Those in attendance at last Wednesday’s (5/8/24) night’s community meeting in South San Francisco witnessed a powerful display of unity as residents from across the city came together to voice their support for much-needed affordable housing and anti-displacement strategies. With growing frustration over the misrepresentation of community needs by anti-housing groups, residents are demanding real solutions to the pressing issues of displacement and housing unaffordability.

Since our organizing efforts in South San Francisco began, we’ve learned that habitability, home affordability, and displacement are top priorities for South San Francisco residents. People love South City and want to remain here, but unfortunately, many are being forced out, sometimes to neighboring cities or even as far as the Central Valley.

Displacement is not just about being unable to afford rent; it runs much deeper.  Aside from being formally evicted, many tenants are forced out due to landlord harassment, which includes living in substandard housing conditions because landlords refuse to maintain habitable homes. 

The consequences of displacement are dire. Displacement leads to homelessness, substandard housing, overcrowding, and pushes families to move far from their communities. Displacement causes trauma, particularly for children. It’s time to put an end to this cycle and ensure that everyone has the right to stable, affordable housing. It is time for strong anti-displacement measures, and it’s South San Francisco’s turn to implement them.

On Wednesday the South San Francisco City Council voted 4-1 to approve the charter for the Community Advisory Committee for the Residential and Commercial Anti-Displacement Roadmap. It’s important to note that an advisory committee whose purpose is to study and make recommendations is an easy starting point for a city wide conversation but tiptoes around immediate policy action that the city could champion at any time. While this decision is not the bold anti-displacement plan that residents urgently need now, it is the pathway to create such a plan. We are looking forward to amplifying and supporting the residents who are harnessing their collective power to unshakably support strong anti-displacement policies and new deeply affordable housing which is needed to curb the ongoing citywide displacement. 

A recent UC Berkeley Research Brief sheds light on the severity of displacement in San Mateo County. “Between 2000 and 2015, the county lost 44 percent of its naturally occurring affordable housing for low-income households. In 2015 alone, there was a shortfall of 25,882 affordable rental homes. Shockingly, between 2012 and 2015, evictions for non-payment of rent increased by 59 percent, and “no-cause” evictions skyrocketed by 300 percent. These evictions disproportionately affected Latinx and African-American households and were enabled by the lack of significant rent control or just-cause eviction protections in most cities in San Mateo County, apart from East Palo Alto.” 

To learn more about the displacement crisis in San Mateo County, we recommend reading the full UC Berkeley Research Brief. Together, we can make a difference and ensure that South City remains a place where everyone can thrive.

Over the last three weeks, city commissions in various parts of San Mateo County have stalled plans for affordable homes on sites included in the housing element. In Redwood City, the Architectural Design Review Commission unanimously recommended the council reject plans for 85 affordable homes at 847 Woodside Road. Half Moon Bay’s planning commission has twice rejected plans for 40 homes affordable to farmworkers planned for 555 Kelly Road. Both projects are included in their cities’ housing elements. 

Nonprofit Mercy Housing has applied to build 40 100% affordable homes in Half Moon Bay.

If cities like Half Moon Bay and Redwood City want local control over land use, they need to be responsive to the housing needs of their communities. The shortage of affordable homes for farmworkers and others may have no immediate impact on the individuals that serve on commissions and their comfortably housed supporters, but it has a huge impact on the working class members of our communities. Redwood City’s planning commission and Half Moon Bay’s architectural design review commission should support their respective affordable housing proposals to move forward without further subjective stipulations.

Both cities are responsible for planning for housing on these sites due to commitments in their housing elements. Redwood City’s housing element includes plans for housing at 847 Woodside Road based on an earlier proposal to build 44 homes for ownership on the site, including 37 market-rate and 7 affordable (see page 155 of the RWC housing element). Though the current proposal at 847 Woodside Road is larger than originally planned in the housing element, the increased density is necessary to make a new project pencil under tighter market conditions. 

HLC sent a public comment to Redwood City on Monday, May 6 detailing steps the city can take to facilitate development at 847 Woodside Road and remove barriers to future projects. Most significantly, the city should encourage eligible projects to take advantage of SB 35 and other environmental streamlining lawsfor infill housing, which is inherently sustainable. 

On April 30, 2024, HLC sent a comment letter to Half Moon Bay’s planning commission describing the legal justification for approving the farmworker housing. Under current law, the planning commission has an opportunity to work with the developer to make marginal improvements. However, if the planning commission continues to make infeasible demands, developer, Mercy Housing, could use state laws coming into effect in 2025 to propose a much larger project. 

One of the most significant laws, SB 423, builds off existing state law, SB 35, to streamline an eligible housing proposal. SB 35, passed in 2017, requires ministerial processing–meaning no public hearings–of eligible housing projects in jurisdictions that do not meet their Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) target. SB 423 extends SB 35 to most properties in the coastal zone. The City of Half Moon Bay will be subject to SB 423.

Another law, AB 1633, makes it harder to abuse environmental laws to stall housing production. Specifically, AB 1633 expands the Housing Accountability Act’s definition of what it means to “disapprove the housing project” to include a city’s failure to make a determination of whether the project is exempt from CEQA or commits an abuse of discretion in that determination. This opens up a cause of action for applicants to sue local agencies that use CEQA delays as a means to effectively disapprove, render financially infeasible, or downsize a project without having actually voted to do so.

Read HLC’s public comment letter to Half Moon Bay’s planning commission to better understand these laws.