On March 26, HAC’s Regulatory Committee welcomed Preston Prince, the Executive Director of the Santa Clara Housing Authority and Muhammad Alameldin, Policy Associate at the UC Berkeley Terner Center.
The first speaker, Preston, joined us to talk about their history, current work, and future ambition. Preston has worked in the affordable housing space since 1989, and started at the Housing Authority two years ago. In his time as Executive Director, the Housing Authority has refreshed their strategic plan by focusing on four key areas: culture, production, partnerships, and relevancy, while grounding their work scope within a DEI approach. Their affordable housing portfolio has five sites, including the old Santa Clara hospital and the Google downtown west campus.
Second, Muhammad presented insights from his paper on San Diego’s ADU bonus program. The innovative program combines state ADU law with financing incentives and collaborative city agencies . To put its efficacy into perspective, San Diego saw only 7 deed restricted ADUs from 2018 until 2021. Upon the program’s implementation, San Diegans have developed nearly 300 deed restricted ADUs. This massive increase in production provides a model for other municipalities to leverage state ADU law with aggressive has been a leader in the state in building the ever elusive missing middle housing
