The City of Oakland's draft 2023-2031 Housing Element has identified several zoning reforms in the Housing Action Plan that would further increase housing production capacity and unlock additional opportunities for affordable and “missing middle” housing in high-resource neighborhoods. These reforms affirmatively further fair housing by opening up exclusionary neighborhoods, and reducing the exposure to air pollution, toxic and other environmental hazards in environmental justice communities.
In response to community feedback, the City has published preliminary draft proposals that highlight proposed zoning changes for public review prior to focused community outreach. See below for more information.
Missing Middle and Related Planning Code Amendments: The proposed missing-middle and other related Planning Code amendments will encourage a diversity of housing types such as flats, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes/rowhouses, and accessory dwelling units (ADUs)s in currently single-family-dominated neighborhoods, and along corridors, transit-proximate areas, and high resource neighborhoods and remove constraints on the development of housing. See Preliminary Draft Missing Middle and Related Amendments Proposal.
The City is also proposing two overlay zones:
Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) Zone: The proposed Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) Zone is intended to create and preserve affordable housing restricted for extremely low, very low, low, and/or moderate-income households. See Summary of Preliminary Draft Affordable Housing Overlay Zone (AHO) Proposal.
Housing Sites Overlay Zone: The City is proposing to amend Action 3.4.10 to permit affordable housing by right with at least 20% affordable housing units for all sites identified in the Housing Sites inventory (insert link to sites inventory site) and create a Housing Sites Overlay Zone. The proposed Housing Sites Overlay Zone is intended to facilitate housing opportunities in Oakland and to bring attention to those sites that the City intends for housing to be built pursuant to State requirements. See Summary of Preliminary Draft Housing Sites Overlay Zone Proposal.
Questions and comments on the preliminary proposals should be sent to generalplan@oaklandca.gov. Public meetings to review the proposals will begin in late October / early November 2022. Visit the General Plan Update website to sign up for updates and stay involved.
