On Tuesday the Redwood City Planning Commission reviewed the city’s 2024 Annual Progress Report on the Status of Housing Element implementation and the General Plan Annual Progress Report. I was particularly interested in where the city stands with regard to its Housing Element, which “describes the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) assigned to the City and identifies a variety of programs and policies to meet the City’s housing needs.” The Housing Element is the document that (among other things) identifies how much affordable housing, and at which levels of affordability, Redwood City is expected to generate during the eight years from 2023-2031 (every eight years counties, cities, and towns in California are assigned affordable housing goals, and they then write their Housing Elements to specify how those goals might be met). Given the state of affordable housing all across the state, the goals assigned for the current period were high: by the end of the current eight-year period, Redwood City is expected to ensure the production of just under 4,600 new housing units, roughly 2,050 of which can be leased or sold at “market rate” (that is, whatever the market will bear) while the remaining 2,550 or so are to be made affordable for those households earning at various levels below the county’s average annual income. For the curious, the current levels, which are adjusted annually and are based on household size, can be found here [pdf link].

Since the beginning of the current period, the city has seen some good progress, although ripple effects of the COVID pandemic likely kept the level of progress below what it would have been had the pandemic not occurred. So far (in 2023 and 2024), the city issued building permits for 831 new housing units, just over half of which were for market-rate units. This number includes 112 units that were “approved, permitted, or received a certificate of occupancy between June 30, 2022 and January 30, 2023” — which are also allowed to be counted towards the city’s current RHNA obligations.

During the year 2024, the bulk of the new units came from one (of the three) apartment buildings making up the residential portion of the Broadway Plaza project: the 120-unit affordable housing building that faces primarily onto Chestnut Street:

Although this building won’t be completed until 2025, at least, work on the building itself began in 2024 (the parking garage beneath this half of the project got underway in late 2022).

An additional 49 housing units are accounted for by permits issued in 2024 for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs).

Not counted in 2024 are a number of projects that were entitled (approved by the city) that year but have not yet received or even applied for their building permits. Among the projects that have yet to apply for their permits are the 95 for-sale condominiums in the project planned for 590 Veterans Blvd. and 91 Winslow St. (the project site spans the block between those streets, and would have entrances on both); the 72 for-rent apartments in the fully affordable housing project planned for 847 Woodside Rd.; and the nine-townhouse project planed for 77 Birch St. Because the developers of these have yet to even apply for building permits (much less receive them), those projects won’t be getting underway in 2025. However, there are two large entitled projects that have applied for their permits and may well break ground sometime this year:

• 557 E. Bayshore, building A. This is one of the two large apartment buildings that are planned to stand by the bay where the Century Park 23 Theaters once operated. This particular building would contain 222 for-rent apartments, 40 of which will be made affordable.
  
• ELCO Yards, building D. This building is designed to contain 249 for-rent apartments (50 of which would be made affordable) and would stand roughly where the Main & Elm restaurant (on Elm Street, near Main Street) used to be. Given that it wasn’t mentioned, I presume that its sister building (lot A, at the corner of El Camino Real and Maple Street, with 252 for-rent apartments) would get underway at a later date.
  

Three additional projects have yet to receive the city’s blessing, but the city anticipates that they will, sometime this year:

• 112 Vera Ave. Surprisingly, the city indicates that this seven-story, 178-unit affordable apartment building may not only be approved by the city this year, but that it may also receive its building permits and possibly even break ground before the end of 2025.
  
• 750 Bradford St. This mixed-use project would contain 108 workforce housing units for staff and faculty of the Redwood City School District, plus 165,524 square feet of office space. The city anticipates that this project will be approved in 2025, although it will not have received its permits by the end of the year.
  
• 920 Shasta St. The city anticipates approving this 100-unit for-rent apartment project in 2025. It would be constructed in conjunction with the office project planned (but also not yet approved) for 901 El Camino Real.
  

Not all of the above may actually come to pass, but if they do, the numbers make for a healthy (and active, on the construction front) next couple of years. Redwood City still has a way to go in order to achieve its goal of nearly 4,600 new housing units receiving permits (at least) by 2031, but given the number and size of the proposed projects on the city’s Development Projects web page that are not even mentioned above, the city seems to have a good shot of achieving its assigned RHNA goals. Indeed, it may even exceed its assigned goals to the level that the city is hoping for, which is around 6,160 total units within that same time-frame.