City report shows that upzoning neighborhoods won’t create more affordable housing
The heart of the Yimby approach to housing—and the crux of what the state now wants cities to do—is upzoning. More density; less restrictions on developers. At a Planning Commission hearing in 2017, (starts at 2:11) the director of Yimby Action said that the only way to speed up production of housing for the middle class is to make sure that “RH-1 (single family) zoning should be gone by next year.”
And now that’s coming to pass; between state law (SB 9) and a series of measures under debate at the Board of Supes, it appears single-family zoning will be gone in the city within a few months.
But a Planning Commission report that was apparently finished in February but just released shows that allowing four-to-six-unit projects in single-family neighborhoods won’t produce much new housing at all—and what it does produce won’t be affordable.
The report, which you can read here, concludes that “it would be very difficult” for a developer to buy an existing building, demolish it, and put up a fourplex.
And that’s assuming there is zero requirement for affordable housing in the project; if there’s any requirement of affordability, it “reduces the likelihood of new housing being built.”
City report shows that upzoning neighborhoods won’t create more affordable housing
