Housing

Our goal: Make it affordable to live here.

SPUR’s housing agenda:

• Zone for more housing—in the right locations.
• Invest in permanently affordable housing.
• Enable more housing to be affordable by design.
• Rethink parking requirements.
• Encourage secondary units.
• Get housing development fees right.

Read more from SPUR’s Agenda for Change

  • SPUR Report

    Room for More

    Our housing agenda for San Jose lays out 20 concrete steps the city can take to address the chronic housing shortage, ranging from fixing its planning process to finding more funding for affordable housing.

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  • SPUR Report

    8 Ways to Make San Francisco More Affordable

    San Francisco is in the midst of an affordability crisis. Reversing the situation will require far-reaching changes to the city’s housing policies. But there are many things we can do at the local level to make San Francisco more affordable for the people who live here.

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  • SPUR Report

    Re-Envisioning the San Francisco Housing Authority

    The San Francisco Housing Authority has a budget short fall and lacks funding to meet its capital needs. SPUR offers recommendations to help the agency become financially sustainable over the long term.

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  • SPUR Report

    Affordable by Design

    Housing units that are affordable "by design" cost less to produce because they’re small, efficiently designed and don’t come with a parking space. Could this be a new way to produce middle-income housing without using public subsidy?

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  • SPUR Report

    A Housing Strategy for San Francisco

    San Francisco’s unique culture is threatened by the high cost of housing. Unless we do something, the city will lose its artists, its progressive politics, its immigrants and its young people. This second edition of our Housing Strategy for San Francisco updates the policy reports that define SPUR's housing agenda.

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Updates and Events

Member Profile: Linda Mandoli

Urbanist Article October 7, 2019
When she's not bicycling, Linda Mandoli is bringing more homes to more people in the Bay Area.

How Oakland’s Housing Boom Can Help Prevent Displacement

News September 30, 2019
Oakland’s annual rent increase has slowed dramatically as the amount of new housing has skyrocketed. Some developers are even offering free rent to lure prospective tenants. This is welcome news for renters who can afford market-rate rents, but the benefits are not limited to them. New research demonstrates that construction of market-rate housing can have positive effects for those who already live in the neighborhood.

SPUR weighs in on SF Planning Director desired qualifications

Policy Letter September 27, 2019
In the wake of John Rahaim's announced retirement, the San Francisco Planning Commission held a hearing on desired qualifications for the next planning director. SPUR weighed in with policy priorities and key characteristics of the next director.

SPUR provides comments on the City of San Jose proposed extension of the downtown high-rise incentive program

Policy Letter September 24, 2019
SPUR supports staff recommendation to extend the downtown high-rise incentive program until 2023. While we believe that downtown must have a large concentration of jobs to support transit, it is also important to maximize the potential of high-rise residential development downtown. This program helps ease the financial burden due to the cost of construction and land to help spur greater development in the urban core.

SPUR supports the City of San Jose ordinance to adopt Reach Codes for new construction city-wide

Policy Letter September 18, 2019
SPUR supports the proposed ordinance to adopt city-wide reach codes as a way to further realize the Climate Smart San Jose plan. This ordinance upholds many of the principles laid out in our 2016 report, Fossil-Free Bay Area, such as increasing the energy performance of new buildings and establishing high-efficiency standards is a key strategy to reducing our carbon footprint and fossil fuel use.

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