Accessory Dwelling Units as Low-Income Housing: California’s Faustian Bargain

In 2003, California allowed cities to count accessory dwelling units (ADU) towards low-income housing needs. Unless a city’s zoning code regulates the ADU’s maximum rent, occupancy income, and/or effective period, then the city may be unable to enforce low-income occupancy. After examining a stratified random sample of 57 low-, moderate-, and high-income cities, the high-income cities must proportionately accommodate more low-income needs than low-income cities. By contrast, low-income cities must quantitatively accommodate three times the low-income needs of high-income cities. The sample counted 750 potential ADUs as low-income housing. Even though 759 were constructed, no units were identified as available low-income housing. In addition, none of the cities’ zoning codes enforced low-income occupancy. Inferential tests determined that cities with colleges and high incomes were more probable to count ADUs towards overall and low-income housing needs. Furthermore, a city’s count of potential ADUs and cities with high proportions of renters maintained positive associations with ADU production, whereas a city’s density and prior compliance with state housing laws maintained negative associations. In summary, ADUs did increase local housing inventory and potential ADUs were positively associated with ADU production, but ADUs as low-income housing remained a paper calculation

According to the Plan: Testing the Influence of Housing Plan Quality on Low-Income Housing Production

For more than 20 years, scholars have assessed a plan’s content to determine the plan’s quality, with quality serving as a proxy for planning efficacy. However, scholars rarely examine the relationship between a plan’s quality and the plan’s intended outcome. Thus, it is unclear whether quality influences planning outcomes or even advances equity. To close this gap, this study assessed a non-random sample of housing plans from 43 cities in California’s Los Angeles and Sacramento regions to observe how cities accommodated low-income housing needs and to observe whether each plan’s quality influenced low-income housing production. The analysis indicates that the plans identified 42 different planning tools to accommodate low-income housing needs, and nearly 60% of the implementing objectives proposed construction programs. Quality is influential after the city’s location, land-use, population, and the plan’s compliance with state housing law are taken into account. In summary, quality illuminated how these cities accommodated low-income housing needs and, in conjunction with other city conditions, quality influences low-income housing production. Due to this non-random sample, this study calls on planning scholars to subject quality to more empirical tests on planning outcomes in other areas to increase quality’s importance in scholarship

State Mandates, Housing Elements, and Low-income Housing Production

In order to create low-income housing opportunities and mitigate exclusionary zoning, in 1968 Congress mandated that municipalities receiving comprehensive planning funds must create a housing element. In tandem, many states mandated that municipal housing elements must accommodate low-income housing needs. After examining empirical research for California, Florida, Illinois, and Minnesota, this review found aspirational success because those states rewarded the municipal planning process. In order to increase low-income housing, this review argues for state housing policy reform. Under US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s revised fair housing rule, which requires an assessment of local data, states can no longer ignore the exclusionary behavior of municipalities

Evaluating California’s Housing Element Law, Housing Equity, and Housing Production (1990–2007)

Since 1969, California’s Housing Element Law has required that municipalities address housing equity and housing production. In California, housing equity means that a municipality has planned for the future production of low-income housing that is priced from 0 to 120% of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s median family income, and market-rate housing that is priced higher than 121%. For a purposive sample of municipalities (Sacramento and Los Angeles regions, 1990 to 2007, n = 53), this research found that as compliance with the law increased, the sample experienced deficient low-income housing production but surplus market-rate housing production. Mixed-effects models indicated that compliant municipalities were associated not only with increased low-income housing production but also with decreased annual housing production in comparison to noncompliant municipalities. While these associations contrast with Lewis, they suggest that municipal compliance may support California’s goal of providing housing equity but may also constrain California’s overall housing production

Ramsey-Musolf Faustian data

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1061/thumbnail.jp