The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) approved housing streamlining legislation voted in last week by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, thus allowing the city to avoid a series of sanctions that could have included a loss of funding for affordable housing as well as a relinquishing of local control over the development approval process, which is commonly referred to as the builder’s remedy. The package to reform San Francisco’s housing permitting and review process is a key part of the state’s goal to force the city to build 82,000 housing units over the next eight years, 46,000 of which are supposed to be affordable to low- and moderate-income families.
The Santa Clara City Council last Tuesday unanimously approved a new downtown precise plan. The downtown precise plan is intended to revitalize the downtown grid to accommodate up to 1,071 new homes and more than 700,000 square feet of commercial space. The downtown redevelopment will include a mix of streets and public spaces, laid out in a restored grid pattern with at least one new bike lane. The new zoning in the downtown precise plan area allows increased heights for mixed-use development of residential and commercial projects.
San Diego took an aggressive step toward solving the city’s housing crisis this Tuesday when the City Council approved a large and varied package of developer incentives and regulatory changes to spur more housing construction. The package includes incentives for building new single-room-occupancy hotels and a policy accelerating conversion of businesses like scrapyards into housing. It also includes incentives for developers to build housing for college students and loosens rules for housing on public land and underutilized commercial sites. Under the program, developers can build much larger market-rate projects than zoning would otherwise allow if they agree also to build rent-restricted units for low-income residents. A source of controversy is that under certain circumstances, developers would be allowed to build low-income housing and market-rate housing in separate locations.
In a decision that will make it difficult for developers to convert mobile home parks into other uses, the San Jose City Council has unanimously approved additional protections for some of the region’s last bastion of affordable housing. Thirteen of San Jose’s mobile home parks will be placed into a new land-use category, requiring prospective developers to submit a general plan amendment on top of a council vote. The city’s eventual goal is to place nearly all of San Jose’s 60 mobile home parks in this category. San Jose has the largest number of mobile home parks of any California city.
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