Getting started

Older houses have character, but keeping them up takes money and effort. Our townhouse was not only cheaper to maintain, it was far more affordable: we bought it in the first place because we couldn’t afford a single-family home. Although our Redwood City house fell into the “starter home” class, our townhouse was our true starter home.

Thoughts of that townhouse returned as I watched the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approving a proposal for a six-unit townhouse development along Woodside Road. Although the project presentation by county staff seemed routine, things got interesting once the meeting was opened for public comment. Nearly every public speaker addressing the board on that agenda item lived in a single-family home along Rutherford Avenue, and all were speaking in opposition. They had many objections, one of the primary ones being the fact that townhouses are out of character for their neighborhood, which today is composed entirely of single-family homes.

The two lots being combined for the new development currently contain “starter” homes akin to what my wife and I bought back in 1989. They are small, old and tired-looking. While that makes them cheap, in our area cheap is a relative term. According to Redfin, 1301 Woodside Road is a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom home on a tiny corner lot — and is worth $1.15 million. The neighboring house is only slightly larger (two bedrooms, 870 square feet), on a substantially larger lot; that property is apparently worth $1.7 million.

As a homeowner living in a neighborhood of single-family homes, I sympathize with the desire to preserve the essential character of the Rutherford Avenue neighborhood. However, thanks to the immense pressure on California cities and counties to build lots more housing, along with the California Home Act — Senate Bill 9 — which theoretically allows each of the two parcels to be redeveloped with four units (for a total of eight), it’s clear that residents of traditional R-1 (single-family residential) zoning districts will need to accept some degree of change, such as what was approved this week at Woodside Road and Rutherford Avenue.

Understandably, the neighbors are not thrilled to see two single-family homes being replaced by six townhouses. However, the efficiency of the new development cannot be denied. The smallest of the six townhouses is more than 300 square feet larger than the combined size of the two houses there today. Those two houses in total have three bedrooms, whereas the six townhomes will sport 22. And while the townhouses certainly won’t be cheap, they’ll undoubtedly be cheaper than a comparable single-family home. Plus, one of the four-bedroom townhouses will be made “affordable,” likely subsidized to enable someone earning at the low or very-low income level to qualify (the level and cost will be approved at a later Board of Supervisors meeting). Although that subsidized unit will probably cost somewhere between the values of the two existing houses, it will be substantially larger than either, and thus can house many more people.

As for fitting into the neighborhood, three-story townhouses certainly don’t look like single-family homes. However, the two parcels are on the very edge of the neighborhood, with frontage along Woodside Road. Plus, they sit right next door to a two-story commercial building that houses a paint store, a dental office and a makeup studio.

As much as we’d all like to see starter homes going for a truly affordable price, those days are long gone for the San Francisco Peninsula. Today, the only way to make homes even remotely affordable is to pack a number of them onto each expensive parcel of land, which means multistory condominium buildings and townhouse complexes. Some will be constructed on land not previously used for housing, but more and more they’re going to appear in our R-1 neighborhoods. Regrettably, that seems to be the only way to make starter homes even remotely possible.

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.