06/10/2026
East Palo Alto’s housing rules are so strict they’re backfiring
Dear Community members,
EPA has the highest inclusionary housing requirements in San Mateo County: 20% affordable units, with a 35% AMI tier that no other city in the county requires. The idea was to protect our community. The result: a pipeline of 29 approved projects that won’t break ground because the math doesn’t work.
A UC Berkeley/UCLA study published last year modeled exactly this dynamic(https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Inclusionary-Zoning-Paper-April-2024-Final.pdf). Past a certain threshold, stricter affordability requirements don’t produce more affordable housing: they kill projects entirely, producing zero units instead of some. We’re past that threshold.
Our own numbers tell the story: we’ve met our low-income housing goals, but those units came through nonprofit developers and public subsidy, not the IZ ordinance. Meanwhile the IZ ordinance has produced virtually nothing during the same period, and we’re at only 9% of our moderate-income and 5% of above-moderate housing state-mandated RHNA goals. Teachers, nurses, working families are priced out. And when market-rate supply stalls, rents rise for everyone already here, including the legacy residents the ordinance was designed to protect.
An inclusionary housing policy that produces no housing isn’t protecting East Palo Alto. It’s a rule that feels righteous and does nothing.
I have respect for most of my colleagues on the Council and for every community member who showed up tonight because they care about this city’s future, and I do too. I hope we can find a workable path forward together. But waiting another year for a feasibility study to confirm what the data, the research, and our own stalled pipeline are already telling us is not something I’m willing to accept. Doing nothing is not a neutral choice. Updating our IZ ordinance was identified as a council priority more than a year ago. Every month we wait is another month nothing gets built.
Respectfully,
Webster Lincoln
Mayor, East Palo Alto
