On February 26th, Daly City City Council voted to approve Jefferson Union High School District’s (JUHSD) proposal to introduce 1,235 new homes and a Head Start child care facility at the Serramonte Del Rey site.

For HAC, the year 2031 is significant. As Northern California enters a new RHNA cycle, the question at the top of our minds is, in eight years, will cities, towns, and counties across the state meet their state-mandated housing goals? It’s more than fair to ask the question because for decades Housing Elements have been more of an idealistic dream than a realistic expectation. Every eight years the state would “mandate” cities to increase their housing supply, and every eight years a majority of California cities would build only a fraction of the number of homes the state expected them to build.  The state did nothing in response. 

In the past few months, one of the challenges HAC has been working to address is financial feasibility. If you’re a Bay Area homebuilder, you know that since the pandemic, multifamily housing construction and feasibility haven’t exactly gone hand in hand. With recent hikes in interest rates, skyrocketing construction costs, and exorbitant impact fees, projects haven’t been able to receive financing because they simply don’t pencil out.

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.

With pro-housing momentum building at the state and local levels, 2023 has been a hectic year so far at HAC.

At the state level, we’re co-sponsoring five pieces of legislation that will remove significant barriers to housing production and help propel California toward its goal of building 2.5 million homes by 2031.

SFHAC’s Deputy Director Talks HUD’s Announced Investigation of San Francisco, Roots of Affordable Housing Shortage on KTVU