RELEASED TODAY – First-Ever Sharing Economy
City Policy Brief
Please share this with every urban leader, mayor, city planner, or council member you know! Today, the
Sustainable Economies Law Center and Shareable released the first ever policy brief of its kind, called Policies for Shareable Cities: A Sharing Economy Policy Primer for Urban Leaders. It details 32 specific policy steps that
local leaders can take to benefit from the growing sharing economy and… Continue Reading
SELC and Shareable just published the first-ever policy brief for shareable cities! Help us get these policy solutions applied far and wide!
On September 10, the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Shareable released the first ever policy brief of its kind, called Policies for Shareable Cities: A Sharing Economy Primer for Urban Leaders. It details 32 specific policy steps that local leaders can take to benefit from the growing sharing economy and support innovations such as carsharing, ridesharing, cohousing, cooperatives, and urban agriculture.
Find out more at www.theSELC.org
CREDITS
Project Partners:
Shareable, a nonprofit on a mission to empower everyone to share for a more joyous, resilient, and equitable world.
The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), a nonprofit that charts the legal territory of the new economy, educating people about the possibilities and limits of creative economic structures, and advocating for laws that clear the way for community resilience.
Project Leads:
Neal Gorenflo, co-founder and publisher of Shareable. Yassi Eskandari-Qajar, City Policies Program Director, SELC
Writing, Editing, and Research:
Janelle Orsi, Executive Director and Co-Founder, SELC Yassi Eskandari-Qajar, SELC Eve Weissman, J.D., U.C. Berkeley School of Law Molly Hall, J.D., Vanderbilt Law
Ali Mann, Filmmaker and former union-side labor organizer Mira Luna, Community Organizer, Shareable
Line Editing:
Ariane Conrad, The Book Doula Community Outreach:
Rory Smith, Research Director, Shareable Design:
The Public Society
With input from (the primer does not necessarily represent
their positions):
Shannon Spanhake, Deputy Innovation Officer, City of San Francisco; Susan Shaheen, UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC); Molly Turner, Public Policy, Airbnb; John Duda, The Democracy Collaborative; Camille Pannu, Staff Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow, SELC; Christina Oatfield, Policy Director, SELC; Sunil Paul, co-founder and CEO, Sidecar; Sushil Jacob, Skadden Fellow and Staff Attorney, Green Collar Communities Clinic of the East Bay Community Law Center; Amy Laura Cahn, Staff Attorney and Skadden Fellow at Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia; Jessy Kate Schingler, Founder of The Embassy Network; Esperanza Pallana, Oakland Food Policy Council; Amy Johnson, US Federation of Worker Co-ops; Grace Streltzov, Peace Action West; Tim Huet, Association of Arizmendi Cooperatives; Rick Hutchinson, CEO, City Carshare; Adam Cohen, UC Berkeley TSRC; Jessica
Scorpio, Founder, Getaround; Scott Kinzie, Vice President of Marketing at RelayRides; Wayne Landers, CEO at Other Avenues Food Store; Padden Murphy, 3 Click Solutions; Gabriel Metcalf, Executive Director of SPUR; Julie Pennington, Intern SELC. This brief borrows from prior work by Corinee Calfee, Associate at SSL Law Firm; April Rinne, Chief Strategy Officer, Collaborative Lab.SHAREABLE CITIES POLICY PRIMER 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Introduction: Cities and the Sharing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 I. SHAREABLETRANSPORTATION..........................................................7 1. Designated, Discounted, or Free Parking for Carsharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2. Incorporate Carsharing Programs in New Multi-Unit Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3. Allow Residential Parking Spot Leasing for Carsharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.
Apply More Appropriate Local Taxes on Carsharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5.
CreateEconomicIncentivesforRidesharing ..........................................11 6.
Designate Ridesharing Pick-Up Spots and Park-and-Ride Lots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 7.
Create a Local or Regional Guaranteed Ride Home Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 8.
Adopt a City-Wide Public Bikesharing Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
II. FOODANDTHESHARINGECONOMY.....................................................15
1. Allow Urban Agriculture and Neighborhood Produce Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.
Create Financial Incentives to Encourage Urban Agriculture on Vacant Lots . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3.
