Economic & Planning Systems
Santa Barbara Affordable Housing Program
Santa Barbara, CA
In the midst of rapidly escalating housing costs, the City of Santa Barbara experienced a housing crisis along with many other California cities. As a relatively wealthy municipality, Santa Barbara had a number of programs in place to address the need of very low- and low-income families, but housing remained unaffordable to many moderate- and above moderate-income households. The City sought assistance in developing an affordable housing fee program that better addressed the needs of these middle-income families. EPS was retained by the City to prepare a comprehensive study of affordable housing needs, and to create a two-tiered fee structure to fund future affordable housing development. The jobs-housing linkage fee established the connection between non-residential development in the City and increased demand for affordable housing, and set a fee based on non-residential development's "fair share" of affordable housing costs.
Back to Top
