Solving child poverty is a hard problem, but some parts of the solution can be achieved as easily as rewriting numbers in local law. At the recent anti-child poverty town hall held by former U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, the San Mateo Daily Journal reports, Princeton Sociologist Matthew Desmond “criticized local ordinances and policies that build walls in neighborhoods that result in less housing.”
The local “policies that build walls” Desmond referred to are colloquially called “zoning.” Under single-family zoning, perhaps most notorious, local rules restrict property owners to building one home per lot. These requirements often come with a host of other restrictions: minimum lot sizes controlling the size of a parcel, parking requirements mandating space for cars, setbacks requiring distance from lot edges, and more. They all fall under zoning, all requiring more land per home.
By requiring more land per home and limiting supply in places people want to live, single-family zoning artificially raises the cost of all housing. Single-family zoning inadvertently amounts to a ban on deed-restricted affordable housing, which can only be built at higher densities due to economies of scale.
To the credit of cities in San Mateo County, many of them are making progress to breakdown the walls of local zoning through their housing elements. Due to the housing element process, more than 400 acres across San Mateo County have been rezoned already or are about to be to enable denser, more affordable homes. Most cities have embraced accessory dwelling units, small backyard cottages that are sometimes rented.
Even as they promote new multifamily homes in their downtowns, most cities left their single-family neighborhoods untouched by meaningful policy change. Many claimed that they would promote affordable housing in single-family areas by allowing more ADUs.
However, a recent report by the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury found something advocates have said all along: ADUs are an unreliable affordable housing strategy, at best. Most cities have no monitoring system to ensure the units are rented on the open market at an affordable rate.
Furthermore, a 2021 UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation report found the median rental price of an ADU in the Bay Area to be $2,200 per month, likely higher in our area. Though ADUs can help, only allowing true multifamily housing will promote meaningful affordability in single-family neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of rezoning planned in housing elements has been concentrated immediately along noisy, congested transit corridors like El Camino Real.
Recommended for you
El Camino Real is a reasonable place to allow denser housing, but it is not the only option. According to UC Berkeley’s The Othering & Belonging Institute, more than 70% of residential land across San Mateo County’s cities is zoned single-family — de facto banning affordable housing.
This widespread affordable housing ban segregates our neighborhoods, pushing lower-income renters to live on congested corridors while keeping them out of quieter, slower neighborhoods. Urban design for wide streets and fast cars, not renters, causes the congestion and noise along major transit corridors. Renters in our communities, who are more likely to experience poverty than homeowners, deserve better.
All of San Mateo County’s cities can do more. Communities like Atherton, which has a universal 1-acre “mansion only” minimum lot size, earned headlines for their residents’ opposition to new housing. Even when its City Council and staff propose moderate rezoning to attempt satisfying state requirements, they face community pushback that has, thus far, limited change.
Nonetheless, the single-family wall is broadly widespread. Even Redwood City, which saw more housing development than any other community in the county over the last decade, has approximately 60% of its residential land zoned exclusively for single-family homes.
While not every neighborhood can accommodate multifamily homes due to environmental constraints, many cities retain exclusionary single-family zoning near downtowns, transit corridors and Caltrain stations. Even areas without current transit access can accommodate density to facilitate future transit viability, environment permitting.
Lowering the exclusionary zoning wall can occur incrementally. If a zoning code permits a three-story 5,000-square-foot mansion, it should at the very least allow 10 apartments of 500 square feet. Per unit, those smaller homes will be significantly more affordable than the mansion. Yet, no zoning code in San Mateo provides this flexibility for the housing we need.
Unlike many other causes of poverty, breaking down these zoning walls is as easy as erasing some numbers in local regulations — if we have the political will to address child poverty’s root causes.
Jeremy Levine is policy manager with the Housing Leadership Council. When he is not watching city council meetings, you can find him gardening or hunting mushrooms.
