Oakland Planning Commission Zoning Update Committee Study Session – June 25, 2025

The Zoning Update Committee (ZUC) of the Oakland Planning Commission held a study session on June 25, 2025, to review and monitor progress the city made in 2024 implementing and updating Oakland’s 2020–2023 Housing Element. Staff presented the 2024 Housing Element Annual Progress Report (APR) and a new online housing element progress dashboard, launching the next day. The committee took no final approval action but unanimously approved a motion requesting additional data in future APR reporting. The meeting adjourned at 4:01 p.m.

Discussion Items

• Planning staff presented an updated Housing Element progress dashboard with three pages: a sixth-cycle summary, Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) tracking, and a map of pipeline milestone sites. Filters allow users to view data by year, affordability level, unit type, council district, TCAC opportunity area, and housing element opportunity sites.
• Staff reported that 2024 saw just over 1,000 units permitted. Because the RHNA cycle is eight years, reaching 100% would require about 12.5% per year; in the first two years, Oakland permitted 11% of its RHNA target. By the time of the report, 832 very low-income units had been permitted in the cycle, 370 of them in 2024, leaving 87% of the very low-income RHNA goal remaining. Staff and Caleb Smith of Housing and Community Development noted that production may remain low for the next couple of years due to high construction costs, lower rents, and vacancies, but that historical patterns show cycles.
• Caleb Smith said affordable housing production in Oakland is primarily constrained by funding, not land: the city received five times as many applications for its most recent NOSA multifamily tax-credit funding availability as it could fund.
• Staff explained that reporting non-ADU units as non-deed-restricted affordable housing would require state approval, and staff capacity limits monitoring. Staff had not yet determined whether vacancy data for moderate-income deed-restricted units can be reported, noting the existing data system cannot isolate those units. Across the city’s affordable housing portfolio of over 140 buildings, staff estimated about 250 vacant units. Rent registry data excludes new construction less than 10 years old, but recent estimates put Oakland median rents at roughly 60–80% of area median income; some moderate-income restricted units are being advertised below their maximum allowed rents.
• Commissioner Ahrens flagged that 5200 Broadway was listed with 45 moderate-income units, while the Planning Commission had recommended 5% low-income units. Staff said they would investigate and noted possible lag between planning and building permit data.
• Commissioner Ahrens expressed concern about proposed code language allowing developers to meet on-site affordability requirements with moderate-income-only rental units, noting that comparable cities (San Jose, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Fremont) do not have that option for rentals. She also encouraged exploring counting non-deed-restricted units toward RHNA and said she would share examples from Antioch and Berkeley.
• Commissioner Rank requested that a missing “affirmatively furthering fair housing” section be added to the APR. Commissioner Sandoval requested future information on the impacts of the S13 and S14 zones and said they would like to understand whether those zones are producing projects.
• Caleb Smith discussed efforts to use public land for affordable housing, including the Clara Eads Homekey site, city surplus land processes, a CalHFA middle-income housing request for information involving small city sites and Oakland Unified School District educator housing, and Alameda County and regional efforts to support faith-based housing development. Staff also noted zoning changes allowing residential use on some church-owned properties and allowing emergency shelters on certain nonprofit/community sites.

Key Outcomes

• The committee approved, by unanimous vote (Commissioner Ahrens moved; Commissioner Rank seconded; all three members voting yes), a motion requesting that staff include in future APR reporting: information on the S13 and S14 zones; information on affirmatively furthering fair housing; and rent and vacancy data broken down by income level.
• A possible six-month staff update on the feasibility of these data requests was discussed, but staff said capacity is limited by several ongoing major planning efforts; the chair noted that a director’s report request could be made at a future Planning Commission meeting.