Make it easier to build Affordable Housing in church parking lots.
This movement actually started in San Diego in the Clairemont area.
San Diego has a crisis of housing affordability, and many churches want to improve their capacity to take care of the neediest in our communities.
Churches often have excess parking that go unused for most days of the week, and churches have offered proposals to build below-market rate housing on their own properties. Churches want this and face very little community opposition; however, the regulatory hurdles to achieving this have been significant because of mandated parking minimums and other outdated laws.
I’m proposing that we build a very clear and simple policy for churches on how to build affordable housing in their own parking lots. We make it fast, easy, and bureaucracy free.
This is putting the choice in churches’ hands. If they don’t want to have huge empty parking lots 5–6 days a week, they should be able to change that and replace it with something better.
If you want to read more about this: Yes in God’s Backyard or YIGBY: Group Aims to Build Affordable Housing on Religious Land
