Model Places Illustration

Housing

We Believe: Housing is a human right and should be affordable to everyone.

Our Goals

• Increase the supply of housing.

• Provide more affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents.

• Protect low-income communities of color from displacement.

Monte Vista Gardens apartments in San José

SPUR Report

Structured for Success

A key cause of California’s high housing costs is its decentralized and fragmented housing governance system. SPUR makes 11 recommendations to set California and the Bay Area on the path to produce the housing we need.
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photo of balconies on an apartment building

Research

Losing Ground

SPUR examines how the Bay Area’s housing market has become shaped by scarcity and wide economic divides — not only among income groups but also among races and ethnicities.
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Apartment Building

Research

Housing the Middle

SPUR digs into the housing market’s failure to meet the needs of middle-income households. California can look to innovative programs across the country as models for how to address the state’s housing challenges.
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Apartment Construction

Research

Planning by Ballot

SPUR has created the most up-to-date database of local land use ballot measures that impact housing production in California. Over the long term, measures that restrict infill housing can undermine housing affordability and have the potential to exacerbate racial segregation.
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Updates and Events

Getting Local Land Use Approvals Right

News /
What can California and its cities do to bring down the soaring costs of housing? Land entitlement is one process that could be reformed to speed up the construction of new housing and reduce costs. At a recent SPUR forum, researchers and planners discussed how state and city reforms might (or might not) streamline the approval processes.

SPUR Supports the Mayor's Process Improvements Ordinance

Advocacy Letter
SPUR strongly supports this strategic effort to streamline the approvals process by: Allowing 100 percent affordable housing projects to be approved administratively; streamlining the approval of large downtown residential projects; and standardizing neighborhood notification requirements, among other improvements.

SPUR's Project Review Advisory Board endorses the proposed redevelopment of 3333 California Street (Laurel Heights) in San Francisco

Advocacy Letter
Laurel Heights Partners, LLC presented the 3333 California Street project in Laurel Heights to SPUR's Project Review Advisory Board at our May 2019 meeting for review and consideration. The SPUR Project Review Advisory Board finds this development to be an appropriate and welcome use for this site and endorses the 3333 California Street.
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