BAY AREA HOUSING: The Shape of Things to Come?
/In 2016, one of the world’s premier architecture awards, the Pritzker Prize, was given to an architect known primarily for social housing projects.
The award illustrates that not only for designers but around the world, housing has become a top priority for urban planners and government officials. In California, 170 cities adopted affordable housing policies which were upheld by the California Supreme Court this year. According to an editorial this past February in The Architect’s Newspaper, America’s West Coast needs much more housing. And on the West Coast, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most challenging markets in the world.
NEW HOUSING IN DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO
Starting in 2012, an influx of startups and foreign investment in the Bay Area stimulated a booming economy and the region is now one of the fastest-growing in the country. According to the US Census Bureau, from 2014 to 2015, the Bay Area’s population increased by over 90,000 residents and Alameda County led the explosion. As a result, in 2015, the region’s median price for an existing single-family detached house hit a record: $1.25 million (7% above the peak in 2006).
For years, demand for housing in the area has surpassed supply resulting in today’s housing crisis. As fast as the building pace has become in areas like San Jose and San Francisco, many zoning laws still prohibit high-density housing and agonizingly long approval processes discourage quick solutions. Large projects typically take 5-10 years from initial planning to actual construction, usually spanning an entire building cycle from its high point to its lowest.
In response, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) will issue its Plan Bay Area 2040 in June 2017, encouraging a balance between jobs, housing, and quality of life in the Bay Area. The need for direction as well as regional cooperation is critical if adequate transportation, open space, and historic resources are to be preserved. As expected, some cities want growth, others don’t. But desired or not, higher housing density is the future reality.
Housing has been a critical issue for decades in San Francisco. In one of the highest-priced markets in America, supervisors argue about how many affordable units they can squeeze from developers, and developers argue for more height and density. Voting neighbors resist both. In a skyline currently defined by construction cranes, the City continues to lower housing standards and increase density to offset need.
According to Kearstin Dischinger, San Francisco’s Housing Policy Manager, the City is at the forefront of developing strategies to increase housing. Primary planning efforts include different density requirements in different neighborhoods, wholesale rezoning, and deregulation of height and bulk standards. Other efforts include allowing more secondary units, legalizing illegal units, and adopting affordable-unit bonus programs. There is currently a concern in San Francisco that increasing density is not family-friendly and some neighborhoods have adopted 2-bedrooms as the minimum unit size. Then the issue becomes cultural: to promote New York-style density or suburban lifestyles?
Across the Bay
Housing advocates also point out other unintended consequences of new market housing, the loss of existing residents. Across the Bay, Oakland is struggling precisely with this issue.
Oakland – historically the affordable housing bastion in the Bay Area – has finally caught up with other cities and is experiencing a severe housing crunch. With an influx of residents priced out of San Francisco’s market, housing prices in Oakland are some of the highest in California.
NEW HOUSING IN DOWNTOWN OAKLAND
Many long-time residents are being displaced by newcomers. According to Arlene Baxter, a Bay Area residential Realtor, Oakland rents are rising even faster than home prices. Last week, the Oakland City Council passed an emergency 90-day moratorium on rent increases in order to study their crisis. Last month, the Council adopted new housing regulations to ease requirements for adding secondary dwelling units.
NEW HOUSING IN DOWNTOWN BERKELEY
Other East Bay Cities Deregulating
Other East Bay cities, too, are deregulating to increase density. Berkeley’s seven new multi-unit, high-rise projects have residents in an uproar about increased traffic and loss of bay views.
Albany is adopting a new General Plan which significantly increases density around transportation modes. In Contra Costa County, Concord, planners, developers, residents, and city officials are arguing over the largest real estate project in Northern California: the development of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, a mothballed Navy storage depot. A 2,200-acre community is planned with 12,000 new housing units that will reshape the entire region.
The Rise of ADUs
Another phenomena of the housing boom is the popularity of accessory dwelling units (ADU’s).
Cities around the Bay are easing regulations that allow homeowners to add second units to their single-family homes. Books like Inlaws, Outlaws and Granny Flats illustrate a plethora of creative examples of secondary units around the country.
In the Bay Area, a cottage industry has developed with companies such as New Avenue in Emeryville and New Homes in Marin specializing specifically in the construction of second units.
It’s not just affordable units that the region needs, it needs market-rate housing as well, lots of it. The current plethora of residential high rises won’t end the housing shortage in the Bay Area. But from a construction vantage point, it appears that what will finally shape the future Bay Area skyline will be housing - urban, suburban, affordable, market, and every derivative in between.
Housing (or lack of it) will strongly impact the existing social fabric, public and private transportation systems, and, of course, the quality of life in the Bay Area.
Around the world, other major metropolitan areas are experiencing similar growing pains and we can expect even more major design awards for different housing types. In the future, housing policies will dominate not only planning departments and political conversations, but architectural trends as well. As density and affordable issues escalate, these policies will be critical in determining the character of our urban environments and the shape of our skylines.
