SAN JOSE HOUSING

Affordable Housing (click here for an explanation of “affordable housing”)

Association of Bay Area Governments. Oakland, CA. (regional planning agency). 2007. A Place to Call Home: Affordable Housing in the Bay Area. (pdf). “The 2007 report emphasizes the importance of encouraging housing development in existing communities and near transit. A shift toward this development pattern can improve the quality of life in the region, particularly by expanding housing and transportation choices. Promoting growth in these areas is a trend that is gaining momentum throughout the Bay Area, and the report presents some of the best practices and tools that local communities are using to promote housing in these locations. It also documents local government progress in meeting the housing targets established for 1999-2006 as part of the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process.”

Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. (policy think tank). Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program, Karen Destorel Brown, Margery Austin Turner, Mary Cunningham, Noah Sawyer. 2003. Rethinking Local Affordable Housing Strategies: Lessons from 70 Years of Policy and Practice. (pdf) Housing, Cities, Cities, Real Estate. The Brookings Institution

The California Budget Project. Sacramento, CA. (education, policy, and advocacy group) 2008. Locked Out 2008: The Housing Boom and Beyond. (pdf) “The irony of the recent softening in home prices is that while it has put thousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure, it has had little impact on the affordability of housing for the typical California family.”

The California Budget Project. Sacramento, CA. (education, policy, and advocacy group) 2008. Locked Out 2008: A Profile of California’s Counties. (pdf) A supplement to Locked Out 2008 provides county-specific data on California’s housing crisis. Santa Clara County is on page 35.

The California Budget Project. Sacramento, CA. (education, policy, and advocacy group) 2007. Making Ends Meet: How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Family in California? (pdf) “A new report estimates the costs of housing, food, and other necessities for California families. The study finds that families need to earn incomes that are much higher than the federal poverty line to afford to make ends meet.”

The California Budget Project. Sacramento, CA. (education, policy, and advocacy group) 2005. A Primer on California Housing Programs. (pdf)

Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. Coral Gables, FL. 2006. (nonprofit resources for philanthropists) Three papers. (a) Getting Ahead of the (Housing) Curve: A Look at Emerging Housing Needs and Market Dynamics (pdf) (b) Beyond Neighborhood Boundaries: Taking a Regional View of Housing (pdf) (c) How Housing Affects Child Well-Being (pdf)

Greenbelt Alliance, San Francisco, CA (policy and advocacy organization). 2002. Housing Crisis Report Card. ” This report card reveals why the San Francisco Bay Area continues to have a housing crisis, and how local governments can help end it. A major cause of the crisis is that 72% of the regions’ cities and counties are failing to take basic steps to address the Bay Area’s affordable housing shortage. There is a set of solutions that can provide a range of housing choices for everyone. The Housing Crisis Report Card examines the extent to which cities and counties are adopting common sense strategies for affordable housing. It takes a closer look at 40 key cities and counties, selected because they are among the largest and fastest growing places in the Bay Area.”

Greenbelt Alliance, San Francisco, CA (policy and advocacy organization). 2002. Smart Infill. “This 72-page guidebook for civic leaders and citizens shows how the region can achieve more livable communities and more sustainable development by developing underutilized land within existing urban areas. The report presents 12 key strategies to bring about well-planned infill housing and mixed-use development. These recommendations include zoning changes, design guidelines, public participation processes, revised parking requirements, and preparation of “Specific Plans” coordinating neighborhood revitalization. In addition to providing a useful toolbox of strategies for smart infill, the guidebook features photos and case studies of successful infill throughout the Bay Area. In these examples, municipal action is already helping revitalize neighborhoods or entire cities and providing much-needed housing for people at different income levels.”

Greenbelt Alliance, San Francisco, CA (policy and advocacy organization). 2004. Getting It Right? A Report Card on the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Process. “The plan to date for development in San Jose’s Coyote Valley is compared with the smart growth goals laid out in our vision, 2003. Getting It Right: Preventing Sprawl in Coyote Valley. [unavailable]. So far, many aspects of the plan are on the wrong track.”

Little Hoover Commission, Sacramento, CA. 2002. (bipartisan, citizen and official CA state agency) Rebuilding The Dream: Solving California’s Affordable Housing Crisis. (link to pdfs). Accessible report that explains affordable housing terms and functions, including housing element law, brownfields, and other agency strategies. Includes commission recommendations for reforming state relations with local governments, funders, lenders, developers, to increase the amount of affordable housing in California.

Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), New York City. 2007. (national nonprofit development, policy, investment, and training org) New Directions, Sustainable Solutions. (pdf) “A new collection of case studies researched and written for the 2007 Affordable Housing Symposium, highlights innovative developers who are tapping non-traditional resources, expanding their scope of work, and offering affordable housing in areas once considered too exclusive or expensive. The case studies highlight four unique tools for affordable housing development: Low Income Housing Tax Credits, the Capital Fund Financing Program, committed and aggressive local agency programs, and mixed-financing. Regardless of their method, these developments help people that are most affected by high housing costs: seniors and low-income working families. The case studies–in Burnsville, Minn,. Allegheny County, Penn., Charleston, W.Va., and San Diego, Calif.–profile different housing types within different community contexts. Readers are encouraged to apply them as a framework to create and preserve and/or increase affordable housing in their own communities.”

Institute for Metropolitan Studies, San Jose State University for the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), Bay Area, San Francisco. 2007. (national and local nonprofit development, policy, investment, and training org). Housing Silicon Valley: A 20-Year Plan to End the Affordable Housing Crisis. A partnership between government, university, nonprofit funders, the private sector, and nonprofit developers.

Tony Procscio. Local Initiative Support Corporation. (LISC), New York City. 2005. (national nonprofit development, policy, investment, and training org) Preserving America’s Affordable Housing: Retooling a 20th Century Asset for 21st Century Needs. (pdf) “Between 1965 and 1990, Americans invested over $60 billion in a supply of affordable rental housing to shelter low-income people, improve distressed neighborhoods, provide for mixed income communities, and ensure opportunities for seniors to live close to community and family. This publication describes the work of LISC’s Affordable Housing Preservation Initiative in helping preserve rental housing, financed or subsidized through federal assistance agreements, many of which are now expiring. Case studies from Boston, Pittsburgh, suburban Chicago, and the Mississippi Delta illustrate the work.”

Policy Link, Oakland, CA. 2005. (research and advocacy nonprofit) Expanding Opportunity: New Resources to Meet California’s Housing Needs. (pdf) “California is facing its greatest housing crisis ever. Rising housing costs and underproduction of affordable housing have combined to result in overcrowding, long commutes, and extremely high housing costs. Families today must earn 175 percent of the state median income to afford a median-priced home.This report, commissioned by Housing California, provides analyses of possible revenue sources, surveys housing trust funds in 28 other states, and draws from best practices across the nation to provide a blueprint for California.”

Hans P. Johnson and Amanda Bailey. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank). 2005. California’s Newest Homeowners: Affording the Unaffordable. (pdf) “Examines the latest trends in home-ownership, the characteristics of homebuyers, and how Californians are able to afford such high prices. Finds that many recent homeowners are financially overextended, that nonconventional financing has also played a role, and that many residents have moved to inland areas of the state where housing is more affordable.”

Michael B. Teitz, Charles Dietzel, and William Fulton. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank). 2005. Urban Development Futures in the San Joaquin Valley. (pdf) “Urban Development Futures in the San Joaquin Valley models urban growth in San Joaquin Valley over the next four decades. Its results, which include color maps to illustrate the spread of urbanization, will help policymakers and the public to assess the implications of that growth and to consider a range of policy responses. Taken together, the scenarios point to a tripling of the urbanized land stock by 2040, lower densities, and significant declines in farmland. They also indicate, however, that the Valley’s actual growth will partly depend on which public policy goals are emphasized. Many of these decisions will be made by the Valley’s local governments, which control most land use planning and permitting powers.”

Mark Baldassare. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank) 2004. PPIC Statewide Survey: Special Survey on Californians and Their Housing. (pdf)

Tracy M. Gordon. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank). 2004. Planned Developments in California: Private Communities and Public Life. (pdf) “This report provides a comprehensive portrait of California’s common interest developments (CIDs), which include planned developments, condominiums, and cooperatives. It focuses on planned developments, which now make up more than 40 percent of new single-family home sales and most resemble local governments in their scope of activities. It finds that, on average, their residents are older, more prosperous, and less racially and ethnically diverse than residents in comparable neighborhoods. However, planned developments do not seem to represent a “secession of the successful.” Income diversity in these communities is greater than might be expected, and voting patterns do not differ markedly from those of similar populations with different living arrangements. Although planned developments make only minor contributions to statewide metropolitan residential segregation, this pattern may change as CIDs account for more of the state’s total housing stock.”

Santa Clara County Collaborative on Housing and Homeless Issues, run by the Community Technology Alliance, San Jose. A consortium of government agencies, nonprofit organizations and service providers. Two county reports on homelessness. 2005. Keys to Housing: Santa Clara County’s 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. and 2007. Housing Silicon Valley: A 20-Year Plan to End the Affordable Housing Crisis.

Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Housing Area. San Jose, CA. (policy organization and lobby). The SVLG has several resource and policy papers including a statement on non-industrial uses in industrial areas and papers for the Santa Clara County Housing Action Coalition housing development project endorsement criteria and the SV Leadership Group housing development project endorsement criteria.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 2007. Affordable Housing Needs 2005: Report to Congress. (pdf) “This report is the tenth in a series of Worst Case Needs reports to Congress. This 2005 report is organized into five basic sections Chapter 1 provides an introduction, including a discussion of terms and sources. Chapter 2 outlines the findings of worst case needs by various categories such as demographics and geography. Chapter 3 presents an analysis using data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the duration of severe rent burdens. Chapter 4 assesses the supply of affordable rental housing. Chapter 5 presents new analysis of how worst case needs relate to neighborhood poverty rates.”

Inclusionary Zoning (click here for an explanation of “inclusionary zoning”)

Policy Link, Oakland, CA. 2007. (research and advocacy nonprofit) Delivering on the Promise of Inclusionary Housing: Best Practices in Administration and Monitoring (pdf) “outlines several of the most common tasks associated with ongoing administration of inclusionary housing programs and describes some of the common approaches to staffing and paying for implementation. It also lists a number of program profiles where inclusionary zoning has been implemented.”

Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and Home Builders Association of Northern California. 2005. On Common Ground: Joint Principles on Inclusionary Housing Policies.

Mixed Income Neighborhoods (click here for an explanation of “mixed income”)

Erica Spade. Center for Community Innovation. Institute of Urban and Regional Development, UC Berkeley. 2006. Mixed-Income Defined: An Examination of Income Diverse Neighborhoods and What Keeps Them Stable (pdf).

Alexander von Hoffman, Eric Belsky, James DeNormandie, and Rachel Bratt, Harvard University, Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. 2003. The Vitality of America’s Working Communities. Summary from NPH website: “Using U.S. Census data from 1970 to 2000, the study finds that apartments do not threaten the value of nearby single-family houses. The average value of owner-occupied houses was actually highest in working communities (neighborhoods in which residents earn between 60% and 100% of area median income) that have the most apartments.”

Infill Development (click here for an explanation of “infill”)

John D. Landis, Heather Hood, Guangyu Li, Michael Reilly, Thomas Rogers, Charles Warren. Center for Community Innovation. Institute of Urban and Regional Development, UC Berkeley. 2005. The Future of Infill Housing in California: Opportunities, Potential, Feasibility and Demand: Volume One: Study Overview. (pdf) See also Cal IURD’s interactive infill mapping program, “infill finder,” for infill properties in your neighborhood.

John D. Landis, Heather Hood, Guangyu Li, Michael Reilly, Thomas Rogers, Charles Warren. Center for Community Innovation. Institute of Urban and Regional Development, UC Berkeley. 2005. The Future of Infill Housing in California: Opportunities, Potential, Feasibility and Demand: Volume Two: Full Study (pdf) See also Cal IURD’s interactive infill mapping program, “infill finder,” for infill properties in your neighborhood.

Tax Credits (click here for an explanation of “housing tax credits”)

California Housing Partnership Corporation, San Francisco, CA. (policy, advocacy for affordable housing). 2001. California’s Tax Credit Turns 15. (pdf) and 2001. Low Income Housing Tax Credit Rent Limits.

The Law: Housing Elements; Land Use. (click here for an explanation of “housing element law”)

Paul G. Lewis. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank) 2003. California’s Housing Element Law: The Issue of Local Noncompliance. (pdf) “This report examines which types of California cities tend to be out of compliance with the state’s housing element law. It also tests whether that noncompliance can be linked to lower levels of new housing production. Although the results indicate that noncompliant cities tend to match a particular profile, the report finds no strong connection between noncompliance and the underproduction of new housing-even of multifamily housing, which tends to be more affordable than single-family homes. After reviewing the experiences of other states with similar approaches, the author concludes that the time is ripe for policymakers and affected interest groups to seek a more workable, transparent, and straightforward housing policy.”

The California Housing Law Project. Sacramento, CA. (advocacy group). 2006 and 2005. Several reports on California land use law, anti-NIMBY toolkit fact sheet, and California housing element law.

Regional and City Planning

Elisa Barbour. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, CA. (think tank). 2002. Metropolitan Growth Planning in California, 1900-2000. “Elisa Barbour’s Metropolitan Growth Planning in California, 1900-2000 traces the history of regional planning and growth management in California. Focusing on transportation, land use, and environmental planning, Barbour divides the state’s reform efforts into three distinct waves: the consolidation of planning activities under central city governments; the fragmentation of those activities during post-World War II suburbanization; and recent attempts to reintegrate them without changing the fundamental structures of political authority. Barbour also assesses the state’s current prospects for growth management at the regional level. She concludes that effective regional planning will require active support from Sacramento, largely because the state defines the regulatory environment and affects regional outcomes with its own programs and investments.”