This week, I participated in a powerful subject matter hearing for the Development for All ordinance.

This ordinance would help reduce segregation and generate more affordable units by reforming the affordable requirements ordinance (ARO). The ARO is currently one of the only tools the city has to produce affordable housing, but it’s a vastly inadequate one that has led to the construction of just over 400 affordable units since 2007, according to the city’s public dashboard.

When developers receive a zoning change or subsidies from the city, the ARO requires them to include some affordable units in their new project. But it provides them a loophole–they can simply pay a fee to avoid including on-site affordable units. As a result, vanishingly few affordable units are being built in areas of the city targeted by luxury developers, worsening segregation in our already segregated city. 

The Development for All ordinance would eliminate this loophole, as well as increasing the number of affordable units that developers must include in high-rent areas of the city where they’ve already profiting immensely. 

The lack of affordable housing is an emergency in our city. Our neighborhood services team regularly works with retired seniors who are seeking housing, and they often wait years and have to move far away from their family due to lack of affordable housing options. This ordinance gives us a tool to prevent more displacement of black and brown neighbors and protect the diversity of the communities we live in and love so much.

You can read news coverage of the hearing here, and read a fact sheet about the ordinance here.