California Approves San Francisco's Plan to Build 82K Homes

California’s Department of Housing and Community Development has approved San Francisco’s new housing growth plan, which sets a goal of building 82,000 new homes in the next eight years.

According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the state housing agency told the city its plan meets the requirements of a new state law establishing eight-year housing growth goals for each municipality in California.

California cities are racing to create their blueprints for the next eight years of housing growth—known as a “housing element plan”—which is required under the law to be submitted to the state by the end of this month.

Cities that fail to submit a plan may be cut out of state funding for housing and transportation; lack of plan may also trigger “builder’s remedies,” which allows the state to override local authorities in approving affordable housing projects.

The rush to meet the deadline is so intense, that several cities have submitted their plans to the state before city governments have voted on them—including San Francisco, where the city’s Board of Supervisors is expected to endorse the plan in a vote on Jan. 31.

Under the plan submitted by San Francisco, more than half of the new homes to be developed in the next eight years—46,000—will be designated as affordable to low- and moderate-income households. The city is now on the hook to rezone neighborhoods to accommodate at least 36,282 new homes by 2026.

San Francisco’s plan is expected to shift the focus of residential development from eastern and central parts of the city to areas surrounding transit lines.

Earlier this month, Oakland became the first Bay Area city to submit its housing element plan, including a map indicating where it plans to build 36,000 new homes in the next decade.

Oakland’s new 132-page housing plan has designated more than 600 sites for new housing, most of which are concentrated in downtown and West Oakland. Major transportation arteries, including Foothill and MacArthur boulevards, will see transit-oriented housing development.

The city’s planners also have identified parcels spread across suburban and urban areas throughout Oakland.

The city partnered with a regional advocacy group, East Bay Housing Organizations, which explained in a city-produced video that the new housing plan is designed to serve the city’s 440,000 residents without gentrification that would drive out lower-income people.

“The city needs to focus explicitly on how to increase production and preservation of housing for the lowest-income folks where the needs are the greatest,” said Jeff Levin, the advocacy group’s policy director, in the video.

California’s new housing law has set a goal for Oakland to produce more than 26,000 new homes for residents of all income levels between 2023 and 2031, a 78% increase from the last eight-year housing goal set by the state.

Oakland is not required to build the new homes itself, but the law requires it to specify sites that could accommodate the minimum number of units set by the goal.

Oakland’s plan addresses a new requirement in the state law that mandates cities to plan for more affordable housing in “high-resource” neighborhoods—which is a euphemism for wealthier communities with a history of keeping out low-income residents.

In its plan, Oakland says it will rezone parcels in wealthier areas of the city including Rockridge, Trestle Glen and Crocker Highlands to allow more duplexes, apartments and low-income housing projects.