OAKLAND, CA—Demand for housing is pressing cities and developers to become more creative with solutions. Building housing within the urban footprint, as environmentalists and planners recommend, is gaining favor, GlobeSt.com learns in this exclusive.

Adding new homes within existing neighborhoods is one of the oldest development methods yet it is often overlooked, according to Oakland, CA-based builder Anthony Associates. With a portfolio of nearly $50 million in more than 200 new and re-imagined homes, Anthony Associates' Tom Anthony, founder, and colleagues, Terri Brown and Andrew Pitarre, have created a density model to emulate.

Anthony's project debuting this fall in Oakland's desirable Rockridge neighborhood is Oakmont, a single-family home development with just enough homes to count on two hands. Building 10 homes where only four once sat takes a high level of expertise, planning and market knowledge, admits Anthony.

“For every 100 opportunities we see in the East Bay, we pursue maybe 15 to 20 and then only one or two turn into acquisitions or new projects,” Anthony explained. “Every time we consider a new opportunity, Terri adds it to our database, over 600 entries now, and then puts her real estate and Berkeley MBA experience to work in penciling things out, in multiple moving-target scenarios.”

Pitarre, along with Anthony, sources most opportunities, which Pitarre credits to active market involvement, industry relationships and basic “driving around-research. There's nothing like seeing and knowing the real estate,” he says.

Two previous Anthony projects include Ninth Street Berkeley and the Oakland Painted Ladies as a nod to the iconic Painted Ladies Victorians in San Francisco.

Anthony cites two key ingredients to adding infill single-family housing, whether by a single entrepreneurs or a mid-size firm such as his. First is the conceptualization and design of a property that fits the neighborhood and meets market demand. Second is the investment backing and flexible financing tools to match up to the world of development.

Anthony says Bay Area residents care about the architecture of their neighborhoods, which is one reason the neighborhoods retain their character. Anthony Associates homes reflect his passionate respect for the historic architecture of the East Bay, characterized as the first Bay tradition of Julia Morgan, Willis Polk and others. Anthony and like-minded devotee, Berkeley-based designer John Newton, fashion new homes that echo the classics while providing all the amenities that home buyers want today.

On the investment side, Anthony Associates has built a cadre of locally tied investors who like the business model but are equally focused on the community improvement and home ownership opportunities they're building.

“We're proud of the fact that our investor base is mom-and-pop in nature, running the gamut of people with East Bay roots who see the long-term opportunity being captured,” said Brown. “They're literally nurses, physical therapists, firefighters, carpenters, painters, a comedian, a veterinarian, and moms and dads that are the backbone of the local economy, and we're one part of their individual investment strategies.”

In the Bay Area, the need for housing, balanced with the concern for the environment, is pressing the case for adding homes within cities to avoid sprawl and longer commutes, according to Anthony. An August 2016 Bay Area Council survey showed 65% of area residents would like communities to make it easier to build second units.

Researchers indicate that thousands of back yard or “granny flat” units, whether rental or single family, could be added in existing neighborhoods without overwhelming current infrastructure. These Accessory Dwelling Units are supported by new ordinances in Oakland, Berkeley, Concord, San Francisco, Redwood City, Portola Valley and Half Moon Bay. Others are in progress as well.

A majority of Bay Area residents also want cities and jurisdictions to ease restrictions on creating new housing fairly across the region. A July 2016 survey sponsored by the Bay Area Building Industry Association found that 62% of respondents strongly agreed or somewhat agreed to the statement, “I'm willing to accept restrictions on the ability of local government to say no to new housing” if the burden were shared across every city.

Instant Insights /

Densifying Neighborhoods Key to Providing More Housing

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