This summary brief is a preview of a full-length version that includes details about who builds each affordable housing category, who pays, how rents are set and can change over time, and many other policy considerations.
The San Francisco Bay Area's housing target fails to account for the fact that the region leads the nation in super-commuters, many of whom work in the Bay Area but have been driven to live outside of it.
Reforms to the real estate transfer tax, which is assessed when properties are sold or otherwise change ownership, are an effective and equitable solution to immediate budget needs, while also supporting important long-term priorities including affordable housing and tenant assistance.
An estimate of the market-feasible production if the state were to allow fourplexes on single-family parcels and analysis of how these impacts vary across regions and cities.
This primer will help policymakers, public officials, advocates, and other stakeholders better understand the many different types of affordable housing, what they accomplish, how they’re regulated, and who they serve.
Should cities only allow new housing on the condition that the developers of that housing deliver public benefits in return? This idea is often called “value capture”, and is used to justify — among other things — various forms of inclusionary zoning.
This report examines whether new development in Los Angeles is resulting in the widespread loss, through demolition, of older, more affordable housing units.
A fee deferral program would preserve the quantity — and depending on policy design, also the timing — of public fee revenues, while reducing private carrying costs.
An explanation of how city councils and planning departments can use the housing element law to increase housing supply, but find themselves constrained by neighborhood-level opposition to change.
Since 1990, California allows developers of affordable housing projects to bypass zoning codes and general plans of cities out of compliance with the Housing Element Law. Why aren't there more builder's remedy projects?
