San Mateo County supervisors have tightened the affordable housing rules for three new high-density zoning districts in unincorporated Colma, Broadmoor and the Harbor Industrial Area near Belmont, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported.
What changed
Under the amended inclusionary housing ordinance, at least 20% of the units built in those districts must be affordable to low-, very low- or extremely low-income households. Previously, the county's ordinance let some projects count homes for moderate-income households toward the affordable share, and it allowed developers to pay fees or build the affordable units somewhere else. According to the Daily Journal, the new rules drop the moderate-income option and do not allow any alternative to building the affordable units on site.
Where the new zones are
The districts come from a rezoning the Board of Supervisors adopted on April 21, which created new high-density residential mixed-use zones to carry out the county's state-required Housing Element. The largest area is in unincorporated Colma, where parcels along Hillsdale Boulevard near the BART station were upzoned, the Daily Journal reported. In Broadmoor, a small area along 87th Street was included, and in the Harbor Industrial Area, parcels between Elmer and Old County Road were upzoned.
"I always looked at unincorporated Colma as what could potentially be the Redwood City of the north," Supervisor David Canepa said, according to the paper.
Why the county is rezoning
State law requires the county to plan for 2,833 new homes in unincorporated areas between 2023 and 2031, including 811 for very low-income and 468 for low-income households, according to the county. County planners found existing zoning left it about 963 homes short, which is why it had to rezone land for denser housing. The county notes that rezoning is not a development project: no construction is proposed on the parcels, the county does not own them, and any building will depend on private developers. Rezoning of sites on the coast is still in process and needs California Coastal Commission approval.