Fresno will need almost 37,000 new homes by 2031. Who’s going to build them, and where?
Fresno needs to build nearly 37,000 new homes by 2031 to meet the anticipated demands of a growing population. And the greatest number is needed to accommodate lower-income families.
That’s no particular shock. As the number of residents in Fresno continues to increase faster than the housing inventory, the cost of housing — whether to pay a mortgage or for rent — continues to climb. That’s putting a greater pinch on households in a city and county where a growing number of families are considered “cost burdened” because they have to pay 30%, 50% or even more of their incomes to pay for housing expenses.
A new housing plan adopted recently by the Fresno City Council lays out how the city anticipates meeting its obligation to ensure that its zoning and land-use laws provide sufficient capacity to develop all those new houses and apartments within the next six years.
The city’s plans are, quite literally, all over the map. The latest version of the city’s Housing Element — a daunting document of more than 1,000 pages — identifies almost 2,400 separate sites across the city that are available for would-be developers to build new housing, from sprawling tracts of more than 100 acres to miniscule plots of less than one-tenth of an acre.
Many of those those sites are vacant land. Others are occupied or at least partially developed.
And while the plan meets the city’s obligation to identify land for housing development across the range of income levels, it does not guarantee that any of those get built. It’s up to developers and builders to actually build new houses or apartments.
The largest chunk of the housing forecast would be for “above moderate income” residents — those with an annual household income of more than $80,300 for four people. The plan identified sites call for almost 16,000 houses or apartments in that range.
By contrast, sites are identified in the plan for about 9,400 households in the “very low income” range of less than $38,950 per year for four-person households. Sites for another 5,884 units for low-income households within an income range of $38,900 to $62,300 per year are included in the plan.
Despite Fresno’s reputation for subdivisions extending the city’s urban sprawl on its fringes, the latest plan calls for significant development of “infill” housing on sites well within established areas and neighborhoods.
Among those are what Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer has dubbed the One Fresno at Manchester Center. The three-phase project approved by the city in August 2023 calls for converting existing commercial and office space within the Manchester shopping center at Shields and Blackstone avenues into as many as 610 studio and one-bedroom apartments for moderate- and above-moderate-income households.
Another is the former CVS Pharmacy store at Fulton and Tuolumne streets in downtown Fresno, identified as the future site for 100 apartments and a market.
The overall need for new housing across Fresno County, including all 15 cities and unincorporated areas, is more than 58,000 units.
The countywide goal, called a regional housing needs allocation, is set by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, which evaluates population trends and existing housing conditions, vacancy rates and imbalances between housing and jobs. It’s then up to the local Council of Governments, comprised of representatives from Fresno County and its cities, to divvy up how much new housing each city will be responsible to plan.
While Fresno’s 542,000 residents represent about 54% of Fresno County’s overall population, the city’s allocation of housing need adds up to more than 63% of the county’s total. Why?
“The allocations are based on projected population and employment growth and other factors like directing housing to infill areas near transit as the major population and employment center in the county,” said Chelsea Payne, director of urban planning for Ascent Environmental, a consulting firm assisting the city. “The city received a large portion of the (regional housing needs assessment) and this nearly 37,000 housing unit target is broken down by income level, from very low income up to above moderate income.”
Jennifer Clark, the city’s planning director, noted that the inventory of property zoned or planned for residential development already provides sufficient capacity for the allocated number of homes, with a surplus of sites for about 6,800 units.
“The heart of the housing element is the city’s understanding that it needs to have the capacity to meet the (needs allocation) that is provided to us, and it needs to remove road blocks for that happening,” Clark said in December. “And then there’s additional requirements, but there is not a construction requirement at the heart of the housing element. We have goals. We have objectives to build certain types of housing, but there is not a requirement for the city to build 37,000 housing units” by 2031.
Dyer and City Manager Georgeanne White told The Bee recently that the available sites for new housing do not include the Southeast Development Area, or SEDA, a region of about 8.6 square miles outside the southeastern city limits but inside Fresno’s official sphere of influence. It extends south to North Avenue and east to Highland and McCall avenues. Over the past few years, the city has been planning for future urban growth and expansion with shopping, offices, research/development, and residential uses.
U.S. Census Bureay data for 2023 indicates that there are more than 338,400 existing housing units across Fresno County. The housing needs allocation outlines the need for about 58,000 more by 2031:
- Clovis: 44,871 existing homes or apartments; 8,977 additional units needed by 2031. That’s a 20% increase.
- Coalinga: 4,658 existing units; 566 additional needed; 12.2% increase.
- Firebaugh: 2,225 existing units; 443 additional needed; 19.9% increase.
- Fowler: 2,133 existing units; 339 additional needed; 15.9% increase.
- Fresno: 184,226 existing; 36,866 additional needed; 20% increase.
- Huron: 1,610 existing; 319 additional needed; 19.8% increase.
- Kerman: 4,512 existing; 1,063 additional needed; 23.6% increase.
- Kingsburg: 4,451 existing; 882 additional needed; 19.9% increase.
- Mendota: 2,875 existing; 642 additional needed; 22.3% increase.
- Orange Cove: 2,481 existing; 469 additional needed; 18.9% increase.
- Parlier: 3,853 existing; 733 additional needed; 19% increase.
- Reedley: 7,247 existing; 1,463 additional needed; 20.2% increase.
- Sanger: 7,787 existing; 1,494 additional needed; 19.2% increase.
- San Joaquin: 937 existing; 200 additional needed; 21.3% increase.
- Selma: 7,224 existing; 1,492 additional needed; 20.7% increase.
- Unincorporated county areas: 57,387 existing; 2,350 additional needed; 4.1% increase.
