San Francisco.
Google has announced a $1 billion commitment to address the housing shortage in its backyard. The company plans to invest this money over the next ten years to build about 20,000 units of housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The company is investing the capital in three primary ways.
One, it plans to repurpose $750 million of Google's land, most of which is currently zoned for office or commercial space, as residential housing. CEO Sundar Pichai says in a blog post that this will enable the company to support the development of at least 15,000 new homes at all income levels in the Bay Area, including housing options for middle and low-income families. He offers, by way of comparison, that 3,000 total homes were built in the South Bay in 2018.
Two, Google will establish a $250 million investment fund that will provide incentives to developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units.
Three, it plans to give $50 million in grants through Google.org to nonprofits focused on the issues of homelessness and displacement.
“Our goal is to get housing construction started immediately, and for homes to be available in the next few years,” Pichai says. In Mountain View, he adds, Google has worked with the city to change zoning in the North Bayshore area to free up land for housing, and it's currently in conversations with Sunnyvale and San Jose.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
