Housing and Land Use

The Bay Area’s strong economy and weak housing growth have contributed to the region’s runaway housing costs, and home prices in the region are increasing faster than incomes. The Bay Area median home price is currently three times higher than the median price in nearby San Joaquin County. As a result, the Bay Area has begun outsourcing a portion of its housing obligations to the farthest reaches of the region, and even into the Central Valley. We need to plan. Communities need to come together to craft innovative visions for how to accommodate new homes, jobs, park spaces, and other amenities to create “complete communities” in locations, within existing cities and towns, that are close to transit so people can walk, bike, or use transit instead of drive.

Related

Report

Co-Ownership in California

California's housing market is facing an intractable challenge. The combination of high demand—particularly in the state’s coastal economic hubs—and limited housing inventory has created an untenable situation for would-be homebuyers. Median home values in many California markets are well above $1 million, and housing costs across the state are much higher than national averages.
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California Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform

The Final Report from the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform, chaired by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), examines systemic permitting challenges that slow critical housing and climate infrastructure projects in California. Based on a year of research, public hearings, site visits, and input from over 100 stakeholder organizations, the report identifies key barriers, highlights best practices, and outlines opportunities for reform to reduce uncertainty, streamline approvals, and lower costs. The findings underscore how California’s current permitting system drives delays and increased expenses, hindering efforts to address the state’s urgent housing and climate needs.
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Evaluating the Case for the East Solano Plan

The East Solano Plan seeks to create a new, mixed-use community at the heart of the Northern California Megaregion with homes, businesses, and civic uses organized into medium-density neighborhoods. At full build out, the plan has room for 400,000 people. The plan includes a commitment to bring 15,000 jobs to Solano County in the first phase of development, along with $500 million in community benefits such as downpayment assistance for Solano County residents and a $200 million fund to invest in revitalizing existing downtowns throughout Solano County. At full build out, these numbers increase to $4 billion in community benefits and $800 million for Solano County downtowns.
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Optimizing Land Uses Near Transit Stations

There have been numerous studies bolstering the case for residential development near transit stations. Less understood, however, are the benefits of commercial development near transit and what increased office and retail space along key transit corridors could mean for the Bay Area’s transit system, regional labor force, and economy more broadly.
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The True Cost of Wildfires

Wildfires are now an annual concern for many of the state’s residents, particularly in and around the Bay Area. Households in fire-prone areas plan for defensible space and exit strategies in the case of a wildfire, and even those in urban areas prepare for the potential of smoke-laden skies and the health impacts they bring. Now, each wildfire season seems to bring weeks of deadly and dangerous air quality, along with destroyed businesses, homes, neighborhoods, and livelihoods.
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Bay Area Economic Profile 2020

The report includes chapters focused on housing and transportation, venture capital and innovation, income inequality, higher education, regional migration, globalization trends, and labor force participation. The chapters provide data points that offer early insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted different aspects of the region and economy in 2020 to help the region plan for a strong and equitable economic recovery.
Report

Bay Area Homelessness

The Bay Area’s homelessness crisis was created by policy failures at all levels of government; interventions at all levels of government are needed to solve it. Rather than pursuing a shelter mandate, the Bay Area should use existing but unused tools at its disposal to raise $10 billion in new regional revenue to expand its inventory of emergency shelters and permanent housing. The region should pair this investment with new additional state and federal support for affordable housing and homelessness prevention, especially via proven programs like Project Homekey and Section 8. These investments should be paired with state policy reforms to boost housing production and reduce pressure on low-income renters, and to reduce local powers to halt shelter production. Although the Bay Area is a wealthy region, it cannot solve homelessness by itself.
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Regions Build Together – A Housing Agenda for All of California

Housing is foundational to the California Dream, yet it has become one of the primary obstacles to livability in nearly every region of the state. From rising costs that push millions into poverty and result in longer commute times to new home production challenges, the inability of California to solve its housing crisis is negatively impacting opportunities to prosper, especially during a pandemic fueled recession that has crippled the financial security of millions of Californians and their communities. Released by CA FWD with support from Wells Fargo, “Regions Build Together – A Housing Agenda for All California” provides a regions-up housing agenda consisting of 14 practical actions that can relieve the state’s persistent housing crisis. The report looks at the state through nine regional housing markets to identify the current state of affordability, distinct challenges, and opportunities that can be replicated or scaled up at a state level.
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Bay Area Homelessness

Until very recently, homelessness was considered the problem of individual cities and counties. For a metropolitan region like the Bay Area, which is divided into nine counties and 101 cities, this approach fails to meet the needs of an intraregionally mobile homeless population. In this report, a regional lens provides a new perspective on the homelessness crisis and offers new ways to address the problem.
Report

Solving the Housing Affordability Crisis in Alameda County

Housing affordability in Alameda County has reached a crisis point. With rents and home prices spiraling upward since the Great Recession, there has been no shortage of policy proposals envisioned to alleviate the county's affordability problem. This analysis evaluates these proposals alongside each other using a consistent and comprehensive method to gauge their impact on affordability for individuals and families.
Report

Fostering Economic Diversity and Innovation Through Industrial Lands

Preserving the strength of the regional economy—which derives much of its vitality from its diverse set of industry sectors and robust innovation ecosystem—requires land use policies that allow the conflict-free coexistence of industrial activities with other uses in populated areas. Such policies also help to ensure the availability of sufficient industrial lands to sustainably accommodate industrial businesses in both their current and future configurations.
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Homesharing in San Francisco

This report highlights how pass-through registration works in practice and what the future of homesharing in San Francisco looks like in the wake of PTR. As an update to our November 2016 report, Limits on Homesharing, this report also analyzes the potential effects of additional restrictive short-term rental regulations on housing affordability.
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Bay Area Balance

Bay Area decision-makers face a critical challenge: to support continued inclusive economic growth while still maintaining a balance of open space that makes the Bay Area such a unique and beautiful region. This report provides a roadmap for those seeking to balance these goals.
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Limits on Homesharing

As San Francisco grapples with its housing affordability crisis, short-term rentals—like those facilitated by homesharing sites Airbnb, FlipKey, and HomeAway—have come under heavy scrutiny from housing advocates and policymakers. Short-term rentals, or the concept of homesharing, have been subject to numerous attempts at regulation. They were first regulated in San Francisco in 2015 when the Board of Supervisors passed a law limiting homesharing to 90 days per year when the host is not present.
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Solving the Housing Affordability Crisis in San Francisco

Housing affordability in San Francisco has reached a crisis point. With rents and home prices spiraling upward since the Great Recession, there has been no shortage of policy proposals envisioned to alleviate the city’s affordability problem. This analysis is the first to evaluate these proposals alongside each other using a consistent and comprehensive method to gauge their impact on affordability for individuals and families.
Report

Another Inconvenient Truth

It has now been about a decade since California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006 and followed it with the supporting Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act in 2008. These landmark pieces of legislation, AB 32 and SB 375, set goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases statewide and for improving the ways in which we plan our communities. Yet California is falling short of its climate goals...
Insights

Oakland housing crisis is a deep hole, so it must start digging

(This piece by Dr. Micah Weinberg originally appeared on March 23, 2016 in the Oakland Tribune.) The communities of Oakland must start fighting alongside each other rather than against each other to address the housing …

Insights

To Prevent Displacement, Build Places

There are a lot of arguments about displacement in the Bay Area and whether the best strategy is to build more housing or to attempt to control what type of housing is built (e.g. affordable …

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