'Suing the Suburbs' Over San Francisco's Housing Crunch

In the quest to solve gentrification and displacement, affordable housing advocates in California’s Bay Area have been thinking outside the city box for solutions. Frustrated with San Francisco’s refusal to build new housing and by the lethargic affordable-housing game around the metro, the advocates are looking to the suburbs to increase their housing supply. Right now, eyes are on the East Bay city of Lafayette, population roughly 24,000, where a developer has downsized (or upgraded, depending on your viewpoint) a project that initially included 315 moderately priced apartments to 44 single-family homes that will sell for $1.2 million each on average.

It’s the latest outrage for those who’ve been pushing for Bay Area suburbs to ramp up new housing development to help ease housing costs in the city. San Francisco planning director John Rahaim told San Francisco Business Times that smaller communities that refuse to dense up are “contributing to the crisis” of unaffordable housing. And so now, housing advocates plan to sue Lafayette over the de-densified housing project … as soon as they find some plaintiffs.