The Terner Centers recent release of the Housing Development Dashboard was met with enthusiasm from media outlets, practitioners and policymakers, all commenting on its important contribution to our understanding of local housing production and related policies. I want to share some of my biggest takeaways from the Dashboard, to illustrate why and how I think it can provide critical insight into these issues, and help to pave a way forward in addressing our housing challenges in the Bay Area and, eventually, nationwide.
In many ways, the Dashboard validates, and provides evidence for, much of my intuition(honed from a career in local and federal public service and affordable housing development in California) around the challenges and opportunities in housing policy. At a high level, the Dashboard confirms three key things:
The Importance of Zoning
The Policy Gauge part of the Dashboard demonstrates that for some communities, go-to policy levers like increasing density or reducing parking ratios may be necessary, but on their own totally insufficient, for these types of communities to contribute their fair share to new residential development. Why? Because zoning in such communities overwhelmingly favors the development of single family homes. Consequent to this, current planning practices simply wont generate a sufficient amount of multifamily housing to make a difference; applying all other policy levers (e.g. density and parking) in these communities just wont move the dial.
Lets take the examples of Menlo Park and San Francisco as two extremes. The Policy Gauge shows us that Menlo Park has a baseline potential to add between 70 and 459 more housing units on top of its current count of 13,313. If you take the midpoint of that range (264 units), Menlo Parks housing stock increases by less than 2 percent!
Looking at the same question in San Francisco, you get a very different picture. San Francisco has a baseline potential to add between 34,771 and 40,214 housing units to its current total housing stock of 372,560 units. Using the midpoint of 37,492, you see there is a 10% potential increase in the overall housing stock in San Francisco. While Menlo Park is a much smaller community and certainly couldnt be expected to contribute as much new housing as San Francisco, its baseline zoning still leaves its housing production woefully, and proportionally, inadequate.
The Concurrent Importance of Market Forces
The above takeaway articulates why more appropriately zoned land improves the relative impact of policy levers. Meanwhile, underlying market conditions are also a significant variable, and influence development feasibility. The Dashboard shows that there is a highly sensitive interaction between policy levers and market conditions, and this interaction should be closely examined as part of the policy dialogue.
Lets break that down by comparing San Francisco and Oakland. These communities both have a much larger share of appropriately zoned land (than, say, Menlo Park). The costs involved in production (e.g. construction and labor) are also similar. However, the application of the same policy lever (such as 30 percent reduction in parking or 40 percent increase in density) in these two jurisdictions will not produce the same results in terms of number of housing units built. Why?
Because variations in local market conditions, such as rents, heavily shape the feasibility of a development in that place. Although the Development Calculator doesnt yet show project development probabilities by jurisdiction, it does show exactly how these market factors change the development calculus. Though there is a boom in interest, more projects and sites are still marginal for new development in Oakland because Oaklands market isnt in the same place as San Francisco; an identical development wont have the same odds of getting constructed in each city, nor will it have equal odds in different neighborhoods within the same city.
Returning to the Policy Gauge, we can see that adjustments to Oaklands parking and retail requirements will make a huge difference there because it lowers the cost of development making lower market rents more feasible (see chart below). In San Francisco on the other hand, policy levers such as a reduction in permitting time would actually have a much greater impact, relative to other levers. These variations can be accounted for in three ways:
Ultimately, the Dashboard shows that existing zoning rules and underlying market conditions interact in idiosyncratic ways depending on the place. When considering what policies to apply in that place, and the impact those policies might have on overall housing production, it is essential to understand, and look closely at, this market-policy interaction. My third biggest takeaway, focusing on affordable housing inclusionary and in-lieu fee ordinances, underscores this idea.
Inclusionary, Not a Stand-Alone Policy
The Dashboard tells two stories: one about the influence of policy and market conditions on housing production overall, and the other about the influence of these factors on affordable housing in particular. When assessing the impact inclusionary ordinances might have, weneed to look carefully at how market forces and policies are converging and how this will affect, and be affected by them.
Lets take a couple more specific examples. The City of Oakland adopted a policy that made upward adjustments to the income levels served (up to 120 percent of area median income) so that more developments could be economically feasible. The Dashboard predicts this will result in the production of more affordable units than if a lower affordability standard were in place, and that they will likely be built on-site. This is not perhaps what advocates expect, but it certainly supports a closer examination of inclusionary stipulations.
Oakland also, wisely, doesnt have a one-size-fits-all policy for every neighborhood within its borders, instead accommodating differing market conditions at a smaller scale. If the City were to adopt a parking ratio of 30 percent andreduce ground floor retail requirements by 30 percent, it could increase housing production by 64 percent, including a 57 percent increase in affordable housing, as the below graphic shows.
To put a finer point on it, maxing out these levers while simultaneously increasing density by the maximum amount as well, with existing inclusionary policies in place, could result in nearly 100 percent more housing production, including of affordable units. Adopting more expansive inclusionary policies alone would not have this magnitude of outcome. Furthermore, if you implemented these other policy levers, it would also be feasible to lower income levels for affordability targets without significantly impacting the number of units that get built.
Oaklands case illustrates the importance of drilling down into not just the intent of these policies, but their impact when considered in context of current market conditions, and policies already in place on the ground. Ultimately, just piling on inclusionary requirements without looking at these market and policy interactions will backfire (less, and less affordable units, will get built overall and fewer fees will be paid).
In experimenting with the way the tool helps policymakers do this, Rachel Flynn, Director of Planning and Building for the City of Oakland noted: The Housing Development Dashboard will help elected officials develop policies based on nuanced and relevant data as they consider the varying opinions and viewpoints of interest groups. We look forward to putting the Dashboard to good use in Oakland.
The Dashboard allows us to better understand current conditions and assess whether the right enabling environment is in place to address our communitys housing challenges. It positions us to chart a clearer, more informed path forward. As we look towards expanding the Dashboard, it will contribute to these efforts at the local, state, and national level, and contribute meaningfully to the future of our housing landscape.
This post originally appeared on the Terner Center Blog: No Limits. Please find the original post here.