Bay Area Housing Policy and Local Influences
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This document outlines an agenda to discuss Bay Area housing policy. It begins with background on the types of local policies that affect housing, such as zoning laws, minimum lot sizes, and parking requirements. It also discusses the influence of state and regional entities, such as the Association of Bay Area Governments and the California Environmental Quality Act. Next, it identifies the various stakeholders involved in housing issues, including developers, advocates, environmentalists, unions, and neighborhood groups. The agenda concludes with allocating time for an open discussion on challenges around increasing housing in the Bay Area.
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Bay Area Housing Policy and Local Influences
- 1. Bay Area Housing Policy: The State of Play
- 3. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Discussion questions 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 4. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Various thoughts– culture wars, hacking, etc. 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 5. Google searches: “affordable housing” (in SF Bay area)
- 6. Prices really do seem to be going up a lot!
- 8. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Various thoughts– culture wars, hacking, etc. 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 9. Vehicles of Local Housing Policy • Zoning against multi-unit buildings • Minimum lot sizes
- 10. E.g.: • Los Altos Hills entirely zoned for one acre lots • Much of Palo Alto zoned for 8,000 sq ft single family lots (less extreme) • (typical) process for requesting rezoning • Etc.
- 12. Vehicles of Local Housing Policy • Zoning against multi-unit buildings • Minimum lot sizes • Parking requirements
- 13. Example from Hayward munipal code:
- 14. … it goes on …
- 15. Vehicles of Local Housing Policy • Zoning against multi-unit buildings • Minimum lot sizes • Parking requirements • Height limits • Minimum apartment sizes • Historical building preservation • Rent control • “affordable” housing requirement for each project (SF)
- 16. SF and cities– planning department organizes “city plan” and “neighborhood plans” which end up determining the nature of all these regulations.
- 17. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Various thoughts– culture wars, hacking, etc. 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 18. Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Impact– not much.
- 19. California Environmental Quality Act Easily used to delay projects whether or not there are real environmental concerns. Recent SF controversey– Scott Wiener trying to make it harder to raise CEQA objections.
- 20. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Various thoughts– culture wars, hacking, etc. 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 21. The players: • developers • advocates for low income people • environmentalists • construction unions (I’ve heard of unions using CEQA to force developers to use unionized labor or else experience costly delays) • local neighborhood groups • Conservationists • renters
- 22. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Discussion 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 24. Plan: 1. Why are we talking about housing? (Why now?) 2. (Background) What kinds of policy affect housing at the local level? How are they enacted, by whom? 3. (Background) State / regional influence on housing 4. Who are the players in this game? 5. Various thoughts– culture wars, hacking, etc. 6. Discussion (30-40 minutes)
- 25. Appendix [Will contain charts etc that could be useful in discussion. More than are there now.]
- 29. Fights over micro units – fears of commuting techies, fears about not enough housing for “families”.
Editor's Notes
- Personal story here – moving to the area, trouble finding housing, etc……. Sad to see so much of my money going to rent, sad to see friends in less lucrative careers moving away… larger salary b/c need to pay more rent? No! larger salary b/c more productive. Need to be more rent also, but that’s different. (and not necessary!) agglomeration economics…
- I wondered if worry over Bay area housing costs was a new thing
- [Chart showing CPI for housing cost in Bay Area – it’s going up a lot, but doesn’t even reflect increases in rent for new renters since many are paying the same.(I had trouble finding good data on rent prices for new rentals over time. Anecdotally… it’s up a lot!)]
- Thinking about the benefits of density – recent trend for ecnomists
- How many of you own cars?
- Story: has anyone here actually been involved in a planning department issue?
- Show of hands: who takes a shuttle? I don’t take the shuttles, but in a sense, that’s people like me. Tension with other people (todo: add tweet or news story or something on the controversy)…
- I think this is really about who we let in to SF