unit ceiling at Pier 70 by 28 percent, from 2,150 homes to 2,750. The request went into a closed executive session, and the Chronicle reported it the following day. Two approvals stand between the request and a building permit: the Port Commission and the Board of Supervisors.
The ask: 600 homes and two storeys
The increase adds 600 homes inside the 28-acre Dogpatch waterfront district. To hold them, Brookfield wants two more storeys on several residential buildings, taking those structures from 70 feet to 90 feet. The Chronicle reports 90 feet as the maximum allowed under a 2015 ballot initiative. The added height carries about 70 units on its own.
Tim Bacon, Brookfield's vice president of development, put the case on feasibility. The extra 70 units move the project "from something that is right on the edge of penciling to something that is starting to make a lot more sense," he said.
Two approvals and an unpublished document
The development agreement carries the unit cap, and no party has published the amended text. The Chronicle's report supplies no agreement language, no amendment schedule and no Port staff recommendation. The first public marker of the change sits in a neighbour's statement. J.R. Eppler, vice president of Potrero Boosters and a candidate for the District 10 seat on the Board of Supervisors, said he is "eager to see the specific changes to the development agreement."
A Port Commission vote and a Board of Supervisors vote follow. Neither body had acted when the Chronicle published. An owner tracking the file can treat the 14 July session as the start of the amendment clock.
Phase one grows to 700 homes
The first phase held 575 units. It now holds 700: a 350-unit apartment building at Lot E2, a 105-unit affordable building and two condominium buildings totalling 245 units. Bacon said the changes could allow a 2027 groundbreaking on the E2 building, the first housing complex in the phase.
He also said Brookfield hopes to start construction next year on a 300,000-square-foot office building, contingent on the city's office market gathering momentum. That commitment stays conditional in the reporting.
The affordable share lands near 20 percent
The number of affordable units holds. The share falls. Under the denser plan, the affordable percentage drops from about 30 percent to about 20 percent while the unit count stays the same. The Chronicle publishes the share and publishes no affordable unit total, so the count cannot be derived from the percentages.
That arithmetic sits at the centre of the neighbourhood objection. Eppler set his condition on it: maintain at least the current minimum of affordable units, and deliver affordability in each phase where other residential is delivered.
What the neighbourhood groups say
Donovan Lacy, vice president of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association, said Brookfield has been "pretty engaged" with both the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association and the Potrero Boosters over the four to six weeks before the meeting. He also said the groups need to understand what the changes mean for building affordable housing, and that they will watch for a dramatic reduction.
Lacy placed the neighbourhood on both sides of the argument. He said the neighbourhood does not want to wait another decade, that it wants activity on the housing front, and that it is "pro-housing and pro-affordability."
The same trade across the city
Pier 70 joins a queue of San Francisco projects adding density to reach feasibility. Treasure Island's development group is working with city planners to add between 1,400 and 2,800 units, taking the total from 8,000 to as many as 10,800. At 655 Fourth St., the former Creamery site moved from 960 units to 1,148. One Oak moved from 460 to 541.
The city has also cut the share of units market-rate developers must build as affordable, from 15 percent to 5 percent. Each of those moves trades a public benefit or a built envelope against a pro forma that no longer clears.
The cost line behind the ask
The Port's June 2025 project update records the sequence. Negotiations closed in summer 2020 without a groundbreaking. The project was appraised and entered a down market delay in June 2021. Construction pricing rose 38 percent cumulatively from January 2021 through September 2024. Bacon said San Francisco rents are up 30 percent year over year while construction and operating costs have risen as fast or faster.
What owners take from it
Three signals sit in the file for an owner underwriting the central waterfront. A master developer is trading density for feasibility at a 28 percent lift. Two public bodies hold a veto over the trade. A neighbourhood association has attached a phase-by-phase affordability condition to its support.
The Chronicle's report names no hotel in the Pier 70 programme. The record covers homes, office space and the approval path.