Across the Bay Area, people with disabilities and their families are acutely impacted by housing barriers, from a lack of affordability, accessibility, and inclusivity. To address these systemic barriers, we partnered with the Marin County Housing Division and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) / Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) on a comprehensive technical assistance project.
By focusing on “missing middle” and multifamily developments, we collected key findings and established scalable pathways to transform local housing policies into tools for creating disability-forward housing—homes that are affordable, accessible, and inclusive for people with and without disabilities.
The primary objective of this project was to bridge the gap between high-level Housing Element commitments and practical, implementation-ready local tools and resources. Key goals included:
- Promoting Cross-Disability Design: Educating municipal staff and key housing stakeholders on cross-disability access that addresses mobility, sensory, cognitive, support, and health-related needs.
- Policy and Code Analysis: Reviewing local standards, including Marin County’s Objective Design Standards (ODS), Development Code, and Housing Element, to identify opportunities for embedding inclusive design.
- Evaluating Financial Feasibility: Conducting cost research to understand and clarify the economic impact of inclusive design features in multifamily housing.
- Creating a Regional Model Visitability Ordinance: Developing a customizable model visitability ordinance that jurisdictions across the Bay Area can easily adopt.
- Regional Scaling: Utilizing Marin County as a regional pilot to support ABAG/MTC’s broader efforts to expand inclusive housing across all nine Bay Area counties.
Throughout the project, we reached over 100 stakeholders, including housing developers, designers and architects, planning directors, municipal staff, and residents with disabilities and older adults. Our community engagement validated the need for disability-forward housing and guided the policy and program recommendations, and developed tools.
Deliverables included:
- Project Summary and Findings Report and Executive One-Pager
- Bay Area Objective Design Standards (ODS) Recommendations and Menu of Inclusive Design Options
- Template Model Visitability Ordinance Package
- Marin Affordable Housing Trust Fund Recommendations
- Marin Development Code Analysis and Replicable Disability-Forward Development Code Suggestions
- Inclusive Design Cost and Feasibility Study
You can explore the overarching framework and select resources on Marin County’s new Inclusive Housing webpage and watch the recap of our regional kickoff session on the ABAG/MTC Inclusive Housing 101 Webinar Resources page. Project deliverables will also be available in our Learn Center soon.
We are very grateful for the partnership with Marin Housing Division and ABAG/MTC and look forward to the implementation of the policy and program recommendations and the dissemination of these disability-forward housing tools and resources.
Click here to contact us and to learn more about our technical assistance partnerships.