Marin Nimbies Target Habitat Homes

MARIN COUNTY
Habitat for Humanity faces fight in wealthy community
- Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, January 25, 2007

A group of residents in the pricey Marin County community of Strawberry are mobilizing against an affordable housing plan by the renowned charity Habitat for Humanity, saying it would blight their neighborhood.

The group is convinced that the plan to build four three-bedroom units of low-income housing in their neighborhood would result in increased traffic and parking congestion and lower property values.

About three dozen residents who live near the proposed construction site -- 16.5 acres just west of the Tiburon city limits -- are attempting to raise $100,000 for legal fees to challenge the project, which still must be approved by the county Planning Commission.

"Habitat for Humanity goes into blighted neighborhoods and fixes them up. Here they are going into an enhanced neighborhood and blighting it," said Bill Duane, a 58-year-old resident of Bay Vista Drive, near the proposed site. "I'm not against low-cost housing, but this is social engineering. The county does not have the right to choose my neighbors."

Such a ruckus is not unusual in Marin, where homeowners have been notoriously hostile to development, especially the kind that threatens to lower the value of their property. But the charity made famous by former President Jimmy Carter would seem an unconventional target.

About 100 Strawberry residents packed a recent Strawberry Design Review Board meeting. They said they support, and in some cases have participated in, the charity's work, but do not believe the development will fit into their neighborhood, where most homes are worth between $1 million and $2 million.

"The homes are of a certain type and would not fit in. The placement of these homes would really stand out," said Alan Krepack, 54, a management consultant who has lived on Bay Vista Drive for 18 years. "There are other places in the county where low-cost housing would be more appropriate."

Habitat officials said they were surprised by the vehemence of the opposition.

"I think NIMBYism is a convenient term and it may well fit in this case, but it is also fear of the unknown," said Phillip Kilbridge, executive director of Habitat's San Francisco chapter.

The project, at the intersection of Eagle Rock and Knoll roads and Bay Vista Drive, originally did not include any low-cost housing. The San Francisco developer, Pan Pacific Ocean Inc., wanted to divide the property into seven parcels and build three large homes to be sold on the open market. But the county requires developers that create two or more market-rate residences to also include some affordable housing.

After learning about the affordable housing requirement, the developer contacted Habitat for Humanity, a nondenominational Christian charity that has built homes for the poor in 88 countries and in more than 1,600 U.S. cities.

The plan now is to build four additional units, each a little over 1,400 square feet, with single-car garages. The buildings would be designed to look like two separate Craftsman-style homes, and each unit would be affordable to a family of four with an annual income of $56,000 or less. Each future homeowner would be required to put in 500 hours of "sweat equity" helping build their home.

"We believe that our model for developing homeownership with sweat equity is perfect for Marin County," Kilbridge said. "I would hope we would be able to partner with the neighbors so we can build a development that all parties would appreciate."

No development would be the best alternative, said several neighbors, but if it must be done, then it should at least comply with county guidelines, which require only one unit of affordable housing, not four.

"I'm perfectly willing to go along if the proposal complies with the guidelines, but it doesn't," said Dan Veto, 41, who lives on Bay Vista Drive. "I would be concerned if they were proposing to build four market-rate homes at that intersection. It's a very, very busy intersection."

Veto and others said the development would exacerbate traffic and parking problems in the neighborhood and destroy a valuable stretch of open space.

"They are getting rid of the last connection to open space that we have here," Duane said. "There are 50 different species of wildlife in this property."

It has long been the goal of county administrators and politicians to increase the amount of affordable housing in Marin, where the median price of a home is about $850,000. The high cost of housing, say housing officials, has left teachers, firefighters, police officers and other relatively low-wage workers with no place to live in the county.

"The need for workforce housing in Marin is very great," said Johanna Patri, principal planner for the Marin County Community Development Agency. "We support affordable housing."

But Patri said it has been exceedingly difficult to find any place to squeeze in low-cost housing outside of the predominantly African American enclave of Marin City and the largely Latino neighborhood of San Rafael known as the Canal area.

The reception in Marin has been so hostile that a county chapter of Habitat for Humanity disbanded in the late 1990s because the volunteers could not get any low-income housing projects off the ground, Kilbridge said.

"The argument that affordable housing lowers property values is a specious argument," Kilbridge said. "It doesn't hold water."

He said it is "a shame" that residents would raise $100,000 in an attempt to keep less fortunate families out of their neighborhood.

"Do you know how many nails that could buy?" Kilbridge asked. "To us that's a lot of money that could be of such incredible use to the community."

