San Jose's 'Critical, Modest' Step Toward Affordability

City leaders in San Jose, Calif. are loosening restrictions for homeowners who want to build additional housing units on their property as a means of alleviating affordability pressures in the city. 

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo tells CBS News, "Instead of handing out more fines and giving tickets, we want to look for opportunities to legalize those units." Zoning and other land-use restrictions are reported to be a major part of the affordability problems California faces, says a 2016 White House report. Housing innovation policy director at UC Berkeley David Garcia says San Jose's current approach can be very effective to combat its housing crunch, "We often think of building new housing as big, new shiny buildings, when in reality there needs to be an acknowledgment that smaller housing types are just as critical."

Soaring home prices in Silicon Valley have taken the region's housing stock beyond the financial reach of most local residents, fueling homelessness and generating resentment toward tech industry workers. In Palo Alto, California, for example, one modest 2-bedroom cottage recently sold for a whopping $2.6 million. A problem many cities face is what is being built. Building out the housing stock takes an innovative policy approach, like taking advantage of updated transportation networks or offering amnesty to owners with previously illegal units.

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