Abstract

California faces the loss of thousands of affordable rental units in the coming decade as affordability restrictions— known as covenants—expire. These agreements, signed between housing developers and government agencies, typically last 15 to 30 years and require that units be rented at below-market rates. When covenants expire, owners can convert units to market-rate housing, often displacing lower-income families.

In Southern California alone, over 17,000 affordable units are at risk of conversion, and nearly 70% of these units are located near high-quality transit. If the owners of these properties do not enter into new covenants, these units will be placed on the open market, likely leading to the displacement of lower-income residents to the urban outskirts, resulting in longer commutes and reduced access to reliable transit. To better understand the risk of losing affordable units, this brief analyzed historic data on affordable housing conversion and identified key factors that influence whether at-risk properties are preserved or lost.

Abstract

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a strategy that promotes building housing, shops, offices, and other destinations near public transit stations. TOD is compact and walkable, supports public transit use, reduces car dependency, and can help lower greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the number of miles people drive. California has adopted many policies in recent years– at the state, regional, and local levels– to encourage TOD as part of its broader climate and housing goals. At the same time, the state faces a housing affordability crisis. In the past seven years, state lawmakers have passed more than 100 bills aimed at increasing housing production, particularly in areas near public transit.

Abstract

Minimum parking requirements—zoning regulations that require a certain number of parking spaces to be built with new developments—come with a long list of downsides. The requirements increase the costs of development, reduce housing densities, subsidize car ownership, reduce walkability, and make it difficult to adapt and reuse historic buildings. In response, cities as diverse as Anchorage, Buffalo, and San Diego have reduced or eliminated parking requirements in recent years.

In 2022, California became the first state to eliminate parking requirements in certain neighborhoods. Assembly Bill 2097 (AB 2097) prohibits, in most circumstances, local governments from imposing parking requirements within a half-mile of an existing or planned major transit stop such as a rail station, ferry terminal, or the intersection of frequent bus routes. The research team examined how cities are responding to this new statewide law and draw out lessons for parking policy as well as other types of state preemption of local land use regulations.