Archinect - News

Black churches are leading the fight to create affordable housing nationwide

2023-02-10T17:29:00-05:00

As the religious and urban landscape changes in North America, churches have had to adapt and evolve. [...] Black churches are responding to these shifts in religiousness, population change, and lack of housing by working to change land use regulations and asking how church property can serve a different function in the community.

Seattle’s Nehemiah Initiative is cited as one example of the nationwide movement that is taking root in Washington, D.C., San Diego, and Oakland, among other places. There, certain neighborhoods have seen more than 50% declines in their Black population. A pair of University of Washington studio courses recently produced feasibility studies for nine churches in the Central district, resulting in four entering into the predevelopment process for housing starts.

Churches are a known commodity in the fight against other forms of injustice and are now turning to zoning regulations as a means of pressing local policymakers into action in increased numbers. More than 4.3 million units are needed to meet demands by 2035 nationally, and successful programs like Alameda County’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) are seen as the best models for abatement of that problem in league with a...

Is 'Yes, in God’s Backyard' the answer to California's housing challenges?

2022-09-28T12:40:00-04:00

Houses of worship in California are now in the position to take on the state’s largest social problem with the adaptation of new legislation that allows for housing development on plots that are, in almost every case, zoned exclusively for commercial use.

In July, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that dropped a zoning requirement that mandated a certain number of parking spaces if the religious organization would build 100% affordable or workforce housing on its property. Obstacles remain, but case studies from Berkeley and other embattled communities have provided some examples of how the measure can positively stem the tide of displacement that has particularly affected people of color and other marginalized groups.

"Churches are some of the last, I think, property owners of color throughout Berkeley," local church leader Derrin Jourdan told KQED recently. "If we don't find ways of leveraging our support, we're going to find it enormously difficult to hold on to the property."

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YIMBY advocates prevail in Curpertino development legal battle over Rafael Viñoly-designed project

2020-05-12T09:00:00-04:00

Plans to turn the old Vallco Shopping Mall in Cupertino into a giant mixed-use development were met with much push back from community members, The Mercury News reports. But now the development, which will consist of 2,402 apartments, 400,000 square feet of retail, and 1.8 million square feet of office space, has been cleared by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge.

According to Mercury News, J.R. Fruen, co-founder of the housing advocacy group Cupertino 4 All said, "This is a gigantic win for housing advocates specifically, and a huge win for proponents of development in general."

The developer Sand Hill Property Company initiated a design competition to design the new project and ultimately selected New York-based Rafael Viñoly Architects and Philadelphia-based OLIN Partnership Landscape Architects.

Plan to let churches, hospitals, and other nonprofit groups develop affordable housing more easily takes shape in California

2020-03-06T15:22:00-05:00

Lawmakers in California are working on a new measure that could grant churches, nursing homes, hospitals, and nonprofit entities the ability to build affordable housing on their properties without needing a change in zoning.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the measure, known as SB-899, was introduced this week by California State Senator Scott Wiener, the Bay Area legislator responsible for spearheading the controversial SB-50 proposal that failed earlier this year.

In part, the text of the bill reads, "This bill would require that a housing development project be a use by right upon the request of a nonprofit hospital, nonprofit diagnostic or treatment center, nonprofit rehabilitation facility, nonprofit nursing home, or religious institution that partners with a qualified developer on any land owned in fee simple by the applicant if the development satisfies specified criteria."

Among the stipulations the bill makes are that 100% of the units be "restricted to lower inc...

YIMBY Act gets passed in House of Representative

2020-03-06T12:20:00-05:00

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan "Yes In My Backyard" (YIMBY) Act this week, which aims to address the country’s affordable housing crisis by reducing barriers to increase housing production. The bill, which calls for high-density single-family and multifamily zoning, is sponsored by Rep. Denny Heck, D-WA, and Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, R-IN.

The bill, according to Smart Cities Dive, also calls for reducing minimum lot size; allowing manufactured homes in areas zoned for single-family residential dwellings; and allowing for duplexes in areas zoned mostly for single-family residential homes.

Paris is building—California is not

2019-12-27T12:20:00-05:00

Though the French capital and its suburbs house less than one-third the population of California, the region produced more new homes last year than the entire Golden State.

MIT Urban Planning doctoral candidate Yonah Freemark, writing in The San Francisco Chronicle, highlights the successes that have taken shape in Paris in recent years with regards to increasing housing production and affordability.

The recipe for success, according to Freemark’s research, includes a mix of well-known housing carrots, like imposing new inclusionary zoning initiatives, both locally and at the national level, funding the construction of public housing on excess government-owned land, and allowing for infill development consisting of smaller buildings on smaller parcels.

The recipe includes a couple of stick, too, including a dash of eminent domain and a dose of heavy fines for municipalities that do not meet housing goals. The approach, according to Freemark, is working.

San Diego wants to scrap residential density limits in latest pro-housing plan

2019-12-09T14:57:00-05:00

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is opening another salvo in his administration's efforts to address the city's housing affordability crisis by proposing the so-called "Complete Communities Housing Solutions Initiative," a scheme that looks beyond simply building new housing to embrace holistic urban development.

The proposal was endorsed unanimously by the San Diego City Council's Land Use and Housing Committee last week, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. The proposal presents an effort to refocus certain key elements of the city's zoning code to incentivize the development of smaller units, including one-bedroom and studio homes, and by allowing housing developers to offer community amenities that are decoupled from auto-oriented uses.

Describing the plan, San Diego planning director Mike Hansen tells The San Diego Union-Tribune, "We want to meet the needs of everyone in every neighborhood with an integrated land-use management approach that looks at not just housing, but ...