Another wild-eyed liberal who thinks he has a solution. Why does he think we want to live in zoned areas? We are the majority and determine what is best for us. Everyone has an opportunity to better him/herself and can look forward to buying a home in a zoned community. Most of us did so why upset the apple card and crowd more housing in neighborhoods for folks who do not seem motivated enough to buy into the American dream but would have no problem destroying it. Simple isn't it?
I think the focus should be on building codes. There were fewer rules and standards applied to the SFH neighborhoods. More rules and standards equal more costs. Construction of high density housing takes a lot longer to build. Town homes can be built in a few months where as a 50-100 unit building can easily take 2+years. Generation after generation enjoy living in an apartment for part of their life, but ultimately prefer a single family neighborhood. With regard to the equity argument it does not make sense to destroy/ do away with a particular type of housing altogether. How is this justice for people who were previously denied living in a certain neighborhood or housing type?
Wait, Mr. Levine, if these folks are already living in poverty, where would they get the money to buy affordable homes? Why doesn’t Speier, or folks who “care,” open up their homes to folks living in poverty? Seems to me that instead of building homes, we should build more tenement housing. BTW, do you know the amount of money needed to develop and build housing in general? There’s a reason why homes are not affordable – and it’s not location, location, location.
Sharing homes is a great idea, one which HIP Housing has been making possible for years. Folks who want to see more of that happening can support HIP Housing with donations or volunteer time. My business sponsors their work. https://hiphousing.org/how-to-help/
It is very simple. The solution to childhood poverty is for irresponsible people who cannot afford to properly raise and care for a child to stop breeding. Problem solved.
Thanks for sharing this as great food for thought and conversation! I'm embarking on working on research and interviews for a series of columns on homelessness and poverty and it is clear already that access to affordable housing is a key element in addressing these problems. This brief paper by the United Way is illuminating about child poverty in America. https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/child-poverty-in-america/
Thanks for your comment Craig, I'm excited to see what you learn. Feel free to share any interesting info you come across with me at jlevine@hlcsmc.org!
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(7) comments
Another wild-eyed liberal who thinks he has a solution. Why does he think we want to live in zoned areas? We are the majority and determine what is best for us. Everyone has an opportunity to better him/herself and can look forward to buying a home in a zoned community. Most of us did so why upset the apple card and crowd more housing in neighborhoods for folks who do not seem motivated enough to buy into the American dream but would have no problem destroying it. Simple isn't it?
I think the focus should be on building codes. There were fewer rules and standards applied to the SFH neighborhoods. More rules and standards equal more costs. Construction of high density housing takes a lot longer to build. Town homes can be built in a few months where as a 50-100 unit building can easily take 2+years. Generation after generation enjoy living in an apartment for part of their life, but ultimately prefer a single family neighborhood. With regard to the equity argument it does not make sense to destroy/ do away with a particular type of housing altogether. How is this justice for people who were previously denied living in a certain neighborhood or housing type?
Wait, Mr. Levine, if these folks are already living in poverty, where would they get the money to buy affordable homes? Why doesn’t Speier, or folks who “care,” open up their homes to folks living in poverty? Seems to me that instead of building homes, we should build more tenement housing. BTW, do you know the amount of money needed to develop and build housing in general? There’s a reason why homes are not affordable – and it’s not location, location, location.
Sharing homes is a great idea, one which HIP Housing has been making possible for years. Folks who want to see more of that happening can support HIP Housing with donations or volunteer time. My business sponsors their work. https://hiphousing.org/how-to-help/
It is very simple. The solution to childhood poverty is for irresponsible people who cannot afford to properly raise and care for a child to stop breeding. Problem solved.
Thanks for sharing this as great food for thought and conversation! I'm embarking on working on research and interviews for a series of columns on homelessness and poverty and it is clear already that access to affordable housing is a key element in addressing these problems. This brief paper by the United Way is illuminating about child poverty in America. https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/child-poverty-in-america/
Thanks for your comment Craig, I'm excited to see what you learn. Feel free to share any interesting info you come across with me at jlevine@hlcsmc.org!
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.