How SJ planners can make office-to-residential conversions work in moribund DTSJ (don't hold your breath)

Forty years and billions of dollars later, downtown SJ remains CA's most depressing big city downtown, with high vacancy rates among its gleaming, stubby office buildings. At the same time, there's an acute housing shortage. Connor O'Brien in City Journal explains how forward-looking planners can convert empty offices to much-need housing—but it means discarding counterproductive and onerous equity regulations.

In commercial zones dominated by office space planners should consider exempting conversions from inclusionary-zoning requirements. High affordability quotas--requiring a share of new units to be rented or sold at prices likely unprofitable to developers--may deter conversions. Given larger office floor plates, developers will need to build larger units, making affordability requirements even more cumbersome. In an all-residential or mixed use neighborhood, inclusionary zoning can be the price the developers pay for building a new apartment complex; but in commercial zones with few or no existing residents, political backlash and displacement are less relevant concerns. And though conversion developments will probably need to include large units with above-average rent or sale prices to be financially viable, additional supply will diminish the rent crises gripping major cities. 

Mayors and council members will need more than slogans and public pressure to bring life back to eerily quiet downtowns. They must meet this challenge with flexibility and a focus on dismantling the barriers to productive, adaptive reuse across their cities.

This article originally appeared in City Journal. Read the whole thing here.

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