A Sept. 9 article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “This wealthy Bay Area community just blew past its housing mandate” showed how the commitment by city leaders to create more housing is paying off. The article interviews former Mayor Teddy Gray King, the city’s Planning and Building Director Kevin Jackson, and current Mayor Jen Cavenaugh, who each highlight how different aspects of the city’s housing plan such as the Moraga Canyon Specific Plan, ADU construction, and development on the Grand Avenue corridor will help it plan for 587 units by 2031.
While relying mostly on these units, Piedmont added more housing than the state required between 2015 and 2023: 100 units — 97 cottages and three single-family homes — instead of the minimum of 60.
The city does not keep data on whether any of the ADUs are rental properties. But even if the cottages are filled by family members who don’t pay rent, they still create new housing and free up other places for new people.
Matt Lewis, a spokesperson for California YIMBY, said there’s a generational transition happening in cities like Piedmont where residents have adult children or other family members who want to move into backyard flats.
Lewis said he supports Piedmont and other cities loosening restrictions on ADUs, but there’s more cities should do beyond building cottages, such as repurposing existing buildings to accommodate more homes.
“Every city has the ability to increase the number of homes within its borders,” Lewis said. “We have some of the lowest density cities around and it’s because of the constraints cities have put not just on building but how many homes you can put in a building.”
Piedmont officials say residents’ attitudes toward building more housing have changed, which will make the process easier.
“Unfairly, Piedmont has a reputation for being exclusive and unwelcoming and I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” said Kevin Jackson, the city’s planning and building director. “A good amount of our community really wants to welcome new neighbors into their community.”
In Piedmont’s case, the “existing buildings” Mr. Lewis is referring to are single-family homes and the “repurposing” he proposes is the conversion or tear down of existing single-family homes and the construction of duplexes and triplexes in their place. The Housing Element has set the stage for this new development throughout Piedmont by finding no environmental impact of the placement of 2 homes on 5,000 sq foot lots and 3 homes on 10,000 sq foot lots. And Council’s decision that no vote of the public is required for such zoning reclassification further facilitates this new development. Community members were recently incensed by the SB9 developments that were forced into their neighborhoods by the state. They might want to pay attention to our city’s Planning Department efforts to bring multiplexes into their neighborhoods as well.