Affordable housing in Silicon Valley
Thus, housing initiatives and data often come from specific cities, counties, or metro areas, rather than the entire region.
[3] In 2018, the median rental rate in Silicon Valley was $2,911, the highest of any major metropolitan region in the United States.
[6] Home prices continued to climb with population growth and tech industry expansion, even after the dot-com bubble burst.
To afford a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Clara County, an individual must earn at least $54.60 an hour, or $113,560 a year.
In January 2019, a group called The Partnership for the Bay's Future announced a $500 million investment in affordable housing in Silicon Valley.
[9] In June 2019, Google announced that it would invest $1 billion to aid the housing shortage in Silicon Valley.
Their plan includes working with local government to lease company-owned land to developers, and creating a $750 million investment fund to incentivize affordable housing construction.
[3] Since April 2018, the median sale price of homes in Santa Clara County has been dropping; neighboring San Mateo County has not had the same steady downward trend, but median home sale prices were lower in August 2019 than their peak in January 2018.
[15] Local newspaper The Mercury News reported that in March 2019, the median home sale price for all nine counties of the Bay Area dropped for the first time in seven years.
[17][16] A proposed solution to affordable housing has been to change zoning laws to allow increased density, although critics, often long-time residents, frequently oppose such measures and say they will worsen the already-bad traffic in the area.
[18][19][20] In 2018, Palo Alto passed a number of changes to zoning laws with the goal of incentivizing housing production, both market-rate and subsidized.
[21] Since then, the city council passed the first completely affordable housing development since 2013, a 59 unit apartment complex targeting low-income residents.
[25] The city has also recently passed a bill to subsidize the production of high rise buildings in the downtown area, although it is a controversial move that critics say will benefit developers but harm workers.
[26] The city's first ever affordable housing complex for previously homeless residents, Second Street Studios, opened in August 2019.
Both towers will receive a LEED Platinum rating and built using mass timber, an innovative sustainability technique.
[31] On May 18, 2023, the San Jose City Council approved a plan to issue approximately $120 million in housing revenue bonds.
