In the beginning of this month, San Mateo County approved a new, $40 million housing plan. 

The project

This money is going to fund seven different projects. This will create 431 new units in places ranging from Daly City all the way to Menlo Park. 

These projects include the development and construction of a diverse array of new housing units including apartments, senior housing units, and townhomes.

The effects

When you see it on paper, 431 seems like a lot of housing, sure. But Atherton alone is required to build 348 new units by 2031. And the county itself is aiming to build 2,833 homes in that same amount of time. 

Unfortunately, it is simply unavoidable that huge sums of money will have to be put towards building affordable housing in this area. Especially in residential neighborhoods like Atherton, with property prices being so high and public land being so scarce, it is extremely difficult to find places to construct housing.

Why the rush?

The Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) is a state-run process that sets a quota for new, low-income housing for each town on a case-by-case basis. 

It operates in 8-year cycles. The current cycle began in 2023 and will end in 2031. Failure to comply with RHNA can lead to penalties including builder’s remedy, which is a situation where a town is unable to apply rules to any builder looking to construct low-income housing. Thus, costly plans like this one are being put into effect.

Seeing improvement

Doing the math once more, $40 million for 431 units is approximately $93k per unit. Although this sounds like a lot of money, the average construction cost of new below market rate housing in the Bay Area in 2019 was roughly $644k. 

So really, it’s impressive how San Mateo County has directed its funding in order to maximize the number of units produced. I hope to see more projects like this in the future. However, there are other ways to fulfill these requirements, which I look forward to touching on in upcoming posts.