Residents say the Strawberry area already has enough affordable housing. Seven affordable housing units have been developed there in the past 10 years, including five rental units for employees in the nearby Strawberry shopping center.

"The idea that everybody is entitled to an affordable house wherever they want one is not valid," Duane said. "I would like to live in Cannes. I would like to live in Palm Beach. Everybody's got wishes, but that's not the way life is."

ABAG Numbers

HAG sent this letter to the Assocciation of Bay Area Governments ("ABAG") recently concerning their Regional Houisng Needs ("RHNA") allocation process.

Re: Draft Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Methodology

Dear Executive Board,

The Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group is a voluntary grass roots organization which promotes affordable housing development, and increased housing opportunities for persons with special needs such as seniors, persons with disabilities, farmworkers and homeless persons. We are writing to comment on the draft RHNA methodology recommended by the Housing Methodology Committee (HMC) and ABAG Staff.

The process is underway to determine the regional housing needs allocations ("RHNA") for various jurisdictions within the area served by ABAG. We have reviewed the preliminary RHNA figures for Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties, and are very concerned by what we see.

The big ABAG cities -- San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco -- are allocated huge increases in their RHNA numbers for the 2009-2016 planning period. These cities are being given approximately double their previous (1999-2009) housing needs allocation. Sonoma County, on the other hand, is tentatively allocated a substantial reduction in RHNA, even though job growth and population growth in the county is not predicted to drop by comparison with the previous planning period.

The unincorporated areas of Sonoma County are seeing a huge cut -- going from 6,799 total RHNA units for the 1999-2009 planning period down to 1,320 total units in the draft allocation for the 2009-2016 planning period. Similar cuts are in the works for Napa County. Marin County has always had low RHNA numbers.

This is troubling for several reasons. There is very little developable land in Oakland, San Francisco or San Jose. There is no basis to expect those cities can or will substantially increase production of housing -- particularly housing affordable to lower income households.. So the units just aren't going to get built... no matter how high their RHNA numbers are set. On the other hand, there's a fair amount of vacant land available for higher density development in areas of Sonoma, Marin and Napa Counties that are already served by water/sewer. These counties can and should provide housing with a range of affordabilities to accommodate expected job growth and population growth over the 2009-2017 planning period.

"Smart Growth" means that for every new job in Marin, Sonoma and Napa Counties, there should be new housing built that is affordable to the employee filling that job. People working in Marin should be able to live there, and not have to commute from Oakland. Farmworkers in the expanding Napa vineyards should not have to commute an hour over the mountains from Lakeport to get to their jobs. Sonoma County teachers should be able to live in Sonoma County.

ABAG, like all the COGS, gives little jurisdictions a disproportionately large say in how the RHNA pie is cut up. The little jurisdictions and unincorporated areas are the most resistant to development of affordable housing, so they've apparently pushed as much of it as possible off somewhere else. The high priced towns -- Sonoma, Tiburon, Calistoga, Sebastopol, St. Helena, Mill Valley -- should not be allowed by ABAG and HCD to duck providing housing affordable to low and moderate income households. They generally have an abundance of sites, good schools, and other infrastructure. They should get RHNA allocations which recognize their capacity to absorb at least the same amount of growth as the region in general.

People who work in Sonoma, Napa and Marin County -- whether the jobs are new ones or old ones -- should be able to live in those counties in housing they can afford. They shouldn't have to live in Oakland or San Jose. But these new numbers carry the message that local governments in Sonoma, Napa and Marin don't have to provide more housing for lower income households; rents will go up; people will be forced to commute long distances or live in overcrowded or substandard conditions.

We believe that ABAG's tentative numbers will, if finalized, seriously limit the production of housing affordable to lower income households in the region. Most jurisdictions meet or exceed their share of need for above moderate income housing. Adjusting the RHNA up or down doesn't have a significant impact on development of single family detached housing units for that income group. But building housing for lower income households requires appropriately zoned sites served by infrastructure, schools and transportation. These sites are already in scarce supply. Most non-profit developers believe that the most serious constraint on affordable housing development is, in fact, the lack of appropriately zoned sites. By lowering the RHNA for jurisdictions in Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties, ABAG is making a determination that they don't need as many sites as they are now providing, even though they are not now providing enough sites. There is simply no evidence on which ABAG can legitimately base such a reduction in RHNA.

The draft RHNA numbers we have seen include an overall reduction of more than 60% for Napa County; 50% for Sonoma County, and 40% for Marin County. Sebastopol's RHNA is reduced by 70%; Windsor by 50%. These numbers are wholly unsupported by any evidence of a decline in job growth or population growth in these areas. We believe these reductions are both arbitrary and capricious and exceed ABAG's legal authority to adopt.

