How this one policy change could lead to housing equity in Sacramento neighborhoods
Sacramento is poised to allow more affordable, denser homes to be built in some of the city’s most desirable — and largely racially segregated — neighborhoods.
As part of the city’s 2040 General Plan Update, a guiding document for how and where the city will grow, planning staff are finalizing policy aimed at addressing the legacy of racist redlining practices, and potentially giving thousands of Sacramentans access to some of the city’s best schools, parks and amenities.
The city is expected to change its planning and development code to allow more affordable housing — duplexes, townhomes and quadplexes — to be built in neighborhoods that have been zoned for single-family homes, giving residents of all backgrounds more options.
“The exclusion of lower-cost housing types ... prevent lower-income residents from moving to neighborhoods with the best parks, schools, and other desirable amenities,” reads a November city staff report on the 2040 General Plan Update.
By allowing a greater array of housing types in neighborhoods like East Sacramento or Upper Land Park — some of the city’s most expensive and whitest areas, dominated by suburban, single-family homes — the city hopes to create “more equitable and inclusive neighborhoods by addressing the remnant forces of government policies of exclusion (and) racial segregation,” according to the staff report.
“It’s helping take an exclusive neighborhood, and making it more inclusive,” said the city’s acting planning director Greg Sandlund. “You see proof of systemic racism in housing policy and land use and regulation, and this is one of the ways we can roll that back, so to speak, and create dynamic neighborhoods.”
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The policy shift is still in the early stages of development: The city general update, which must be approved by City Council, won’t be adopted until the end of 2021, and necessary updates to the zoning map would be completed the following year.
The change follows similar ones made in cities and states across the country to boost home production amid skyrocketing rents and an ongoing housing shortage. Last year, Oregon effectively eliminated single-family zoning in cities around the state, as did the city of Minneapolis.
Over the last few years, Sacramento has laid the groundwork to encourage a variety of home types in single-family neighborhoods, described by some as “missing middle” housing.
For instance, in July, City Council approved a new planning tool to make it faster and cheaper to build certain multi-unit housing projects in Sacramento. The city has also made it easier for property owners to build accessory dwelling units — also known as in-law units — in the backyards and garages of single-family homes.
“We have seen a significant uptick in ADUs,” Sandlund said. “We’re looking at four applications a week, on average.”
Eliminating single-family zoning would not necessarily generate a huge spike in housing options in the short-term. City staff still expect most of the housing growth in Sacramento will come from developments in the Central City, near lightrail stations or along central corridors.
“This type of development is hard to gauge how much will occur,” Sandlund said. “Single-family homes are still valued, and I don’t see people demolishing single-family homes and filing in vacant lots.”
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But allowing for denser, more affordable housing options in traditionally single-family neighborhoods represents a “very new and significant step” toward rectifying historic racial segregation and discrimination, Sandlund said, and creating vibrant neighborhoods that could spur further economic investment.
Besides, “stuff happens,” said housing advocate Ansel Lundberg, co-chair of House Sacramento. A house burned down, a vacant lot, or a buyer with plans to flip a house all become opportunities to build multiple units for low- and middle-income residents.
“It may not happen right away, but we have to start somewhere,” he said. “We’re ready for housing. The next step is being ready for housing everywhere.”