Plan to cover Interstate-5 with a park and high-rise towers receives support in Seattle

2019-10-08T15:22:00-04:00

Data collected by engineering firm WSP indicates that it is structurally possible construct a freeway lid over Interstate 5 (I-5) in Downtown Seattle within all four of the sub-areas studied, which extend from Madison Street to Denny Way. The study also found that integrating midrise and highrise buildings with the lid structure would be compatible and in some cases preferable from an engineering standpoint to deal with grade changes.

Seattle's The Urbanist reports that a plan to add a park and buildings over a depressed portion of Interstate-5 in downtown Seattle is, at the very least, technically feasible. The finding could add momentum to the proposal. Lawrence Halprin's Freeway Park, built in 1976, represents a similar, though smaller-scale version of the idea.

California eliminates single-family zoning

2019-09-16T12:15:00-04:00

Under AB 68, homeowners who apply to build accessory dwelling units, or “granny flats,” can also apply to build a second, “junior” ADU on their property — the functional equivalent of statewide triplex zoning. While the new rules don’t allow the subdivision of properties for sale, they could unleash a “golden age” of ADU construction across the state, leading to a significant increase in housing supply.

“The passage of AB 68 [...] fundamentally shifts the landscape for building new homes in our state,” Brian Hanlon, co-founder and president of zoning reform advocacy group California YIMBY said via press release, adding, “When the Governor signs these bills into law, almost every residential property in the state will be allowed to build three units of housing—including in areas zoned for single family homes.”

Dallas-Forth Worth surpasses Seattle, New York in apartment-building spree

2019-09-10T19:59:00-04:00

This year, Dallas-Fort Worth metro leads with a total of 22,196 new units expected to be built, which will prove beneficial considering the 131,800 new residents that the metro added between 2017 and 2018 (based on U.S. Census estimates).

Although the total number of apartments planned for 2019, roughly 300,000 units, is down from last year, construction for these types of projects has reached a record pace over the last decade not seen since the 1970s and 1980s. RentCafe reports that over 2.34 million apartment units have been delivered nationwide since 2009.

Nonprofit group seeks to gut L.A.'s most successful affordable housing reforms

2019-09-04T13:15:00-04:00

The city’s [Transit-Oriented Communities] program has been touted as one of City Hall’s most successful initiatives for producing affordable housing. Since it was launched in late 2017, developers have proposed nearly 20,000 new homes, nearly 3,900 of which would be kept affordable for lower-income households, according to the latest data from the planning department.

The notorious Los Angeles NIMBY group Fix The City has filed a lawsuit targeting the city's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program, arguing that the program, widely approved by a 2016 voter referendum, violates city and state laws and was not properly vetted by the public.

Alex Comisar, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's office, speaking with The Los Angeles Times, called the "lawful and essential" program "an incredible weapon" for bringing housing affordability to the city, adding, "The mayor believes this program is a critical tool for getting new affordable housing units built across the city."

Southern California looks to build its way out of the housing crisis

2019-08-23T13:30:00-04:00

Cities and counties in Southern California will have to plan for the construction of 1.3 million new homes in the next decade, a figure more than three times what local governments had proposed over the same period, according to a letter released by state housing officials Thursday.

Previously, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), a public agency that pursues regional planning efforts for Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties, proposed zoning changes that would make room for just 430,000 new residences through 2029.

San Diego forges ahead with urban densification plan

2019-08-14T14:30:00-04:00

San Diego approved new growth blueprints Thursday that allow for mid-rise housing and dense urban villages in neighborhoods near new trolley stops in Linda Vista and the northeast corner of Pacific Beach. City Council members said the new zoning will simultaneously help solve San Diego’s housing crisis, reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change and revamp blighted areas where bicyclists and pedestrians face major challenges.

The YIMBY-inspired plan will more than quadruple the number of housing units allowed in areas surrounding a forthcoming $2 billion transit line slated to run through San Diego's northwest quadrant.

Matt Adams, vice president of the local chapter of the Building Industry Association., told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “This is an essential component to addressing our housing crisis.”

Critics of the plan argue that the inclusionary zoning requirements packaged with the increased density bonuses will bring an insufficient number of affordable housing units to the area.

President Trump targets preservation, zoning, and rent control regulations

2019-06-26T09:29:00-04:00

President Donald Trump issued an executive order that establishes a White House Council focused on "eliminating regulatory barriers to affordable housing." The council is to be chaired by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson.

The order reads: "These regulatory barriers include: overly restrictive zoning and growth management controls; rent controls; cumbersome building and rehabilitation codes; excessive energy and water efficiency mandates; unreasonable maximum-density allowances; historic preservation requirements; overly burdensome wetland or environmental regulations; outdated manufactured-housing regulations and restrictions; undue parking requirements; cumbersome and time-consuming permitting and review procedures; tax policies that discourage investment or reinvestment; overly complex labor requirements; and inordinate impact or developer fees."

The order adds, "These regulatory barriers increase the costs associated with development, and, as a result, d...

A case for Brooklyn YIMBYism

2018-09-12T17:09:00-04:00

At its current rate of growth, Brooklyn is about to be more populous than the entire city of Chicago. Saying “we need more housing” is a given, but no one agrees on where, how high, and for whom. And New York has been later to that discussion than San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles: While the city is building housing, technically, it is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of 144,000 new Kings County residents since 2010.

Alexandra Lange takes a closer look at Brooklyn's contested 80 Flatbush mixed-use development and argues why it's good for the borough.