Another Silicon Valley Enclave Resists Multifamily Housing

In a piece in the New York Times, Erin Griffith describes the NIMBYist efforts of some residents of the small, wealthy Silicon Valley enclave of Atherton, where “chief executives and venture capitalists banded together over the specter that more than one home could exist on a single acre of land in the general vicinity of their estates.”

Atherton is tasked with adding 348 housing units as part of California’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), a topic Planetizen has covered extensively over the past months. As Griffith points out, “Many California towns, particularly ones with rich people, have fought higher-density housing plans in recent years, a trend that has become known as NIMBYism for ‘not in my backyard.’ But Atherton’s situation stands out because of the extreme wealth of its denizens — the average home sale in 2020 was $7.9 million — and because tech leaders who live there have championed housing causes.”

The backlash began when the city council approved an overlay district that would permit the construction of nine townhome developments this June. While residents brought up concerns such as increased traffic and crime, some straightforwardly expressed concern about their property values. The city’s mayor pointed out that the townhomes, which, by one estimate, could cost at least $4 million each, would not fit the state’s definition of affordable housing.

On August 2, the city removed the townhome proposal from its housing plan; according to Griffith, “it instead proposed a program to encourage residents to rent out accessory dwelling units on their properties, to allow people to subdivide properties and to potentially build housing for teachers on school property.”