Major Housing Pivot for Emeryville: Mixed Income Out, Poor Door In

Sherwin Williams Project: ‘Poor Door’ Housing Comes to Emeryville

What’s Old is New Again in Urban Housing Policy: Separate Entrances for Poor People

News Analysis
The City of Emeryville is poised to violate its own mixed income housing policy guidelines to begin a new era of housing segregation based on income if the City Council follows through with the Sherwin Williams development plan Tuesday that would allow the developer of the apartment project to corral all the poor people renting there into a separate building containing only the required below market rate (BMR) rental units.  The move, the first overt separating based on income of Emeryville residents in modern history will put Emeryville in the middle of a nation-wide debate on the increasing use of the so called 'poor door'; the use of separate entrances (or buildings) for poor people by developers forced to include below market rate housing in their projects while attempting to keep the poor people out of sight of the rich people in their projects.

The wealthy in New York City pay a premium for
housing with poor doors but
Mayor, Bill de Blasio has called on a
poor door ban.

The debate about the use of poor doors has generally elicited the ire of city planners and social critics and notably some cities who have banned them outright or are in the process of doing so but also some defenders, a list that now is to include the City of Emeryville.  
The societal benefits of mixed income living have been settled city planning for generations and poor doors have been shown to be not only alienating for the poor but for the wealthy as well. The Urban Institute, a Washington DC based social policy think tank has railed against poor doors' tendency to increase social inequities, observing,  “Elements of building design, such as lack of common areas or shared building entrances, can serve to limit informal interactions, which otherwise could serve as the basis for developing more significant ties.”

As America slides into income and wealth inequality not seen since the Gilded Age, the stratification of society can’t help but be reflected in how a city develops in the physical sense regardless of how egalitarian a municipality imagines or less, claims itself to be.  The return of the ‘poor door’ not seen since the robber baron era resplendent as it was with its separate entrances for servants but now cropping up in new residential development in wealthy urban enclaves, was inevitable given the riven plutocratic society we have built.  

To mollify would be critics of the income segregated housing project scheme at the Sherwin Williams site, Lennar Urban, the lead developer says the BMR apartment building will look as nice as the market rate towers in the project and it will be located next to a planned small park space the poor would be allowed to access.  Talk like that was enough to satisfy the City Council when they approved the Environmental Impact Report for the project at the September 6th Council meeting.  Further, Lennar noted that government agencies who's charge it is helping the poor would be assisted if they were all consolidated in one building.  And they would receive added tax incentives from the federal government.

Sociologists may decry the Dickensian undemocratic nature of poor doors but their use, it has been noted, allows developers to make more money based on wealthy people's general aversion to mixing with poor people and keeping the poor out of sight increases the market rate for market rate housing. Kevin Ma, Lennar's point man for the Sherwin Williams project, refused to answer questions about this point.

Some might find this new direction epitomized by the poor door, redolent of a sociopathic and alienating old direction, to be worth debating in our town, especially since it is counter to the City's own housing policy.  But it is a debate that has not happened as the City Council quickly prepares to move Emeryville into a new era of what can only charitably called 'separate but equal' housing.