Cupertino is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 60,381 as of the 2020 census. The city is widely known for being the home of Apple Inc., headquartered within the city at Apple Park.
Rancho Rinconada is a residential neighborhood in the eastern part of Cupertino, California. It is bordered by Saratoga Creek, Stevens Creek Boulevard, Miller Avenue and Bollinger Road. It is bordered by the West San Jose neighborhood to the east and south, central Cupertino to the west, and the city of Santa Clara to the north.
Inclusionary zoning (IZ), also known as inclusionary housing, refers to municipal and county planning ordinances that require a given percentage of units in a new housing development be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes. The term inclusionary zoning indicates that these ordinances seek to counter exclusionary zoning practices, which exclude low-cost housing from a municipality through the zoning code. Non-profit affordable housing developers build 100% of their units as affordable, but need significant taxpayer subsidies for this model to work. Inclusionary zoning allows municipalities to have new affordable housing constructed without taxpayer subsidies. In order to encourage for-profit developers to build projects that include affordable units, cities often allow developers to build more total units than their zoning laws currently allow so that there will be enough profit generating market-rate units to offset the losses from the below market-rate units and still allow the project to be financially feasible. Inclusionary zoning can be mandatory or voluntary, though the great majority of units have been built as a result of mandatory programmes. There are variations among the set-aside requirements, affordability levels, and length of time the unit is deed-restricted as affordable housing.
The YIMBY movement is a pro-housing movement in contrast and opposition to the NIMBY phenomenon. The YIMBY position supports increasing the supply of housing within cities where housing costs have escalated to unaffordable levels. YIMBYs often seek rezoning that would allow denser housing to be produced or the repurposing of obsolete buildings, such as shopping malls, into housing. Some YIMBYs have also supported public-interest projects like clean energy or alternative transport.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.
Secondary suites are self-contained apartments, cottages, or small residential units, that are located on a property that has a separate main, single-family home, duplex, or other residential unit. In some cases, the ADU or in-law is attached to the principal dwelling or is an entirely separate unit, located above a garage or in the backyard on the same property. In British English the term annex or granny annex is used instead. Reasons for wanting to add a secondary suite to a property may be to receive additional income, provide social and personal support to a family member, or obtain greater security.
Vallco Shopping Mall is a mostly-demolished dead mall located in Cupertino, California, United States. Originally built as a single-story shopping mall in 1976 with a lower level added in 1988 and a third-level movie theater added in 2007, it was anchored for most of its existence by Macy's, Sears, and J.C. Penney. As of August 2022, the mall is owned by Sand Hill Property Co. and is almost entirely vacant, with Cupertino Ice Center, Bowlmor Lanes, Benihana, and Fremont Union High School (FUHSD) Adult & Community Education as the only remaining tenants, all in the section to the east of Wolfe Road. The larger western portion of the main mall structure was demolished in August 2019 and the pedestrian overpass was demolished in March 2020; plans for the site include a mixed-use development consisting of office space, housing, and retail.
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were 1 million public housing units.
The Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, also known as Senate Bill 375 or SB 375, is a State of California law targeting greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles. The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 sets goals for the reduction of statewide greenhouse gas emissions. Passenger vehicles are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions statewide, accounting for 30% of total emissions. SB 375 therefore provides key support to achieve the goals of AB 32.
Scott Wiener is an American politician and a member of the California State Senate. A Democrat, he represents the 11th Senatorial District, encompassing San Francisco and parts of San Mateo County.
Housing trust funds are established sources of funding for affordable housing construction and other related purposes created by governments in the United States (U.S.). Housing Trust Funds (HTF) began as a way of funding affordable housing in the late 1970s. Since then, elected government officials from all levels of government in the U.S. have established housing trust funds to support the construction, acquisition, and preservation of affordable housing and related services to meet the housing needs of low-income households. Ideally, HTFs are funded through dedicated revenues like real estate transfer taxes or document recording fees to ensure a steady stream of funding rather than being dependent on regular budget processes. As of 2016, 400 state, local and county trust funds existed across the U.S.
