In 2023, residents packed a Peninsula town’s council chambers decked out in custom red T-shirts expressing their discontent with the town for considering allowing multifamily housing in their neighborhoods. In the pressure cooker setting, council members grumbled in agreement that they wished they didn’t have to meet the state’s increasing demands to build more housing.

Those concerns have not disappeared in the three years since that meeting. The wealthy town of Atherton, home to 7,000 residents, including mega-rich pro athletes and tech CEOs about 30 miles south of San Francisco, is considering becoming a charter city to stifle some of the state’s control. Others have considered the move, dubbed “home rule,” too, because the designation gives jurisdictions greater local control over governance, land use and finances. Yet it isn’t necessarily going to exempt the town from housing mandates.

“We had initiated this because people were thinking it was a solution for some of our housing issues, and it’s become very, very clear to us that it is not a fix for that,” Mayor Stacy Miles Holland noted during an October 2025 council meeting. Councilmember Eric Lane, the only council member to vote against advancing the process to explore becoming a charter city, said there must be downsides if every city is not choosing to become one.

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But the town is trudging forward with this plan, drafting a simple two-page charter city draft, because there may be other benefits. Atherton could save money if it didn’t have to pay prevailing wages — which require contractors to pay workers local, union-negotiated wages and benefits rates on public works projects — set by the state for general law cities, residents noted during a January workshop to gather public input on becoming a charter city. Because of these state regulations, the town has already paid too much for project contracts, like one to build a train museum, they said. 

Daylight shines on a tree-lined street in Atherton, Calif.

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