Last week, South San Francisco became the third city in San Mateo County to achieve housing element certification! A number of significant policies helped the city achieve compliance, including commitments to pursue:
- Widespread rezoning for affordable and market-rate homes, allowing up to 120 du/ac in some areas.
- Publicly owned land for affordable homes
- Tenant protections to prevent displacement of our county’s most vulnerable residents
South San Francisco also commits to dedicate commercial linkage fee revenue for affordable homes; remove myriad zoning constraints to housing production; and speed up entitlement timelines for affordable homes. Fundamentally, the policies in SSF’s housing element earned the city certification by demonstrating a meaningful commitment to promote affordable homes
Across the Bay Area, more than 50% of cities have now received housing element certification; in San Mateo County, just 3 of our 21 jurisdictions have completed the process. HLC continues to support the efforts of local jurisdictions to achieve compliance with comment letters and policy advice.