Healthy Housing Appendix

Inclusionary zoning policy considerations include:

• Nexus requirements: In 2016, San Mateo County and local jurisdictions completed the Grand Nexus Study through 21 Elements. For more information, please visit: http://www.21elements.com/Impact-Fees-and-Inclusionary-Housing/View-category.html
• Consideration of other benefits: Inclusionary zoning can be paired with other land-use strategies to drive resources toward improving schools, public parks, libraries, emergency services, complete streetscapes, and other opportunity infrastructure.
• Maintaining long-term affordability: Creating affordability covenants can help to stabilize long-term affordability. Another approach is having the affordable units administered by a community land trust in which a nonprofit owns the land for the permanent benefit of low-income households.
• Mandating Affordable Units vs. In-Lieu Fees: In many jurisdictions in-lieu fees are insufficient and do not produce enough resources to construct affordable housing units. Therefore, it is more productive to require developers to construct the units themselves, but it’s easier to garner political support for a policy that allows in-lieu fees. If an in-lieu fee is part of an IZ policy, set it at a level that is comparable to the costs associated with producing affordable housing units.

Neighborhood-level mobility patterns and their relationship to rental market, segregation and access to opportunity:

• To document neighborhood-level mobility patterns use demographic data to understand who lives and works in a given area, and how it has changed over time: [i]

  • Where are we seeing increases and declines in low-income people of color?  Data Source: ACS Variables that can shed light on this question: race/ethnicity by income, by educational attainment, by age group or household type (if available), by tenure (if available), by rent burden (if available)
  • Where are low income people of color moving from and to? Data source: ACS and Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). Variables: race/ethnicity by income, by educational attainment, by age group or household type (if available), by tenure (if available), by rent burden (if available)

• To document relationship between these mobility patterns and local rental housing market dynamics answer the following questions: [ii]

  • How have home prices, cost burdens, and/or tenure changed for different demographic groups? Data source: ACS/Zillow/HUD CHAS/ HUD Fair Market Rent (FMR) survey. Variables: rents (by income and race/ethnicity), rent burden (by income and race/ethnicity), mortgage, # of rent controlled units and turnover in rent-controlled units, difference between market rate and rent controlled rates, etc.
  • How have affordable housing subsidies impacted mobility patterns? Data source: ACS (voucher use), California Housing Partnership database of subsidized housing, Public Housing Authorities (for mobility of vouchers). Variables: # of vouchers used/issued, new subsidized housing construction, loss of subsidized units, etc.
• To document whether these mobility patterns are perpetuating historic patterns of segregation and unequal access to opportunity for low-income households of color [iii]:
  • What are the opportunity, segregation and concentration of poverty levels of neighborhoods that have experienced declines and increases in low income people of color (or that have experienced high levels of in-migration of low income people of color)? Data source: ACS, UC Davis Regional Opportunity Index, UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project, Haas Institute for A fair and Inclusive Society: Measurement of Segregation; Bay Area Equity Atlas

Resources from Regional and Local Initiatives:

• Grand Boulevard Initiative. Housing Toolkit: https://grandboulevard.net/housingtoolkit
• Home for All. Toolkit: http://homeforallsmc.com/toolkit/
• 21 Elements. San Mateo County Housing Element Update Kit. http://www.21elements.com/
• Lisa Aozasa et al., “Affordable Housing White Paper Preventing Displacement and Promoting Affordable Housing Development in San Mateo County” (San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, January 22, 2015).[iv]
• Displacement in San Mateo County, California: Consequences for Housing, neighborhoods, Quality of Life, and Health: https://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/default/files/images/impacts_of_displacement_in_san_mateo_county.pdf
• Housing Leadership Council Building on Success report
• Association of Bay Area Governments: Housing Policy and Data Explorer:  http://housing.abag.ca.gov/
• Bay Area Equity Atlas
• Haas Institute on Racial Segregation in the Bay Area