The legal challenge of San Jose’s affordable housing law which was passed five years ago but blocked by the building industry in a lawsuit contending that the ordinance was an unconstitutional ‘taking’ of private property has been unanimously rejected California’s Supreme Court.
Similar to San Francisco’s Inclusionary Housing ordinance, which could have been at risk had the building industry’s challenge succeeded, San Jose’s law will require projects with twenty or more condos to offer 15 percent of the units at below market rates or pay an in-lieu fee in order to be permitted for development.
Project’s with ten or more units in San Francisco are currently required to include or fund then development of below market rate units.
Can this fight be taken to the Supreme Court? Take it there developers. Do NOT give up the fight.
In the judge’s opinion he wrote: “Providing affordable housing is a strong, perhaps even compelling, governmental interest. But it is an interest of the government… The community as a whole should bear the burden of furthering this interest, not merely some segment of the community.”
I’m no law talking guy, but could that opinion be used as an argument against the burden rent-control has on landlords (a segment of the community) when it should be the community as a whole that subsidies rent?
Pretty much everywhere in the country has housing that is more affordable than California.
Our existing laws and policies on this are a complete failure. They are significant part of the problem.
Until we can admit to this and change paths, we are doomed to have even less affordable housing…..
Adding a few “affordable” units (where thousands of people are involved in a mad dash to get a few apartments) is not going to do much to solve the problems of overregulation, restrictive zoning and rent control.