Harnessing the real estate market for equitable
affordable housing provision through land value
capture: insights from San Francisco City, California

Trillo, C

Abstract

Affordable housing remains a serious problem in many countries. Even as the housing
affordability crisis deepens, most cities continue to exhibit robust real estate markets with high
property prices. The low-income and poor households are unable to access affordable housing and
remain excluded. This paper draws from empirical research conducted in the city of San Francisco
and focuses on the application of Land Value Capture (LVC) through increased Inclusionary
Housing (IH) requirements after plan changes that increased density potential in San Francisco’s
Eastern Neighbourhoods to evaluate its effects on the goals of increasing both affordable housing
and social inclusion. Findings reveal that the increased inclusionary requirements used as LVC
mechanism enabled 76.2% of all the affordable housing units produced in the Eastern
Neighbourhoods to be produced by market-rate developers in 2011–2015 as compared to the rest of
San Francisco, where 35.5% of the affordable units were produced from the market through
inclusionary policy during the same period. The study demonstrates that upzoning underutilised
land coupled with a well-planned LVC mechanism can help harness the strength of the real estate
market and increase both affordable housing production and social inclusion.

Citation

capture: insights from San Francisco City, California. Sustainability, 11(13), 3649. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133649

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 27, 2019
• Publication Date: Jul 2, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 3, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 3, 2019
• Journal: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 13
• Pages: 3649
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133649
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133649
• Additional Information: Projects : MAPS LED