Sacramento County wants to encourage more multi-family homes and duplexes in pockets outside of city limits.
County officials are looking to streamline housing approvals and to speed up home building in these areas by easing certain development standards for apartment projects and fostering duplexes in single-family zoning districts. The proposed changes also aim to reduce costs and how long it takes to have “minor” deviations from the county’s development standard approved for certain projects. The areas that are likely to be in included could be south Sacramento, Fair Oaks, Arden Arcade, Foothill Farms, Vineyard, North Highlands, Rio Linda, Elverta and Antelope, county staff said - with a high concentration of small infill lots between existing housing developments. The efforts to change the existing housing developments began originally from a 2019 state grant the county and other local governments received to help cover costs of reviewing and modifying local ordinances to build up the housing stock.
“While these housing types generally don’t assist families with low incomes, they can be helpful for middle income people (or missing middle) and are important to changing zoning standards that were designed to keep out people of color and to adopt new standards that will promote more integrated neighborhoods,” Cathy Creswell, board president of the Sacramento Housing Alliance.
The proposals would need final approval from the board of supervisors in June.