As part of the settlement agreement ending BIA Bay Area's legal challenge to Plan Bay Area, MTC and ABAG committed to prepare a feasibility assessment focusing on the constraints to realizing the new housing envisioned in the region's Priority Development Areas (PDAs), and identifying recommended state, regional, and local policy reforms. Completed in late 2015, the PDA Assessment Update [click here] calls for removing anti-housing regulatory barriers and urges alternatives to inclusionary zoning and affordable housing impact fees to address affordable housing:
• “An overarching theme of these recommendations is a move to a more ‘development positive’ posture. The grown management, planning, and environmental review policies of the past generation that focused on limiting new development are in need of fundamental reform at the local and state levels… [MTC and ABAG should also] study alternative approaches to achieving affordable housing beyond inclusionary zoning and nexus fees (e.g., housing bonds, regional sharing of affordable housing allocations, affordability by design, etc.)”