ConductaLandInventory............................................................18 4.
Update the Zoning Code to Make “Food Membership Distribution Points”
aPermittedActivityThroughouttheCity ............................................18 5.
Allow Parks and Other Public Spaces to Be Used for Food Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 6.
CreateFood-GleaningCentersandPrograms.........................................20 7.
MobileFoodVending ................................................................20 8.
Allow Certain Food Production Activities as a Home Occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 9.
Create or Subsidize Shared Commercial Kitchens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
III. SHAREABLEHOUSING .................................................................22
1. Support the Development of Cooperative Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.
Facilitate the Construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.
Encourage the Development of Small Apartments and “Tiny” Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
SHAREABLE CITIES POLICY PRIMER 3
III. SHAREABLE HOUSING (continued) 4.
Allow Short-Term Renters in Residential Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................26 5.
Reduce Zoning Restrictions on Co-Habitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................27 6.
Create New Zoning Use Categories and Increase Permitting
for Cohousing and Eco-Villages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.
Factor Sharing into Design Review of New Developments . . . ...........................29
IV. JOBCREATIONANDTHESHARINGECONOMY...........................................30
1. Expand Allowable Home Occupations to Include Sharing Economy Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.
Reduce Permitting Barriers to Enterprises that Create
Locally-ControlledJobsandWealth ..................................................32 3.
Use Idle Commercial Spaces for Community Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 4.
Assist Cooperatives Economic Development Departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5.
MakeGrantstoIncubateNewCooperatives...........................................35 6.
Provide Financial and In-Kind Resources To Cooperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 7.
Procure Goods and Services from Cooperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 8.
Integrate Cooperative Education into Public Education Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
SHAREABLE CITIES POLICY PRIMER 4
PREFACE
In 2009, we first wrote about shareable cities at Shareable, a leader of the global sharing movement:
Cities are where we gather, in part, to share basic infrastructure, to so cialize, to satisfy our human instinct to congregate, to make culture together. The call for Shareable Cities simultaneously inspires us to imagine a transformed urban culture but also to notice the invisible ways we already share life all the time.
-Chris Carlsson, Shareable author
We believed then as we do now, that the sharing economy can democratize access to goods, services, and capital – in fact all the essentials that make for vi- brant markets, commons, and neighborhoods. It’s an epoch shaping opportunity for sustainable urban development that can complement the legacy economy. Resource sharing, peer production, and the free market can empower people to self-provision locally much of what they need to thrive.
Yet we’ve learned that current U.S. policies often block resource sharing and peer production. For example, in many cities, laws do not allow the sale of home- grown vegetables to neighbors, donation-based ridesharing services, or short- term room rentals. Even when legacy institutions are failing to serve, which is in- creasingly the case, citizens are not free to share with or produce for each other. New policies are needed to unlock the 21st Century power of cities as engines of
freedom, innovation and shared prosperity.
In 2011, we partnered with the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) to pub- lish a 15-part series on policies for shareable cities. It was the first published ex- ploration of the topic. This primer is a culmination of that work. As always, SELC did the bulk of the legal research and writing. Shareable contributed editorial direction, project management, and funding. Together we offer you a curated set of policy recommendations on four pocket-book issues and priorities of mayors everywhere – transportation, food, housing, and jobs.
In addition, this primer reflects input from dozens of leaders from the worlds of law, government, urban planning, business, and alternative economics. We be- lieve the recommendations appeal to different political orientations and sectors of society. And while the primer focuses on what we know best – policies in U.S. cities – we believe that the examples are relevant to cities the world over.
SHAREABLE CITIES POLICY PRIMER 5
As we welcomed diverse input to the primer, we welcome your involvement too:
Stoke the conversation. Share the primer on social media with the hashtag #PFSC. Join the conversation on Shareable here. Add your observations and critiques. Above all, advocate for the policies you believe will help your city. You’ll join a growing number of people working to democratize urban economies around the world. Please join our mailing lists here and here to connect to this community.
Sincerely,
