Originally Posted by wburg
Just out of curiosity I took a look at San Francisco's housing growth since 2010, and it looks like they have added a net of about 9-10,000 units (demolishing 1500 or so existing units in the process), in a city of 49 square miles. That adds up to about 34 units of housing, per year, per square mile. The 1400 units in the central city, less than a tenth the size of San Francisco and half as dense, means about 45 new units of housing, per year, per square mile. So for those of us living in the central city, we have seen a level of development intensity comparable to San Francisco over the past five years--but if you lived outside the grid, you probably missed out on it--unless, of course, you lived in West Sacramento, which is also seeing plenty of new housing, primarily along its waterfront. Which goes a long way to explain why folks who don't live downtown still seem convinced that there is nothing happening around here. From their perspective, there isn't any housing growth going on in their backyard, so unless they happen to visit Midtown during the day, they won't see the flurry of construction sites big and small throughout the city.
The root of the problem, I think, is that while prices are rocketing upward here, they still aren't as high as they are in the Bay Area, but salaries are not rocketing upward, so people aren't as willing to pay those higher prices. So building more in the Bay Area is still more profitable, despite its difficulties and pitfalls (if you think building is hard in Sacramento, you haven't tried building in San Francisco), and there is still a big pile of money floating around there. Unless salaries in Sacramento go up radically, and the Bay Area housing bubble continues, don't expect absurd growth levels anytime soon. And it seems like the marketing coming from Sacramento aimed at Bay Area residents is focused on our big suburban backyards, uncrowded freeways, and low prices, so we're probably not getting a lot of people looking for a more urban setting.
The goal of 10,000 housing units in the central city (or rather what the Mayor calls "the toast"--grid/Railyards/Richards) came up last year, they're still working on the final plan but the clock for that is supposed to start ticking this year--it's a goal to shoot for, not sure if we'll make it especially if things turn south, but I think we will see a good chunk of it, especially if residential starts going in the Railyards and Township 9. The big challenge will be the 4000 units that are supposed to be affordable, including 1500 for folks currently homeless, considering that our new affordable housing policy will produce almost no affordable housing--the "in lieu" fee is very low, the amount of affordable housing required is lower, and if you're doing housing over 40 units/acre you don't have to provide any affordable component or in-lieu fee, which includes most central city housing. The Railyards is obligated to produce about 300 units of affordable housing out of 6-10,000 projected units. That being said, there are a couple of affordable units underway, so it's not all totally bleak. But, as with suburban development, I expect much of that 4000 units of affordable housing to be explained away in a few years.
The affordable building at 7th & H (an SRO replacement) was completed a few years ago. CADA is moving forward to buy a half-block south of Ice Blocks for affordable housing, and has plans for another affordable unit next to the Presbyterian cathedral on N Street. The three projects SKK has lined up between 19th-21st on Q Street will add up to about 500 units just by themselves, but all are approved. They're digging up dirt at 21st and Q right now, presumably doing site prep for the townhomes. The apartments at 19th and Q were approved first but for some reason those are taking longer. The big one on the parking garage will most likely be last, but that's 300 units just by itself.
The MAY Building is 21 apartments. The Bel-Vue building on 8th Street should be part of a new project, that will be another 20 or so apartments. Every little bit helps, especially if there are a lot of little bits, and both of those buildings combined will provide as much new housing as DoCo.
McKinley Village will be something like 250 units, the Mill at Broadway will be about 1000. Not sure about CPV and Park Moderns. Aside from a few corridors, infill outside the central city is limited by the low-density zoning of most of the surrounding neighborhoods. But these "grid-adjacent" projects are growing in number, along with some smaller infill projects like some units finishing up at Alhambra and I Street, so I'd expect to see a few more like that...and, most likely, a whole lot of new greenfield single-family sprawl on the urban perimeter. Part of why we haven't seen much new housing growth is because it took years for the market to absorb all of the vacant housing built during the housing bubble, but it's pretty much soaked up by now. So expect for-sale signs to pop up in Northern North Natomas real soon now!
You don't know any of the local developers, Majin? I'm surprised, most are pretty approachable folks and it's not hard to meet them if you go to commission meetings or community meetings about these projects. Since you're so interested in the subject, it's pretty surprising if you don't attend them!
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