Last year, dozens of cities around the Bay Area missed the deadline to come up with a state-approved “housing element” — a plan the state requires cities to submit every eight years showing how they will accommodate their share of the 2.5 million homes that California must build by 2031.
Without a valid housing element in place, cities face a penalty called the “builder’s remedy,” which effectively allows housing developers to bypass local zoning and design restrictions to propose projects far taller and denser than typically allowed, so long as 20% of the units they propose are affordable.
The projects run the gamut from a 412-foot tower in Menlo Park at the former Sunset Magazine headquarters to a sprawling 1,464-unit development near the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport.
The builder’s remedy projects largely target affluent cities around the Bay that have been some of the most resistant to adding new housing, especially at higher densities.
Search for builder’s remedy projects around your area on the map. Click on a dot to reveal details about the number of units and the developer.
How the Bay Area News Group made this map
Between January and March 2024, the Bay Area News Group contacted every city in the five-county Bay Area, plus Sonoma County, that had fallen behind on its housing element in the last year, and was thus subject to the builder’s remedy, and asked them if they had received any such projects.
To use the builder’s remedy, developers submit a preliminary application, which locks in the ordinances and standards, including the builder’s remedy, at the time of submission. That means that if a city does come up with a compliant housing element shortly after an application is submitted, the builder’s remedy will still apply to their project since they submitted it when the penalty was in effect. The developer then submits a full application within 180 days of its preliminary application. This map includes both preliminary applications and final applications.