The Costa–Hawkins Rental Housing Act ("Costa–Hawkins") is a California state law, enacted in 1995, which places limits on municipal rent control ordinances. Costa–Hawkins preempts the field in two major ways. First, it prohibits cities from establishing rent control over certain kinds of residential units, e.g., single-family dwellings and condominiums, and newly constructed apartment units; these are deemed exempt. Second, it prohibits "vacancy control", also called "strict" rent control. The legislation was sponsored by Democratic Senator Jim Costa and Republican Assemblymember Phil Hawkins.
Starting in the 1990s, the city of San Francisco, and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area have faced a serious housing shortage, such that by October 2015, San Francisco had the highest rents of any major US city. San Francisco's onerous permitting and approval processes have given city the slowest permitting process of any large city in the United States, with the first stage taking an average of 450 calendar days, and the second stage taking 630 days for typical multi-family housing, or 860 days for a single-family house, and the second-most expensive construction costs in the world.
The 421-a tax exemption is a property tax exemption in the U.S. state of New York that is given to real-estate developers for building new multifamily residential housing buildings in New York City. As currently written, the program also focuses on promoting affordable housing in the most densely populated areas of New York City. The exemption is granted for any buildings that add multiple new residential units, and typically lasts for 15 to 25 years after the building is completed. Longer exemption periods apply in less densely populated areas of the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan.
The Housing Accountability Act (HAA) is a California state law designed to promote infill development by speeding housing approvals. The Act was passed in 1982 in recognition that "the lack of housing, including emergency shelter, is a critical statewide problem," and has also been referred to as "the anti-NIMBY law." It empowers the State of California to limit the ability of local government to restrict the development of new housing. The Act was strengthened by its amendment in 2017.
Since about 1970, California has been experiencing an extended and increasing housing shortage, such that by 2018, California ranked 49th among the states of the U.S. in terms of housing units per resident. This shortage has been estimated to be 3-4 million housing units as of 2017. Experts say that California needs to double its current rate of housing production to keep up with expected population growth and prevent prices from further increasing, and needs to quadruple the current rate of housing production over the next seven years in order for prices and rents to decline.
California Senate Bill 50 was a proposed California bill that would have preempted local government control of land zoning near public transit stations and jobs centers. The bill would have also required, at minimum, four-plex residential zoning statewide. The bill was the successor to a similar bill introduced by state senator Scott Wiener in January 2018 as Senate Bill 827 ; both would have applied to areas within one-half-mile (0.8 km) of frequent transit corridors, including rail stations and bus routes. The bills were sponsored by California YIMBY, a pro-housing lobbying group while they were opposed by local governments, anti-gentrification activists, and suburban homeowners. The bills were written in response to an ongoing housing affordability crisis in California's largest urban areas.
Affordable housing is housing that is deemed affordable to those with a median household income as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. A general rule is no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be spent on housing, to be considered affordable as the challenges of promoting affordable housing varies by location.
Silicon Valley, a region located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of the most expensive regions to live in the United States, and many residents lack access to affordable housing. In 2018, the median home price across the area was $1.18 million, the highest of the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. The growth of the technology industry in the area, including major companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple, is frequently cited as a major cause of the issue. There have been local efforts to address affordable housing, as well as state measures in response to housing issues across California.
The builder's remedy is a legal mechanism in the United States that can be used in certain states to expedite the construction of low or middle income housing when a municipality fails to comply with laws related to housing development. Typically, where a municipality fails to comply with state laws regarding the development of new housing, the builder's remedy either allows a developer to bypass or ignore nearly all of the municipality's zoning laws and begin construction on a development in an expedited manner or provides the developer with a legal remedy that can be enforced in court or through an administrative process. Builder's remedy projects are increasingly common in California, where new state laws have been passed to force local municipalities to approve additional housing to address the ongoing California housing shortage. Massachusetts and New Jersey also employ a form of the builder's remedy as well.
