TRULIA.COM BLOG
By Cheryl Young
In cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Orange County, Calif. and Asheville, N.C., voters mostly agreed to new taxes, bond issues or zoning changes that would require developers to add affordable housing units as part of any new plans.
In notoriously pricey San Francisco, the vote was mixed with voters approving measures to aid the homeless and increasing affordable housing, but balking on a proposal to create a new housing commission as well as requiring a minimum number of competitive bids for affordable housing developments.
Rent control and stabilization measures results in California, however, were a mixed bag. The cities of Mountain View, Richmond and Alameda passed measures to keep rent increases in check, but similar measures in Burlingame and San Mateo were defeated. These results illustrate the division in the how the public perceives rent control measures and questions around its enforcement as a tool to keep housing affordable.
Overall, affordable housing ballot measures that sought to reduce scarcity performed well, according to Young, a senior economist at Trulia and former consultant with the World Bank’s Urban Development Unit.
Get Young’s:
- 10 measures (like L.A.'s $1.2 billion bond paid through property taxes) that should have the most impact on the affordable housing crisis, an inforgraphic
- Lists of notable bond measures and where inclusionary zoning passed (spoiler alert: not San Francsico)
- Highlights from notable planning and land use measures (the city of San Diego can now develop or acquire about another 40,000 units)