Building for tomorrow

Redwood City is preparing to update its Housing Element, which is the chapter in the city’s General Plan that details how the city intends to meet existing and future housing needs. Future needs are based on a statewide analysis performed every eight years, the results of which make their way down to individual cities and counties. The numbers that get handed out are simple: the total number of homes, and at what levels of affordability, that need to be built in a given city or county to meet the anticipated demand from (in this case) the years 2023 to 2031.

Redwood City recently held a workshop to discuss what the Housing Element entails and to receive initial feedback from interested residents. Although the city has yet to receive its official numbers, it has a pretty good idea of what those numbers will be. In total, Redwood City anticipates that it will need to generate just under 4,600 new housing units (including apartments, single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes) during the upcoming eight-year period.

Four-thousand-six-hundred is a big jump; during the current period (2014-2022) Redwood City’s goal was only about 2,800 new homes. Thanks to all of the recent construction around Redwood City since that period began, the city anticipates that by the end of 2022 it will have beaten its top-line figure rather handily, with around 4,150 new homes being built. Then again, the devil is in the details. The vast majority of new homes that have been or are being created are so called “market-rate,” or unsubsidized, homes. As for homes that are subsidized, the target for those designated for households whose earnings fall into the “low income” category is also likely to be exceeded, although not by much. The number of housing units set aside for those in the “very low income” category, however, should fall short, with less than half of that category’s goal being built. Finally, only a small fraction — about 8% — of the number of homes the city was charged with creating for those earning at the “moderate-income” level will likely have been created by the end of the year 2022.

Earnings categories are based on the county’s calculated area median income (AMI), which for the year 2020 was determined to be $174,000 for a family of four. Households in the very low income category earn less than half of that figure, while those in the low category earn no more than 80% of the AMI: currently, $139,200 for a family of four (the thresholds vary by family size). Households fall into the moderate-income category if their earnings don’t exceed 120% of the AMI, which currently is $208,800 for a four-person household.

To ensure that at least some of the new housing is reserved (and subsidized) for those in the designated earnings categories, Redwood City requires that developers designate a minimum percentage of units in multifamily housing developments, whether they be for rent or for sale, for specified “below-market rate” (BMR) categories. For instance, the 72-unit townhouse development recently approved Charter Street development at 150 Charter St. (next to Target) will set aside 11 of its units for those earning at or below the moderate-income threshold.

Assuming that the Charter Street townhomes fall into the 2023-2031 RHNA period — which, I believe, depends upon when the project’s building permits are issued — its 11 subsidized units and 61 market-rate units will count toward that period’s housing targets. But given that the moderate-income goal is anticipated to be 789 units, and the goal for market-rate units is expected to be more than 2,000, this one project will only be a small step toward those goals. Thus, the need for additional housing projects — multifamily projects, primarily, since our goals would never be reached by building single-family homes alone — over the upcoming eight-year period.

Up and down the Peninsula, then, the pace of construction we’ve gotten accustomed to seeing will likely continue for at least the next 10 years, as developers build to meet tomorrow’s need.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.