New housing in old Chinatown : barriers and incentives to affordable housing development

Abstract

In the 1970s and 80s, the rapid development of San Francisco's Financial District encroached upon Chinatown's intimately-scaled neighborhood. Developers took whole city blocks that housed low-income immigrants to build the glass and steel office towers that define the city's current skyline. In response, the Chinatown community organized to downzone the neighborhood, which effectively froze the neighborhood from any further development. Today, the continual influx of immigrants who are dependent on Chinatown's services demand greater affordable housing in the neighborhood. As affordable housing becomes scarcer citywide and as Chinatown's building stock ages, neighborhood leaders want to know how to meet the high need for well-maintained affordable housing within the neighborhood. This thesis will examine the barriers that prevent affordable housing development in San Francisco's Chinatown. While affordable housing is a citywide issue not limited to Chinatown, the city's efforts have been targeted at redevelopment of outlying and industrial parts of the city rather than within existing neighborhoods. Special neighborhood zoning, cultural values of residents and property owners, intra-community politics, and its particular history make the development a highly contested issue. I will argue that the neighborhood's zoning (including bulk limits and inclusionary requirements) has been too restrictive to develop viable affordable housing in Chinatown and will propose rezoning as one mechanism for affordable housing development.

(cont) I will further illustrate the impacts of zoning changes in height and density on the neighborhood's urban form. The thesis will also provide insight into incentives and partnerships with public and financial institutions that can motivate long-time property owners to rehabilitate or redevelop their properties. My conclusions and proposals will be informed by key informant interviews with current property owners, residents, community organizers, and city officials in Chinatown and San Francisco. My hope is that by examining Chinatown as a case study and developing regulatory and economic strategies to encourage affordable housing development, it will also serve as a resource for other low-income built-out urban neighborhoods.