Similarly, the draft RHNA numbers include huge increases -- approximately 100% -- for Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. But there is no basis for ABAG to determine that these increases reflect anticipated population growth in these cities, and no basis for ABAG to find that there is anywhere near the amount of sites available in these cities to accommodate these levels. These increases will not likely result in any greater rate of housing development in these cities -- particularly with respect to housing affordable to lower income households. Doubling the RHNA numbers for these large cities is, of course, a convenient way of reducing the numbers for jurisdictions in Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties -- jurisdictions which have long been resistant to providing adequate affordable housing for their workforce, their disabled, their farmworkers and other low income households.

There's another strange twist to this sorry ABAG saga... two years ago at the very start of the planning for the 2007 RHNA cycle, ABAG complained that the state hadn't provided adequate funding to do proper housing needs surveys. In response, Cathy Creswell at the Department of Housing and Community Development sent ABAG a letter which purported to grant ABAG an extension of two more years to do its next RHNA allocations. This extension letter violated state law which required the new RHNA determinations to be completed prior to the start of the planning period -- 2007. But more importantly, these new draft RHNA numbers only cover the planning period starting in 2009. The numbers make no mention of the housing needs which were accruing during the 2-year Creswell extension. ABAG and HCD have unlawfully and arbitrarily determined that no regional housing needs were accruing in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

The failure to include regional housing needs for the two-year period of the extension -- almost a third of the entire planning period -- doesn't affect housing starts for above moderate income housing. But it does have a substantial harmful effect on the availability of sites affordable to lower income households. Those sites have to be carefully selected, rezoned, and made accessible to infrastructure.

The failure to include needs numbers for this two-year period -- in addition to being arbitrary and in excess of ABAG's jurisdictional authority -- would appear to violate Government Code Section 65008, which prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against development of housing affordable to lower income households.

We would respectfully request that ABAG begin again the RHNA allocation process, and allocate substantial additional regional housing needs to areas like Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties and jurisdictions within those counties; and allocate smaller housing needs to Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose in a way that will realistically reflect the capacities of those cities to actually build the housing units.

Another reason why housing costs are so high...

The next time a developer or a legislator tries to claim more inclusionary zoning will drive up housing costs, or that developers are overtaxed, hand 'em a copy of this article from today's LA Times Click on the link for the full article.... the chart at the end is mind boggling.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-karatz17dec17,1,148471,full.story

How KB Home CEO's Pay Went Through the Roof

KB Home may be the fifth-largest U.S. home builder, but it was No. 1 when it came to pay for its chief executive.Over the last three years, former CEO Bruce Karatz made $232.6 million in compensation. That's nearly three times what the chief executives earned at Pulte Homes Inc. and Centex Corp., which are bigger and more profitable.Among the nation's 12 largest builders, Karatz's closest competition came from Robert Toll, the CEO of Toll Bros. Inc. He pulled in $138.7 million over three years — a sum that Karatz outdid by nearly 70%.

Housing developers can (and should) provide a
percentage of units affordable to lower income
households. A condominium developer in Mendocino
County has agreed to set aside 20% of the units in
his project for lower income, plus another 20% for
moderate income. Click here for details

Prop 1-C Vote Analysis

Prop 1-C, the statewide housing bond, was approved by voters by a comfortable margin in the November election. It will provide $2.8 billion for "housing for persons in need" including low income housing, shelters, supportive housing for persons with disabilities, and housing for farmworkers. Here's a new analysis of who voted for and against the bond.

Although 17 counties still have not completed their counts from the November election, turnout is now up to 8.8 million ballots cast, which represents 55.6% of all registered voters.

Prop. 1C's support is up to 57.8%, with 4,766,514 votes for 1C and 3,484,122 votes against it.
The Public Policy Institute of California today released a statewide survey of voters that breaks down the areas of support for Prop. 1C and other measures and analyzes the reasons for its support. The full poll is available at http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1106MBS.pdf

Key findings include:

Democrats supported 1C by a margin of 69-31%.
Independents supported 1C by 57-43%
Republicans opposed 1C, with 40% voting for 1C and 60% voting "no."

When asked to assess the level of state funding for affordable housing now that 1C has passed,

53% said state funding for affordable housing is still "not enough"
14% said it is "more than enough"
20% said it is "just enough"
and 13% expressed no opinion.

Among those who voted yes on 1C,

56% said not enough
6% said more than enough
26% said just enough and
12 % didn't know,

Even among those who voted no on 1C, "not enough" led "more than enough" by almost 2-1:

49% said not enough
27% said more than enough,
14% said just enough and
10% didn't know.

