[9] He was president of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, where he co-led the effort to stop the Colombo Building from being converted into the Chinatown branch of City College.

[10][11] During his first two terms as a supervisor, Peskin mostly sided with a self-described progressive majority on development issues, often being at odds with the policies of mayors Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown.

[13] Peskin passed legislation in 2003 to establish a 100-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, requiring protesters to acquire consent before approaching people.

[16] In January 2011, he was a candidate for mayor to fill the unexpired term of Gavin Newsom, who resigned to become Lieutenant Governor of California,[17] but Peskin was not chosen by the Board of Supervisors.

[20] That negative press attributed to Pak's comments in Chinatown created an opportunity for Peskin to pick up much-needed votes in the Chinese community when he ran against Christensen.

[24] Since his first days in office, Peskin has been known as a "neighborhood preservationist" (SF Weekly), opposing and preventing many development projects in San Francisco, often citing their low affordable housing quotas and negative impact on locals.

[32] Later, in 2024, Peskin spearheaded an effort to designate the Northern Waterfront and Jackson Square as historic districts and thus restoring the pre-2023 neighborhood height limit laws and preventing development of dense, large housing in the area.

The Ellis Act has led to many tenancy-in-common conversions of apartment buildings in San Francisco by tenants who desire to own property, and real estate promoters seeking to make ownership opportunities available (and thereby earning fees and profits).

[42] In his 2015 reelection campaign, he advocated extending San Francisco's rent control to buildings constructed after 1979 (which would necessitate changes in state law).

[43] He has also been endorsed by the San Francisco Apartment Association, an advocacy group for rental building owners and property managers, of which he is a member as a landlord himself.

[43] Peskin opposes the Treasure Island Development project, which over two decades is planned to create 7,000 to 8,000 housing units, 25 percent of which are affordable,[clarification needed] alongside commercial, retail, office and public spaces.

He led a group called Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island in lawsuits against the city of San Francisco and a developer, arguing that its impact on environment and traffic had not been properly reviewed.

[44] In October 2021, Peskin voted to block construction of a 495-unit apartment building with 25% affordable housing on the site of a Nordstroms valet parking lot.

"[47] In January 2022, Peskin defended the delay in approval for a $18.7 million grant to repurpose a hotel in his district into a homeless shelter for upwards of 250 people.

[49] In 2024, Peskin opposed SB951, a bill that would remove the ability of the California Coastal Commission to delay and reject housing developments in areas of San Francisco's coast that are already urbanized.

[56] Peskin authored a 2007 charter amendment to increase San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) funding and implement agency reforms.

[58] Peskin and supervisor Shamann Walton opted to not introduce a $108 million sales tax measure onto the November 2020 ballot to finance Caltrain, which had seen a 95% reduction in ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California.

[61] Peskin has been involved with contentious decisions which weighed public landmarks and events against the desires of his constituents, including the disagreement surrounding alcohol permits at the North Beach Jazz Festival,[62][63] the temporary shutdown of the Savoy Tivoli,[64] and cancelling the San Francisco Grand Prix because the bike race's backers owed the city money.

[12] For example, he called the Port of San Francisco director Monique Moyer several times about cutting their funding over disagreements concerning waterfront building height limits.

[67] However, former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos has said Peskin's alleged behavior falls "well within the boundaries of the system" and that it's "not unusual in politics at any level of government.