Community Development

The City of Foster City Invites You to Engage, Listen, and Learn

Community Conversation
April 21, 2020 I 6:30PM
Lagoon Room
Recreation Center (650 Shell Blvd)

2025 Updates

Over the past several years, the California State Legislature has adopted numerous bills intended to address California’s housing crisis by limiting local government discretion over housing development projects in an effort to increase housing supply. In 2024, this trend continued in Sacramento. Some of the bills affecting housing are noted below.

In Foster City there is a broad mix up housing options including Single Family Homes, Duplexes & Townhomes, Apartments and Condos.

The Housing and Sustainability Division of the Community Development Department administers the City’s housing programs. This includes monitoring affordable housing units throughout the City, working to create more affordable housing opportunities, and implementing the City’s affordable housing regulations.  The Housing Coordinator is available for counter appointments or walk-ins on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. 

Guided by Foster City's Housing Element of the General Plan (H-E-2) Foster City's Inclusionary Housing Program (also known as "Below-Market-Rate Program") aims to create housing affordable to very low, low, and moderate income households in new buildings. 

Shared housing, or home sharing, brings together two or more unrelated individuals. Homeowners or renters with excess space (home providers) are matched with people in need of an affordable place to live (home seekers). Typically a home provider is matched with a home seeker who pays rent.  The rent is typically less than it would be if the home seeker rented a separate unit.  Shared housing enables home providers to offset their housing costs by receiving rent and home seekers to offset their rent expense by paying more affordable rent. 

An Accessory Dwelling Unit is a smaller living unit that shares the same lot as the primary residence.  ADUs come in many forms and have many names—second units, junior second units, granny flats,  and in-law units.  An ADUs can either be a garage conversion or an attached  or detached residential dwelling unit which provides independent living facilities for one or more persons, is accessory to the primary residential dwelling unit, and includes permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking facilities, and sanitation on the same parcel as the primary residential dwelling unit.