This appears to be good news for the prospects for a permanent source campaign -- most voters think state funding for affordable housing is still insufficient and even those who opposed 1C think funding is too low. It suggests that many who voted no on 1c could be persuaded to vote yes on another housing measure if it is designed well enough to convince them the funds are spent properly.

When 1C supporters were asked why they voted yes, the top answer was
"it's a good cause/people in those circumstances need help" (35%), followed by
important to the future of CA/needed/good idea (27%).

Other reasons included:
Cost of housing is too high (12%)
Emergency shelters are needed (9%)
Endorsed by group or public figure I trust (2%)
Supported by governor/legislature (2%)
Smallest amount of all the bonds (1%)
friends and/or family supported it (1%)
Other reason (6%)
Don't know (5%)

This suggests that our disciplined focus on shelter and those in need was correct. 71% of 1C supporters cited either those in need, the need for shelter or the importance of 1C to the future of California. Only 12% cited the overall lack of affordability in CA, and only 1% cited the relatively small size of the bond.

When 1C opponents were asked why they voted no, the top answer was
bond amount is too much (18%), followed by
state spends too much already (16%)

Other answers included:
won't fix the problem (10%)
I vote no on all bonds (9%)
bond debt is too high already (8%)
state should not subsidize housing (6%)
housing should be pay-as-you-go (4%)
friends/family opposed it (1%)
no need for more shelters (1%)
other (21%) and don't know (6%).

Once again, I find this encouraging for a permanent source campaign because it indicates that relatively low numbers of voters believe the the state should not subsidize housing or there is no need for more shelter. Large portions of "no" voters disagreed with the specifics of 1C, not with the principle of state support for shelter and affordable housing. Thses voters may be willing to support future housing measures if they are satisfied that the amount of funds is correct and the way they are used is proper.

Other findings from the poll:
1C was supported by about 70% of those who voted for Angelides, and by 49% of those who voted for Schwarzenegger.
Support for 1C was higher among women (60%) than men (53%), and higher among Latinos (67%) than among whites (54%).
Not surprisingly, support for 1c was also higher among renters (75%) than homeowners (51%) and among those earning less than $40,000 (64%) than amomg those earning more than $80,000 (51%).

Finally, opinions on whether future funding for housing is sufficient breaks down as follows: 22% of Republicans said funding is more than enough, while 59% of Dems deem it insufficient. 56% of Bay Area voters say funding is too low. 55% of Los Angeles residents agree, as do 47% of Central Valley residents. 58% of renters and 52% of homeowners.

From the Nov 13th issue of the New Yorker. One of the most gripping articles I have read in a long time.

Nigeria: The Megacity - Decoding the Chaos of Lagos
George Packer

The Third Mainland Bridge is a looping ribbon of concrete that connects Lagos Island to the continent of Africa. It was built in the nineteen-seventies, part of a vast network of bridges, overleaf, and expressways intended to transform the districts and islands of this Nigerian city--then comprising three million people--into an efficient modern metropolis. As the bridge snakes over sunken piers just above the waters of Lagos Lagoon, it passes a floating slum: thousands of wooden houses, perched on stilts a few feet above their own bobbing refuse, with rust-colored iron roofs wreathed in the haze from thousands of cooking fires. Fishermen and market women paddle dugout canoes on water as black and viscous as an oil slick.
The bridge then passes the sawmill district, where rain-forest logs--sent across from the far shore, thirty miles to the east--form a floating mass by the piers. Smoldering hills of sawdust landfill send white smoke across the bridge, which mixes with diesel exhaust from the traffic. Beyond the sawmills, the old waterfront markets, the fishermen's shanties, the blackened facades of high-rise housing projects, and the half-abandoned skyscrapers of downtown Lagos Island loom under a low dirty sky. Around the city, garbage dumps steam with the combustion of natural gases, and auto yards glow with fires from fuel spills. All of Lagos seems to be burning.
The bridge descends into Lagos Island and a pandemonium of venders' crammed with spare parts, locks, hard hats, chains, screws, charcoal, detergent, and DVDs. On a recent afternoon, car horns, shouting voices, and radio music mingled with the snarling engines of motorcycle taxis stalled in traffic and the roar of an air compressor in an oily tire-repair yard. Two months earlier, a huge cast-iron water main suspended beneath the bridge had broken free of its rusted clip, crushing a vacant scrap market below and cutting off clean water from tens of thousands of the fifteen million people who now live in Lagos.
In the absence of piped water, wealthier residents of the waterfront slum at the end of the bridge, called Isale Eko, pay private contractors to sink boreholes sixty feet deep. All day and night, residents line up at the boreholes to pay five cents and fill their plastic buckets with contaminated water, which some of them drink anyway. Isale Eko is the oldest and densest part of Lagos Island. Every square foot is claimed by someone--for selling, for washing, even for sleeping--and there is almost no privacy. Many residents sleep outdoors. A young man sitting in an alley pointed to some concrete ledges three feet above a gutter. 'These are beds," he said.
In the newer slums on the mainland, such as Mushin, rectangular concrete-block houses squeeze seven or eight people into a single, mosquito-infested room--in bunks or on the floor--along a narrow corridor of opposing chambers. This arrangement is known as "face me I face you." One compound can contain eighty people. IPublishn Mushin, Muslim Hausas from the north of Nigeria coexist uneasily with mostly Christian Yorubas from the south. Armed gangs represent the interests of both groups. On the night of February 2,2002, a witness told me, a Hausa youth saw a Yoruba youth squatting over a gutter on the street and demanded, "Why are you shitting there?"
In a city where only 0.4.per cent of the inhabitants have a toilet connected to a sewer system, it was more of a provocation than a serious question...
[To see the full article, click here]

