Housing

On March 14, 2006, two unfortunate changes to this important policy were enacted. This act was made worse by the open admission by the city’s Planning Director that consultation about the changes had only been done with members of the Home Builders’ Association. Appeals made by many speakers to open up the discussion to a wider spectrum of stakeholders were ignored, and with the sole “no” vote of Steve Rabinowitsh, the changes were enacted.

First, allocations from the Reserve B bank are to be given out at a rate of 250 a year for the next 4 years over the ordinance-planned number, and these have no requirements attached to them to meet the city’s housing needs as expressed in multiple housing studies and policy considerations.

There was a central failure by the Council to create a straightforward, clearly expressed set of guidelines for use of these very valuable allocations. Except for use by a couple of projects, the allocations accumulated to a total of 1926, inflaming the developers of market-rate housing to exert great pressure on Community Development to release them. Thus a lack of Council activism in using one of the very few tools it has to guide housing development to fit the needs of Santa Rosans caused a significant missed opportunity.

The second change is in adding to the Reserve A unit descriptions a new unit description: Attached for-sale units of unrestricted size, as long as they’re built at least 10 units per acre. The significant matter is that these units do not fit the profile of the other Reserve A types, all intended to served the under-served population of low income people, seniors, people with special needs, and renters. Their size will likely make them expensive to own, and they’ll use up land and city services intended for less affluent members of the community.

Examination is needed on whether a General Plan amendment is required, as these changes violate the Growth Management Element in the General Plan.

Slicing up Santa Rosa's affordable housing pie

June 6, 2002

 By ANNE E. SEELEY

We will sink deeper in need

The recent Close to Home column by Mayor Mike Martini, "There's a better way to solve county's housing woes," continues the smoke-and-mirrors approach to the problem of affordable housing that the majority members of Santa Rosa's City Council have employed with success for several years.

While many committees appointed to address this need have studied and studied, expensive houses affordable to fewer than 20 percent of Santa Rosans have flourished.

There has been enough hypocrisy accumulating on this issue to make a hypocrisy pie. Slice by slice:
If donors to the campaigns of majority council members had simply built as part of their developments the units of lower cost housing they knew were needed, and were called for by general plan goals, we would not have the tremendous deficit we have today.

Martini neglected to mention that Santa Rosa already has the fee which he suggests is "the better way," or is at least similar to it, but the funds from the real property transfer tax have been diverted to other purposes than support for affordable housing, its intended target.

He suggests that community-wide acceptance of this fee for affordable housing is important, with which I agree.

If a transfer tax increase is supported, it can only be seen as an addition to the housing in-lieu fees and the suggested commercial linkage fee, not as a substitute for the latter two, which I believe Martini intends.

The commercial linkage fee, at its best, was shown to provide only 10 percent of what is needed. And the dollar amount for residential in-lieu fees never truly approaches the real need. Only all of the sources working together can make a difference to help for-profit developers include lower cost housing in their projects and to help nonprofit builders fund theirs.

The justification for our housing deficit that is faithfully trotted out in Martini's opinion piece -- that our problem results from growth management policies and our urban growth boundary -- is absurd. Expensive houses yield higher profits than low to moderately priced houses.

This problem is portrayed as inevitable, when it is really a matter of political choices. until the council tells developers that they can't build unless they provide on-site affordable units. Does anyone honestly believe this can't be done with commitment from council members?

The other nugget used regularly (although not by Martini in his column) is that affordable housing will be built if we dissolve the urban growth boundaries, thereby freeing up buildable land. This is absurd. Before the vote for the urban growth boundary in 1996 did we see a lot of lower cost housing being built by private developers "just because they could?" Of course not, or we would not have the deficit we have now.

Martini speaks of the considerable demand for homes in this area. That demand will not go away, so the council must decide whom it represents: those who profit handsomely from building expensive homes for those who want to move here, or that other very large group, those who live and work here.

That's not the whole pie, but it's enough for now. Mayor Martini can show true leadership in this area, as he has done recently in other areas.

But please, not with more smoke and mirrors.

Anne E. Seeley, a Santa Rosa resident, is the co-chair of Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa.

HOUSING CRISIS: POLITICAL LEADERSHIP NECESSARY

Published on November 25, 2000
© 2000- The Press Democrat

BY   DICK DAY

A recent housing article in The Press Democrat provided valuable information, but the claim that growth controls and urban growth boundaries contributed to escalating housing costs are unsupportable, at least in the case of Santa Rosa.

Santa Rosa's urban growth boundary did not reduce the land available for affordable housing, and if Santa Rosa's growth management plan had been enforced as originally adopted, it would have increased low-income and affordable housing.

Contrary to the inference made in the article, and the claim of a letter to the editor by a homebuilder, there has not been a single case in which a builder has been denied a use permit by the city of Santa Rosa as a consequence of its growth management plan. (Which is a sad commentary on the effectiveness of that plan.)

The difference between the rate of building in Santa Rosa in the '70s and '80s and that of the '90s, can be explained entirely by market forces and money availability.

Santa Rosa's urban growth boundary basically follows the ``sphere of influence'' line which governed city expansion under state law prior to the adoption of the boundary. Santa Rosa's Community Development Director Wayne Goldberg confirms that the boundary does not limit Santa Rosa's ability to provide affordable- and low-income housing.

Although Santa Rosa's growth management/housing allocation plan limited the approval of residential units to 1,000 per year, it provided that 500 of those units would be affordable and that 15 percent of the units in subdivisions of more than seven acres were required to be low-income housing.

Unfortunately two major projects -- Skyhawk and Fountaingrove -- were excluded from the plan.

The unsurprising result is that builders, given a choice between the $10,000-plus profit possibilities of a moderately priced home and the $100,000-plus profit possibilities of a hillside starter castle, opted for the bigger bottom line.

The city also weakened its plan by allowing builders to pay a $2,600 per unit in-lieu fee instead of actually building low-income housing.

As a result no low-income housing has been built by for-profit builders to date, and the in-lieu fee is inadequate as a means of allowing non-profit builders to construct needed units.

Note that the same homebuilders who blame the growth management plan for increased housing costs used their influence to avoid the responsibility of actually building low-income housing and are currently opposing a proposal to increase the inadequate in-lieu fee.

As the article mentioned, there are a number of proposals currently being considered which would supply additional funds for low-income housing including higher in-lieu fees, job impact fees and the use of more of the real property transfer tax for that purpose.

But even the advocates of those proposals admit that although they would increase the amount of low-income housing, they would not provide the amount of moderate- and low-income housing we badly need and our work force deserves.

In the final analysis a solution to our housing problems will require political will -- a determination by our elected officials to ensure our finite public resources be allocated to meet the housing needs of all our citizens.

The city will actually have to say ``no'' to high-priced developments, or at the very least, require builders to integrate a significant percentage of low-income units into their projects or make adequate payments to a non-profit builder to do the job for them. No doubt such policies will offend the homebuilders by reducing their profit margin.

In Santa Rosa's present search for solutions there is no indication the needed political will exists.

To the contrary, in the most recent discussions of this issue by the committee working on it, all the favored proposals appear based on an unspoken premise that they should not reduce the homebuilder's profit margin.

In light of the election in Santa Rosa of a council majority whose success appears to be the result of lavish contributions from the building industry, the prospects for new and effective policies to meet our crucial housing needs, seem dim indeed.