Inclusionary Housing. Analysis of a housing policy in California, USA

Abstract: Sweden is not providing its citizens with sufficient housing anymore. Therefore it is important to consider what can be done to solve the situation. Sweden has the opportunity to learn from and be inspired by how other countries are trying to solve their housing issues. The USA, for example, has long experience within the area of housing policy especially policies that try to help those with incomes lower than the median income. The purpose of this thesis is to examine one of the policies that have developed in the USA, which is called inclusionary housing. The policy is used to increase the supply of affordable housing by including affordable units within market priced projects. Inclusionary housing is different from more traditional housing policies such as public housing or social housing. Inclusionary housing is a market-oriented policy compared to more traditional ways to produce low-income housing. Inclusionary housing is funded through increased land prices or production of market priced housing compared to traditional programs, which usually are funded through taxes and subsidies. The purpose of inclusionary housing is to integrate low-income housing with market priced housing, which will create socially mixed neighborhoods. The policy is also different because it is implemented at a local level and not at the state level. The thesis has found that inclusionary housing is a flexible policy that can be formed in many different ways. Inclusionary housing does also produce housing to no- or low cost to local governments. The results, however, show that the policy does not produce large quantities of affordable housing. Even though the policy does not produce a lot of affordable housing it is still an important tool since it works towards integration. Inclusionary housing does however have the capacity to be formed into a more productive policy than it has been in California until now. It is possible to design the policy to integrate and produce many affordable housing units in areas with high land prices and large construction of housing. On the whole inclusionary housing is a great policy, however, it probably has to cooperate with other housing policies to solve a bigger issue with housing provision and housing affordability.