Not enough housing? Move to the sticks, survey says

The solution to the woeful lack of housing in the Bay Area is pretty simple, if you ask residents of the nine counties surrounding San Francisco Bay — funnel the late-comers out to the sticks.

That was the conclusion of the majority of residents who responded to a poll on solutions to the housing shortage released Wednesday by the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy advocacy group.

The results were not as supportive of the traditional solutions that emphasize sustainability — like in-fill housing and transit-oriented development — as the experts would have liked. Instead of building more housing in the Bay Area, 60 percent of the respondents said they would prefer housing to be built outside the region. The outliers who need to get to the Bay Area to work would be best served by improving transportation out there in the boonies, according to the poll.

Jim Wunderman, president and chief executive officer of the Bay Area Council, said it is an understandable reaction to decades of government failure to keep up with housing, creating the misperception that the Bay Area is overbuilt.

“Unless policymakers are willing to take new steps to see housing built in their own communities, this is what housing in the future will look like,” Wunderman said.

‘Doesn’t solve the problem’

“What’s unfortunate is that pushing housing outside the region still doesn’t solve the problem of supply and affordability in the Bay Area. It simply means that fewer working families and workers in lower-income jobs can afford to live here.”

The survey of more than 1,000 residents showed a marked increase in concern about housing and affordability in the Bay Area. Wunderman said 30 percent of the respondents considered housing the top problem in the region, compared with 18 percent a year ago.

The survey results were, more than anything, an illustration of the mixed feelings people have about the issue. Although most respondents wanted more housing, along with an improved transportation network, to be built outside the Bay Area, 56 percent of residents were also open to new housing in their neighborhoods. However, only 37 percent supported high-density housing in their areas.

Adding to the seemingly contradictory message, 68 percent supported making it easier to build housing near transit hubs and job centers. One encouraging sign, Wunderman said, was that 65 percent said they would like communities to make it easier for residents to build second units.

The Bay Area Council supports legislation by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, that would ease the cost and hassle of building second units. Wunderman said 150,000 residences would be added if 10 percent of Bay Area homeowners added another unit to their houses.

‘Live near where they work’

Still, it was clear that residents would be much happier if construction was in someone else’s neighborhood, preferably far away. It’s a view that infuriates San Francisco housing advocates, who bristle at all the high-end housing they say is being built in the city for employers in other cities, such as Google and Facebook.

“I think it’s really important for workers to live near where they work,” said Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer, director of the Housing Rights Committee in San Francisco. “Our neighbors in wealthy suburbs need to stop pretending that they don’t need to provide housing. San Francisco is the densest city in the country. If the South Bay built housing equal to the number of jobs they put in there, we wouldn’t have the kind of housing problem we have.”

Just over 20,000 new units were permitted last year in the nine-county Bay Area. But experts say that number isn’t close to filling its housing hole, except at the high end of the market, where much of the new construction has taken place.

And housing costs have gone through the roof. Forty-four percent of residents with annual incomes of less than $50,000 are spending between 45 percent and 60 percent of their incomes on housing, well over the recommended percentage, according to the poll.

The poll results show that 73 percent of residents felt it has gotten more difficult to find a place to live over the past year.

Strong and vocal opposition

Wunderman said most residents understand the problem and believe more housing needs to be built, but he believes policymakers are going to have a hard time getting projects approved, with 39 percent of residents in the survey saying they don’t want new housing of any kind in their neighborhoods.

The poll also showed that 84 percent support a stronger transportation network between the Bay Area, Sacramento and less-served places like the Central Valley.

“By a 2-1 margin, people agree that we should make it easier to build, not necessarily in their neighborhood, but in transit and commercial neighborhoods,” Wunderman said. He called that encouraging, saying, “Without building density we don’t get to the kind of numbers we need to to deal with the region’s housing needs.

“I think we’re actually trending in the right direction. But on the other hand, it’s still an uphill battle to convince people that they should see their own community changing in order to accommodate that need.”

The survey, conducted between Feb. 12 and March 9 by the Oakland research firm EMC Research, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite