Sacramento OKs policy allowing small apartment buildings in city’s single-family neighborhoods

The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a policy allowing small apartment buildings up to three stories tall in areas previously limited to single-family homes.

The vote was a milestone in the city’s years-long effort to create more “missing middle” housing, a term that describes multi-unit developments such as triplexes and fourplexes, in residential neighborhoods that have traditionally consisted of almost all single-family homes. 

The new policy means no Sacramento neighborhood will be zoned exclusively for single-family homes. It represents another step in the city’s effort to address its severe shortage of affordable housing and create more inclusive communities.

But to the concern of some housing advocates, the council on Tuesday kept some design requirements that could make it difficult for developers to build three-story buildings. 

Supporters of the design rules, meanwhile, said they will ensure new housing projects allowed under the missing middle policy fit the look of existing neighborhoods.

Council member Eric Guerra said many single-family homeowners expressed concerns about designs for three-story multiplexes during the city’s years-long outreach process for developing the policy. The ordinance requires three-story buildings in most areas to have dormer windows, which have a hutch, and slanted roofs instead of flat ones. City staff said developers can apply for exceptions, but the requirements help ease in changes to established neighborhoods. 

“The negative consequences of just saying ‘Let’s just rush hard and see what happens in a year,’ I think are much more dramatic than saying, ‘Let’s take this amazing step forward and then let’s evaluate the costs when we work with folks,’” Guerra said during the meeting.  

Thomas Nguyen was among more than 20 people who urged the council to remove the requirements referred to as “bulk control.” A board member of the housing advocacy group House Sacramento, Nguyen and his wife own half a three-story condo in Upper Land Park. The condo costs about half as much as a single-family home in the area, Nguyen said, allowing them to afford it on state worker salaries. 

“I think it just really goes back to access to opportunity,” Nguyen said in an interview, “and more units like these would really lend itself to more affordable housing whether it's renting or ownership.” 

But Nguyen said bulk control requirements could make it 10% to 20% more expensive to build high-density housing like his in other parts of the city. Developers could pass those costs to renters and buyers, he added. While Nguyen said the Missing Middle Housing Interim Ordinance is a progressive step in the right direction, he said it could hinder housing affordability.. 

City staff designed the interim ordinance with the goals of increasing the city’s supply of lower-cost housing. They said they revised the bulk control requirements to address concerns for building high-density projects, such as three-story eight-plexes, which a city-commissioned study found are the most financially feasible type of missing middle housing on the highest number of developable lots. 

Urban Design Manager Bruce Monighan said bulk control helps prevent poorly designed box-like multiplexes. The East Sacramento Community Association and the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects supported the requirements to maintain neighborhood trust, as well as access to sunlight and open space. 

“Bulk control is an objective standard so we can use that as a tool,” Monighan said during the meeting.” But if we lose bulk control as a tool, we don’t have any other standards.” 

Council member Lisa Kaplan and Mayor Darrell Steinberg questioned whether the city could consider other design standards, but a majority of the council supported bulk control. Council member Caity Maple said she wanted the city to be more flexible to encourage building more dense housing efficiently.  

“I want to see cool projects get built in some of these neighborhoods where they probably won’t get built under a bulk control requirement,” Maple said. “Seems like that’s not in the cards today, but I’ll certainly keep pushing.”

The city can start accepting applications for new multi-unit housing projects allowed by the ordinance on Oct. 17. Council members requested city staff bring back data in about a year to review whether the policy results in more multiplex housing.