Regulatory Barriers to Agricultural Workforce Housing

In 2016 San Mateo County retained BAE Urban Economics to conduct an “Agricultural Workforce Housing Needs Assessment”. One of BAE’s findings was that regulatory constraints were consistently identified as one of the key barriers to maintaining and expanding the supply of housing for the agricultural workforce.

Accordingly, San Mateo County has retained Lisa Grote, a former Director of Community Development for the County, to interview both staff and applicants to identify potential barriers and to make recommendations on how the County might improve its process to further encourage the rehabilitation and production of agricultural workforce housing.

The report and the County's response can be viewed at this link: Barriers to Agricultural Workforce Housing Report

One of the steps taken by the County to improve its process has been to develop a Farm Labor Housing Guidebook that can be accessed here:

San Mateo County Farm Labor Housing Guidebook 27APR2018.pdf