gentrification

Affordable Housing Preservation and ProductionIn hot housing markets, many of the long-established strategies outlined below becomepolitically and financially viable. In slower markets, they can be difficult to put in place and operate.Unless these programs are already on the books, cities may run into a common problem—gentrification hits the city, but the political support, legislation and staff capacity needed to produceor protect affordable housing take months or years to put in place.To ensure the continued production of affordable housing stock in a gentrifying market, manycities, including Boston and San Francisco, require that developers set-aside a portion of eachdevelopment for affordable housing units. (In San Francisco, this local requirement is in addition tothe California redevelopment law mandate described in the previous section.) In some cases, theseset-asides are required as part of the give-and-take of zoning variance negotiations or other cityconcessions, and in some cases they are required of all new developments.Because affordable housing built in prime locations can be extremely expensive, some citiesrequire contributions or “linkage fees” to housing trust funds (for development of more cost-efficientaffordable housing in other locations) rather than set-asides. Boston argues that downtown officebuilding construction creates demand for affordable housing for office workers, and the city requireslinkage fees from commercial developments as well as housing developments.In California’s Silicon Valley, the Housing Action Council of the Silicon Valley ManufacturingGroup works closely with its private- and non-profit sector partners to advise developers andadvocate at local planning and zoning meetings for affordable housing developments in the area.The Group recently embarked on a $20 million corporate fundraising effort to underwrite a housingtrust fund. Other housing and land trust funds receive resources from foundations, city, anddeveloper contributions.California state law mandates “fair share” housing requirements, in which a community isrequired by state law to include affordable housing in addition to market-rate housing as part of itsgeneral plan—and then build it. This policy helps ensure that California cities remain open tovarying incomes, and also attempts to ensure that affordable housing needs are met on a regionalbasis. Numerous housing policy studies suggest that the state’s communities routinely disregard therequirement, however, and the law lacks adequate enforcement mechanisms. 47Cities often attempt to protect tenants living in rental housing by not only instituting landlordtenantlaw requirements more stringent than state law, but also requiring relocation payments whenlandlords take the units out of the rental market. These benefits can be particularly important in arapidly gentrifying market, and offer some protection to the original residents (rather than to thehousing stock or other aspects of the built environment). San Francisco’s requirement varies47 See for instance, Yee and Quiroz-Martinez, p. 17. Forty out of 108 Bay Area jurisdictions are out ofcompliance with their housing commitments.34