TO: Board of Supervisors
FROM: Ryan J. Alsop – Chief Executive Officer
REPORT BY: Abigail Flores – BOS Staff Aide I
SUBJECT: Out of Country Travel Request
/
RECOMMENDATION
title
Approve and authorize out of country travel for Board Chair Amber Manfree to attend the California-Japan Housing Innovation Delegation: Mass Timber & Industrialized Construction in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Shizuoka, Japan from November 13-21, 2026, in her capacity as a Commissioner of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. (No Fiscal Impact)
body
BACKGROUND
The Bay Area Council is leading the California–Japan Housing Innovation Delegation to bring together business, civic, and public-sector leaders to explore innovative approaches to housing production, affordability, and development. Japan sits on similar fault lines and builds housing faster at a lower cost, with a focus on industrialized housing and mass timber construction under some of the most demanding seismic conditions in the world. Housing cost and production are among the most pressing challenges facing Bay Area employers and residents. Japan produces a large share of its homes in factories, with streamlined certification and approval processes, and has national policy supporting domestic timber in construction. The delegation is designed to bring those lessons back to inform California housing policy and practice.
The Bay Area Council’s invitation to Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) commissioners to participate as delegates is particularly relevant given the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) Board is composed of the same members as the MTC Commission. BAHFA provides a natural connection between the delegation and the region’s ongoing housing efforts to develop regional solutions to the Bay Area’s affordable housing challenges such as producing new affordable housing, preserving existing affordable housing, and protecting residents from displacement. Supervisor Manfree will attend this delegation in h...
Click here for full text