On Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle made an interesting observation that New York City just passed a plan “to encourage the construction of 82,000 units over the next 15 years,” with Mayor Eric Adams calling it “the most pro-housing piece of legislation in city history.”
The Chronicle dutifully pointed out, “82,000 happens also to be the number of units state housing officials are mandating that San Francisco — a city with one-tenth of the population of New York — plan for in its current eight-year housing element, which goes from 2023 to 2031.”
They added, “Depending on how you look at it, the twin 82,000 goals either underscore how ambitious California is about tackling a housing shortage 40 years in the making, or the absurdity of the state’s expectations. “
According to Chris Elmendorf, a UC Davis law professor and housing policy expert, “the magnitude of what New York just did is much smaller than what California is doing.”
But perhaps a more important point is “the levels of affordable housing called for in the two plans represent a tale of two cities.”
As the Chronicle reports: “New York’s plan requires developers of some larger projects to make 20% of units affordable to low-income households, which he said is consistent with historic patterns. In contrast, San Francisco’s housing element calls for 40% of units to be affordable to low-income families and another 17% aimed at moderate-income households, “which everyone knows is an impossible goal” without a hefty tax to fund the housing.”
Elmendorf on social media argues: “The absurdity of San Francisco’s ‘RHNA’ housing target is not the topline number (~10k new homes/year) but the nominal expectation that > 40% of them will be deed-restricted affordable housing.”
It’s a good point and one that I noticed because the city of Davis is required to build about 930 affordable units in its current cycle out of a total of 2100.
This is a point that we have raised a number of times.
I have a couple of thoughts on this.
First of all, for those in the community who continue to argue that Davis doesn’t need more “unaffordable” housing, the RHNA numbers effectively bake that in.
Second, the real driver is not 2100 or so total units, the real driver is going to be those affordable housing units.
If we look at the realistic percentage at 20 percent—which I know people will cringe at the suggestion, but that’s still too high a target for the most part—we are looking at realistically 4600 total units, not 2100.
To put this into perspective, the two proposed Measure J projects—Village Farms and Shriners—have a total of 3000 units, of which 20 percent are targeted as being deed-restricted, affordable units. That gets us to 600 units. Can we find another 330 units of affordable housing elsewhere? That’s a big question.
Neither one of these projects are part of the current RHNA allotment. They need to be rezoned to count either on the sixth or seventh cycle, which requires them to pass a Measure J vote.
That leads me to the critical point that everyone should consider with respect to local planning—for those who want to argue that Village Farms is the wrong place, wrong time. Where are you planning to make up those 1800 units plus find another 1500 or so with 20 percent of them being deed restricted?
That’s the dilemma. In the old days, you only really had to show the potential to build those units. Now you have to build them.
And the penalty for Davis is probably the state litigating Measure J.
In other words, the state is being extremely aggressive, they understand the overall need for affordable units, and they are threatening a loss potentially of local autonomy if we don’t get there.
Don’t believe me?
The city of Chino Hills is fighting the state on housing.
Here are a couple of potential consequences for Chino Hills. These include: “The State may refer Chino Hills to the Attorney General if they do not have a compliant Housing Element, fail to comply with their HCD-approved Housing Element, or violate Housing Element laws.”
Further: “Failure to rezone in a timely manner could result in Chino Hills losing its land use authority. The State may investigate any local action or lack of action by Chino Hills related to its Housing Element compliance.”
Now if we replace the city of Davis in those statements, what would that mean? To me it’s clear that Measure J would be in the bullseye.
It seems to me that the city needs to be much more aggressive in making the stakes clear—both in terms of the numbers it will take to reach compliance and the consequences if they don’t.
And, again, how many affordable units have been approved that count for this RHNA cycle’s requirements?
When Davis fails to meet its numbers the builders remedy will kick in again and Measure J won’t be an issue. The big question will be annexation.
Dear Ron,
It is my belief that the builder’s remedy will kick in at some point again. However, I have to assume that it only applies to land within the Davis jurisdiction and not to land outside of Davis.
Measure J will still be in place unless removed by a different legal action by the state.
David J Thompson
That’s my understanding.
That is essentially what I was saying. The question won’t be Meadure J it will be annexation
It is clear to me that neither San Francisco nor Davis will meet their upcoming RHNA numbers for low and very low households. In both cases, there is neither the land nor the level of subsidy available within both jurisdictions.
930 units of low and very low income units are just not realistically possible within the present city boundaries.
David J Thompson
The state’s focus on % affordable units is REALLY unfortuante because it creates a perverse incentive: If you build just a few low density mansions, and then build 40% more capital-A affordable “units” but build them as 500 sqft studios, you will clear the regulatory hurdles with much more margin than if you had focused on making more little-A affordable units… You would have to then produce even more calital-A affordable.
This math revealed itself when I was trying to do the calcuations for how much housing we could theoretically fit into the natural contours of our city: The mace curve being the last area which really fits that description.
If you concentrate on missing middle housing for the bulk of the project and specify a 7% affordable, you end up with far more affordable housing than if you concentrate on single family units and have a 15% unit threshold.
That is why when we were discussing the requirements for a potential mesaure J revision, we arrived at the concept of % of the LAND AREA to dedicate for capitalA affordable. Doing it based on units really is the wrong approach.
This brings to mind the weird dynamic of city densification versus county land preservation. Davis is becoming a dense city surrounded by 40 80 or 160 acre estates in the county.
Agricultural land must be a part of this discussion. Yes, housing and affordable housing are important and we will have incursions on these important ag lands. But when that occurs project lands must be used as effectively as possible with higher density, attention to transit options and mitigation of ag lands. The updated Village Home project addresses these issues as a good example.
I agree Bob. I think the owners are trying to do their best to create something that takes many competing factors into account.