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Small Project Endorsement Criteria Calculator

A construction worker wearing a white hard hat and tool belt is working on a building, holding a wooden plank and standing on an unfinished roof next to a stack of lumber.

Purpose

Generation Housing has created a separate project endorsement criterion for smaller scale projects that will predominately fall into the category of infill development. The design of these of these endorsement criteria were driven by the following 3 factors:

  1. Generation Housing’s guiding principles
  2. Projects that are small in scale and support local and regional objectives by creating “Missing Middle” housing (duplex, triplex, etc.)
  3. Projects that may require greater levels of support than other comparable projects.i

Minimum Requirements

  • Residential or mixed-use (>75 percent of total building square footage of projects consists of residential use)
  • Projects located within either an urban growth boundary or urban service area
  • Project site is not located in a high to very-high wildfire-hazard zone ii

Notes

Generation Housing reserves the right to adjust criteria according to updates to relevant housing policy and priorities. The Qualified Bonus section under each Guiding Principle is an opportunity for the project to highlight any additional merits for additional points that may not have been explicitly stated in the criteria, but that leverages new technological innovations, helps break barriers to access by increasing greater equity and boosting overall quality of life, or goes above and beyond to ensure a minimal impact on the environment. While this component of our endorsement criteria is a largely discretionary-based determination, a rough description of what qualifies you for additional points is outlined at the bottom of this document.

i To learn more about types of “Missing Middle” housing, visit: https://missingmiddlehousing.com/types

ii High-Risk Fire Zone Map, KQED, https://www.kqed.org/news/11759209/map-do-you-live-in-a-high-risk-fire-zone

Small Project Endorsement Criteria Calculator

1 Affordable By Design – this is a general term that applies to housing units which are smaller, more efficient, or have fewer amenities. By virtue of their design, they are typically more affordable to middle-income members of our workforce. For our criteria, this includes any housing that is affordable (either by rent or for-purchase) to those who are 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI).

 

2 Deed-restricted affordable units with an AMI of 60 – 120 percent.

 

3 Major transit station is defined as a site containing an existing rail transit station, a ferry terminal served by either a bus or rail station service, or the intersection of two or more major bus routes with a frequency of service interval of 15 minutes or less during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods.

 

4 Full-service grocery store defined as having availability of at least six of the following food categories: fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh and uncooked meats, poultry and seafood, dairy products, canned foods, frozen foods; dry groceries and baked goods, and non-alcoholic beverages. Full-service grocery stores must also dedicate at least 50% of their square footage to the sale of food products or be at least 6,000 square feet. See https://abra.dc.gov/page/full-service-grocery-stores

 

5 A neighborhood market refers to a retail establishment of up to 3,000 square feet in size, utilized for the sale of predominately prepackaged food products, household items, soft drinks, and some alcoholic beverages.

 

6 According to the American Planning Association, residential infill development is defined as the development of new housing on vacant or underutilized land in previously developed areas.

 

7 https://opr.ca.gov/planning/general-plan/data-mapping-tool.html

 

8 Build it Green https://www.builditgreen.org/images/gpr-collateral/download/FinalDraft_GPRComparison_V7.pdf

 

9 Measured using U.S. Census’ Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics On the Map tool https://onthemap.ces.census.gov