Affordable housing good for the planet, group says

Rob Rogers IJ reporter Marin Independent Journal
02/01/2007
Affordable housing advocates are urging environmentalists to support the housing cause as a way to fight global warming.
"Almost everything we're doing with global warming goes back to land use," said Stuart Cohen, co-founder of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, at a luncheon Thursday sponsored by the Ecumenical Association for Housing, now known as EAH Housing.
"Affordable housing residents have the highest use of public transportation, statistically, in the area," Cohen said. "All of you who are working for affordable housing will be able to look your children and grandchildren in the eye and say you did the most important thing possible to fight global warming."
Cohen and other speakers took aim at environmentalists and others who have blocked affordable housing developments in Marin County, such as a proposed Habitat for Humanity project in unincorporated Strawberry.
"What we have to do is change public opinion," said EAH chief executive Mary Murtagh. "We all know that what's cloaked in an environmental theme is really an antipathy to 'those people.' We hear it all the time. We're hearing it now in Tiburon. And it's a shame."
EAH Housing is one of the nation's largest nonprofit housing organizations, with offices in San Rafael, Fresno, San Jose and Honolulu. The group met at the Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Terra Linda.
Environmentalists should support mixed-use affordable housing developments - which combine residential and retail units - because people who live there tend to drive less and use public transportation more, Cohen argued.
"A recent study by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District says that transportation is responsible for 50 percent of the Bay Area's greenhouse gas emissions," said Cohen, whose organization campaigns on behalf of public transportation. "A lot of that is because of land use. It's difficult to get into or out of this area without using the auto. We have to do what we can to grow around public transit. Those who live less than half a mile from public transportation are four times or more less likely to own a car."
According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, low-income residents take half as many car trips per day as high-income residents, and own an average of 1.35 vehicles, in contrast to high-income residents' 2.45.
Cohen urged Marin leaders to push for a reduction in the parking requirements for affordable housing developments, encouraging residents to use public transportation.
"Our current planning codes present the biggest obstacle to placing a lot of affordable housing near transportation," Cohen said.
Another obstacle to affordable housing comes from neighbors who claim the developments will lower their property values - a contention disputed by speaker Lynn Sedway.
"There is no measurable difference between property value escalations whether the property is close to affordable housing or not," said Sedway, a market analyst for the Sedway Group, a consulting firm with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Sedway authored Marin's zoning ordinance that requires a certain percentage of homes be affordable.
"What we talk about as low- or moderate-income housing in Marin is really workforce housing for the journalists, scientists, firefighters and police who live here. Those owners tend to take an active role in their homeowners associations, and there's never been a problem in terms of integration with other home-owners."
Sedway based her statements on a host of recent academic studies, including a 2003 study by Virginia Tech University and a 2002 study by the University of Wisconsin that suggest properties near low-income developments may actually increase in value.
The need for affordable housingguz is acute, Sedway said, because the median housing price in the county has grown from $499,000 in 2000 to nearly $1 million last year. While 39 percent of Marin's population could be classified as "low" or "very low" income, only 7 percent of the homes built between 1999 and 2005 are available to them, she said - the lowest affordable housing percentage in the Bay Area.
"I'm shocked at what's going on in Tiburon," Sedway said. "People talk about the traffic impact (of affordable homes), but there's actually less of a traffic impact with affordable homes because there are fewer cars. People should be ashamed of themselves."
Sedway's words resonated with Strawberry resident Susan Crosier, even though she objected to having her neighborhood described as being part of Tiburon.
"I live on Eagle Rock Road (the site of the proposed Habitat for Humanity project), and it has nothing to do with Tiburon or its government," Crosier said. "There are definitely people who don't want the development, but there are also those of us who support it."
Crosier said she'll try to convince her neighbors to support the project.
"There are four widows at the end of the street who have been worried about their property values," Crosier said. "They'll find this information helpful."