Oakland

Housing Related legal services will help address displacement risks, eviction defense, and housing instability through legal representation, consultation, and education.

Resources permitting, all at risk tenants may seek free legal services from external partners to prevent evictions and housing instability.

Affordable housing developers have pointed to the impact of City fees and the timing of fee payment, including impact fees, building permits, and public art requirements, as constraints to development. The City currently requires for Affordable Housing Impact Fees only one-half of the amount of impact fees to be paid before permit issuance and the remaining half to be paid before the issuance of Certificate Of Occupancy (COO), while the Transportation and Capital Improvement Impact Fees are paid in full before building permit issuance. The City also defers other fees such as public art and school tax. The City will explore additional ways to increase flexibility in payment timing and potential fee reductions and/or waivers to reduce the burden imposed by the collection of City fees and requirements.

Explore methods to reduce cost burden of City fees and payment timing to significantly increase affordable housing development.

The City will also assess the effectiveness of its AFFH programs (including Action 3.3.6), including sites that develop in higher resource areas , displacement strategies and placebased strategies toward community revitalization. In addition, in 2027, the City will audit all pipeline projects credited in the inventory and, if necessary, identify additional capacity or rezone additional sites and maintain adequate sites to accommodate the RHNA by income group.

Identify and monitor adequate sites available for development, and increase the baseline of affordable units in high-resource areas

With limited exceptions in single-family homes with a CUP for a traditional owner-run bed and breakfast, Oakland’s current planning regulations prohibit any rental of an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), single-family home, duplex, apartment/ condo, live/work unit, or other dwelling unit for less than 30 consecutive days. In addition, State laws that govern ADUs do not allow for any ADU to be rented as a short-term rental of less than 30 consecutive days. The City’s code compliance division reviews zoning code violations on a complaint-driven basis, which has not sufficiently deterred property owners from operating shortterm rentals that do not comply with planning regulations. Additionally, code compliance often lacks sufficient evidence to clearly document that an ADU or other dwelling unit is operating as a short-term rental. In response, the City will pursue additional data collection tools that will allow the City to access information showing addresses of units listed on short-term rental platforms. Upon securing this data, the City will engage in proactive enforcement against property owners who are operating short term rentals in ADUs and in other dwelling units throughout the City.

Reduce the number of unauthorized short-term rentals in Oakland by having bi-yearly data scrapes of short-term rental platforms and automatic mailing notifications to owners in violation.

The City will consider allowing owners of residential hotels that agree to restrict occupancy to lowerincome residents to transfer development rights to create an endowed source of funding for an internal subsidy for such residents, or for maintenance/ facility upgrades that do not increase rents.

Preserve SROs and meet housing need.

Oakland Municipal Code [Chapter 15.63] grants preference in City-assisted affordable housing projects to (1) Oakland residents displaced due to City actions or no-fault evictions, (2) neighborhood residents, and (3) Oakland residents and workers. All three preferences are applied at initial occupancy, to the extent permitted by other funding sources. After initial occupancy, displaced households and Oakland residents and workers continue to receive priority preference for available units. Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department recently updated its findings to support its preferences and ensure that its preferences may be permitted in Countyassisted projects. The City will continue its efforts to streamline the process by which these preferences are applied, including through a regional housing portal and a more robust tracking system for displaced households.

The City will continue to apply local preferences in City-assisted affordable housing to the extent allowed by law and the constraints of other involved funding sources. The City will continue to identify ways to streamline the administration of its preferences, including through a regional housing portal and a more robust tracking system for displaced households.

As funding becomes available, the City will continue to operate loan programs to help property owners afford the cost of seismic safety programs. In the past, these loan programs have particularly focused on soft story retrofit projects. The City will also continue to implement the City’s soft story retrofit ordinance, which requires vulnerable apartment buildings to retrofit soft story areas at risk of collapse.

Successfully retrofit all vulnerable soft-story residential buildings at risk of collapse.

Through the first-time homebuyer programs described in Action 5.1.1, the City was able to issue 121 loans totaling approximately $6.8 million during the previous planning period. With appropriate funding, these low-cost financing options have been very effective in promoting affordable homeownership. The City will continue to seek funding for these programs and to refer homebuyers to resources related to other county, State, or federal level funding – including through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA), Golden State Finance Authority (GSFA), Federal Home Loan Bank’s (FHLB) WISH Program, Alameda County AC Boost, and Alameda County Mortgage Credit Certificate.

If the City of Oakland receives CalHome grants and other homeownership funding at historic rates, the City expects to support a total of 160 low- and moderate-income households with home purchases over the next Housing Element cycle.

Formal and informal housing cooperatives, co-living and cohousing models in Oakland have traditionally provided an alternative form of affordable housing, including ownership housing. To further support these initiatives, the City will conduct outreach with community-based organizations and other community partners to identify ways the City can support these models, especially for lower-income residents. The City will prioritize lower-income residents and residents at risk of displacement when supporting these alternative housing models. The City will study how the Planning Code and building occupancy standards affect the viability of these models. The Oakland Department of Housing and Community Development will also continue to support cooperatives and community land trusts through its Acquisition and Conversion to Affordable Housing program.

Oakland Department of Housing and Community Development will continue to make funds available to housing cooperatives as per current practice. The City will also include cooperatives, co-living and cohousing models in its study of the Planning Code and building occupancy standards.

The City will review and amend the Planning Code and implement objective design standards to encourage missing middle-density housing typologies, including flats, duplexes, multiplexes (triplexes, and fourplexes), bungalow courts, rowhouses/townhomes, and ADUs. The City will work to reduce pre-development costs and expedite the planning approval process for missing middle housing types resulting from both new construction and the conversion of existing structures. The City will develop zoning standards that allow for two, three, and four units on parcels in Detached Unit Residential (RD) Zones and additional multi-unit housing types in Mixed Housing Type Residential (RM) Zones. The City will also reduce the minimum lot size in Detached Unit Residential and Mixed Housing Type Residential lots to 2,000 square feet to remove constraints on lot splitting. The City will permit a variety of building types (attached, detached, bungalow courts) to maximize flexibility, neighborhood scale and potential opportunities for homeownership (split lots and condominiums) in parallel with Policy 3.4 and Policy 5.1. See Appendix J for a summary of missing middle zoning amendments. Under Action 3.4.1, the City will revise development standards, including allowable building heights, densities, open space and setbacks requirements. Under Action 3.4.8, the City will develop objective design standards at the neighborhood level to ensure that multi-unit neighborhood scale housing types designed in a manner that is compatible with the scale of existing residential housing forms in these zoning districts is permitted ministerially.

Significantly increase production of multi-unit housing types (including duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, along with other multi-unit housing types) in current single-family-dominated neighborhoods to match housing need.