About sfpulse

sfpulse aggregates public civic data from San Francisco government sources and surfaces it by neighborhood and supervisorial district. It is not affiliated with the City of San Francisco.

Data sources

• Building permits: SF Open Data (Socrata), updated daily
• Housing pipeline: SF Planning Dept via Socrata; streamlined projects (AB2011, SB35, density bonus)
• 311 activity: SF Open Data (Socrata), updated hourly
• Eviction notices: SF Rent Board via Socrata
• Board of Supervisors: Legistar RSS; agendas, votes, committee recaps
• Planning Commission: sfplanning.org; upcoming hearings and decisions
• SFMTA: sfmta.com; engineering hearings and board meetings
• Board of Appeals: SF.gov API
• Rent Board: SF.gov API; commission meetings and rent increase notices
• Ethics & lobbying: SF Ethics Commission via Socrata and RSS
• Rec & Park, SFUSD, BART, SFCTA: respective agency websites
• Local news: RSS feeds from Mission Local, SF Standard, Streetsblog SF, SF YIMBY, 48 Hills, Indybay
• Civic actions: mobilize.us and Indybay RSS

How it works

Data is fetched on a schedule (every 30 minutes to 12 hours depending on how often each source updates) and cached locally. Each district page shows the freshest available data with a timestamp. Stale sections are re-fetched automatically in the background. See Methodology for source details, refresh schedules, and how district filtering works.

What the colors mean

• Red left border: high-impact items: major new construction, Ellis Act evictions, significant 311 spikes, streamlined housing projects
• Amber left border: notable items: medium-tier permits, moderate activity increases
• No border / gray: routine activity

Limitations

• Planning Commission hearing agendas are sometimes posted late. Check sfplanning.org directly for last-minute additions.
• Legistar RSS covers approximately 3 weeks of Board history.
• Some sources (SFMTA engineering hearings, Rec & Park) may show no data between hearing cycles.

How to participate

Most of the hearings listed here accept public comment. Look for the agenda link and submit written comment to the relevant body before the hearing date. For Planning Commission items, comments can be submitted at sfplanning.org. For Board of Supervisors items, email the clerk at [email protected].