Housing
Our goal: Make housing affordable for everyone.
SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:
• Reduce the cost of building housing to make it more affordable for everyone.
• Provide low- and middle-income residents with homes they can afford, and prevent displacement.
• Use housing as a tool for closing the racial wealth gap and leverage public investment to support wealth creation for low-income households.
SPUR Report
Housing the Region
Imagine a Bay Area where our greatest challenge, the scarcity and expense of housing, has been solved. This may sound like an impossible dream, but it isn’t. Within the next 50 years, we can live in an affordable region. But only if we make significant changes, starting right now. SPUR's series Housing the Region defines the Bay Area's housing crisis and put forth concrete steps to build a better, more affordable region.
SPUR Report
A Civic Vision for Growth
The Bay Area is a place of incredible possibility, but it faces threats from some of the highest housing costs in the country, growing income inequality, long commutes between jobs and affordable homes, and increasing danger from climate change. If we continue with business as usual, the region can expect these challenges to continue to escalate. But what if the people of the Bay Area chose a different future?
SPUR Report
What It Will Really Take to Create an Affordable Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area’s lack of housing and limited affordability have significant ramifications for the people who currently live here, the people who once lived here but have been forced to move elsewhere and the people who used to be housed but now live on the street. These housing pressures are remaking the region’s diversity, culture, economy and environment.
SPUR Report
Model Places
Over the next 50 years, the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a region where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over green spaces or pushing out long-time community members?
SPUR Report
Room for More
Our housing agenda for San José 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.
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.
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.
Updates and Events
SPUR-Sponsored Housing Bills Continue to Move in the State Legislature
News /SPUR is advocating for a number of pro-housing bills and regulatory reforms in Sacramento that would increase housing supply and reduce the time and cost to produce housing. A number of key SPUR-sponsored and supported bills continue to move through the legislative process. When the Legislature returns from summer recess a number of bills will face critical votes in the State Senate and Assembly.
How Much Does It Cost to Permit a House?
SPUR ReportCalifornia is in the midst of an enduring housing affordability crisis that is rooted in a lack of housing supply and perpetuated by the high costs of development. This brief focuses on one obstacle in the development process that can contribute to these steep costs and hamper overall housing production: the lack of transparency around development fees and requirements at the local level.
SPUR Supports Construction Innovation and Expanded Housing Options in Oakland
Policy LetterSPUR encourages the Oakland City Planning Commission to approve a proposed ordinance that would expand the availability of low-cost housing options such as recreational vehicles, tiny homes on wheels, modular housing, and efficiency dwelling units.
Regional Challenges Need a Regional Approach
News /SPUR’s recently released Regional Strategy outlines a vision for the Bay Area of 2070 as an equitable, sustainable and prosperous region. The strategy provides a roadmap for building that future and centers deep regional cooperation as critical to transformational change. To celebrate the release of the project, four Bay Area civic leaders gathered on May 13 to talk about the role of regionalism in advancing a future where everyone thrives.
SPUR Responds to the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Oakland Waterfront Ballpark Project at Howard Terminal
Policy LetterSPUR believes that the Oakland Waterfront Ballpark Project could bring many benefits to the city of Oakland; however, the project as described in the Draft EIR does not adequately account for the complexity of the Howard Terminal location and must be revisited to ensure impacts to transportation, environmental health, and port operations are fully addressed.
Housing the Region
SPUR ReportImagine a Bay Area where our greatest challenge, the scarcity and expense of housing, has been solved. This may sound like an impossible dream, but it isn’t. Within the next 50 years, we can live in an affordable region. But only if we make significant changes, starting right now. SPUR's series Housing the Region defines the Bay Area's housing crisis and put forth concrete steps to build a better, more affordable region.