Taking divide-and-conquer approach to housing crunch

Buildcasa helps homeowners take advantage of California's law that allows lots to be split

In recent years, California lawmakers have approved a flurry of legislation aimed at increasing the housing supply and addressing the state’s decades-in-the-making housing crisis.

Many of the changes are modest — rather than creating massive apartment towers or sprawling new subdivisions, they are meant to add moderate density in existing neighborhoods. It’s the type of “missing middle” housing that advocates say will help the Bay Area hit state regulators’ goal of building 441,000 new homes by 2031.

Senate Bill 9, passed in 2021, is one such change: It allows single-family homeowners around the state to split their lots in two, and build two homes on each lot. An analysis by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley estimated that the new law could result in 700,000 new homes.

But in the first year after SB 9 passed, just a handful of homeowners ended up applying for lot splits, the Terner Center found.

Is that a surprise? Housing law is dense and obscure — and difficult for the average homeowner to navigate. Enter Buildcasa, a company founded by serial entrepreneur Ben Bear and former architect Paul Steidl,

PAUL STEIDL PROFILE

Age: 34

Position: Co-founder,

Chief Product Officer

Education: Master’s in architecture, master’s in city and regional planning, Georgia Tech, 2018

Residence: Oakland

BEN BEAR PROFILE

Age: 36

Position: Co-founder, CEO

Education: Bachelor of Science at Northwestern University, 2010

Residence: Oakland which works to identify homes on large lots where an SB 9 project could be feasible, then offers to buy up the extra land to get it developed. To start, they are targeting three key markets — San Jose, Sacramento and San Diego. In just their first year of operating, they’ve gotten plans approved for 115 new housing units.

Bear and Steidl recently relocated their company headquarters from San Francisco to downtown Oakland. In the midst of their move, they took time to chat about California’s housing crisis and how Buildcasa could help address the shortage.

QBuildcasa wouldn’t exist without SB 9. Why do you think so few people are using SB 9, and how does Buildcasa help?

STEIDL >> There are a lot of folks who have really great properties with the potential for new units, but don’t have the financial or the logistical capabilities of taking on a project to add additional units, like an accessory dwelling unit or a new house. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — you have to hire an architect, an engineer and then go through the whole development process.

BEAR >> Homeowners aren’t developers, right? We saw the need for someone to come in, so homeowners could take advantage of this trapped asset — their extra lot space — with no cost or work. So far, we’ve had our first few projects that have had their lots appraised after a split.

ARIC CRABB — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Paul Steidl, left, and Ben Bear, co-founders of Buildcasa, get together March 18at their business, which uses some of California’s housing legislation passed in recent years to help homeowners with big lots split them so they can develop another housing unit and sell.