Affordable housing stock grows in Redwood City

So far, 1,859 total units have or will soon be constructed, of which 1,737 are market rate and 122 are below market rate.

In other words, the city has exceeded its RHNA goal for market-rate construction by 585 units and must issue permits for 1,515 below-market-rate units before 2023 to meet its RHNA goal for affordable housing.

 “We’re far ahead of where we need to be [for market rate], but in terms of affordable housing we’re quite a bit behind,” Councilwoman Shelly Masur said at a meeting March 25 when the council approved the report. “The streamlining of our accessory dwelling units — the small units people can build in addition to their regular home — has helped us meet our goals.”

For RHNA purposes, ADUs are counted as non-deed restricted low-income units, though in the past, some have pointed out that ADUs are often listed on short-term rental sites at top dollar and are not actually increasing the city’s affordable housing stock.

In 2018, the city is officially credited with approving 58 low-income units, of which 23 are accessory dwelling units and just 35 are low-income units in the common sense of the term.

In 2017, building permits were approved for just 36 below-market-rate units and those were all ADUs.

No below-market-rate units at the moderate or very low level were approved in 2018, but 348 market-rate units were issued permits during that year.

“A public reminder that we’re still [699] units short of the very low and we’re [314] units short of the low income levels. We have not built any of the 502 moderate units — those are our teachers, those are our nurses, those are our staff,” Councilwoman Diana Reddy said. “I commend staff for the work they’re doing, but remind us that we need to continue to be diligent in creating those below-market-rate units.” 

During the meeting, acting Community Development Director Steven Turner said affordable housing numbers are going up and listed several projects in the pipeline to prove his point. He also credited recently approved policies, including the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, for helping boost affordable housing numbers. That ordinance mandates 20 percent affordable units in multi-family residential projects. 

“Next year will be a very successful year for us,” he said. “We’ll be able to report an additional 261 affordable units on next year’s report.”

He said building permits will be issued in 2019 for three projects, including 707 Bradford St. with 117 very-low-income units, the Habitat for Humanity development with 20 for-sale condos at the “low-income” level and 353 Main St., which includes 63 very-low-income units and 62 low-income units.

“That’s a significant number of new units and in fact it doubles the amount of production we had from the previous years in just one year so that’s helpful,” Turner said. “And certainly the work the council has done over the past few years to promote new policies and regulations to promote new units and new affordable housing units — I think we’ll see a return on that.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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