On June 12th, San Jose’s Housing and Planning departments will present a plan to the City Council that considers the feasibility of creating 25K new homes over a five-year period. Of the 25K units, 10K are expected to be affordable to lower- and moderate-income households. As part of this review, the Council will discuss and consider the feasibility of the 25K goal given current resources and policies. A key part of this discussion will be the Housing Department’s Affordable Housing Investment Plan, a guiding document that outlines affordable housing production projections given current resources and potential recommendations that could enable the City to reach its affordability goals.
One potential recommendation could be the adoption of a Commercial Impact Fee, which would charge developers of non-residential commercial property a fee that could be used to fund affordable housing.
Additionally, it is expected that the Council will wraps up its recent conversations about development fees after its two recent study sessions.
The affordable housing community should come out to call for:
- Reasonable fees for residential development that ensure that all construction is feasible given current market factors. It is understood that there is a connection between market-rate development and affordable development. If market-rate projects do not move forward, no fees or inclusionary units will be realized.
- Should fees be reduced to incentivize market rate development, this should not come at the expense of affordable homes. The City’s newly-implemented Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance and projects taking advantage of the Affordable Housing Fee Ordinance before it sunsets should not be impacted. Otherwise, we will ignore the lessons learned in North San Jose, where inclusionary requirements were waived and only a small number of affordable units was built.
- Adoption of Commercial Linkage Fees as a way to expand the City’s resources for Affordable Housing and come closer to the 10K target. Currently, the City’s only major resources for new development comes from impact fees/inclusionary requirements and funds that come from the City’s loan portfolio.
The City Council meeting starts at 1:30m, and the time of the item will depend on the full Council agenda. Council agendas will be posted on the City of San Jose’s website ten days before the meeting. Check back at this link for details.