Creative solutions for affordable housing....

We need more like this...

How about this for Railroad Square: an old brewery in Berlin ("Kultur Brauerei") converted to housing, restaurants and shops:
NOT more like this....

Here's a great one: Click here If you have thoughts or other examples about affordable, sustainable, livable housing, leave a comment.

Napa Regional Housing Need Numbers Cut by 75%

A Napa Register article (11/17/06) claims the county's regional housing needs numbers will be reduced by 75% for the next (2009-2016) planning period!! Here's the article:

Sunday, November 19, 2006 12:37 AM PST
A Bay Area planning agency has once again decided the unincorporated part of Napa County may need more housing -- lush vineyards, local agricultural protection laws and lack of sewer pipes be damned.

But this time, the Association of Bay Area Governments is backing off of aggressive demands for housing in the unincorporated county. This is welcome news for planning officials and others who have long lamented that state housing demands don't take into account the agricultural feel of the county.

This year, a change in state guidelines, so-called smart growth concepts and lobbying by rural counties have made an impression on ABAG, bringing about a preliminary 500 housing unit demand for the unincorporated county -- about one-quarter of what the state ordered in 2000.

The final state demands for housing in Napa County won't be given until 2008 -- after the association receives a number from the state Department of Housing and Community Development -- but a committee sponsored by the association, made up of elected officials from throughout the Bay Area, has managed to fashion a way of doling out housing responsibilities that leave rural, off-the-mass-transportation-grid counties like Napa in a better place than more urban areas next to ferry links and BART stations.

Ken Kirkey, interim planning director at ABAG, said the he believes the new formula is more fair.

"They've been looking at a wide range of issues to come up with a methodology that is consistent with local land use plans and policies, with regional growth policies and (with) state policies," he said.

Local politicians participated in the effort and favor the preliminary shift in requirements.

"The city and the county worked together on this effort," said Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon. "We sat down together (and) wrote a letter to (association) staff. When we went to the next meeting the (association) staff commented on how remarkable it was to get a letter with both of our letterheads on it."

Housing demands are especially challenging for the county, which in the past has had to contract with the cities to take on part of the state pressure placed on it. Napa Valley cities can zone for housing complete with things like hookups to urban water and sewer utilities, while the unincorporated county is more set up for agricultural practices than suburban subdivisions.

Not to mention that time after time, voters in Napa County have affirmed agricultural protections that keep housing growth within city limits.

"We've talked to (the association) numerous times about our concerns to try and protect agricultural housing, particularly unincorporated areas because we're not set up to handle housing," said Supervisor Mark Luce. " ... But the proof was in the pudding when their numbers were lower. We haven't protested too loudly given our concerns. If the state decides to go another way or things go south we've created a record to take this to the Legislature."

In October, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, unsuccessfully tried to get Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill that would have forced the association to consider local land use policies when it works with the state to dole out housing demands.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill because a 2004 state law allows regional planning agencies to consider local land use laws, and the governor wanted to see how that would affect the 2008 regional housing demands.

So far, it's been positive.

"It's good news for the citizens of Napa," Luce said

County Request For Proposals

SONOMA COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION: Request For
Proposals & Technical Assistance Meeting
Technical Assistance Meeting:
December 6, 2006
9AM-12PM
Community Development Commission Office
1440 Guerneville Road, Santa Rosa

The Sonoma County Community Development Commission is issuing an
RFP for housing projects located within the incorporated
boundaries of the cities of Cloverdale, Cotati, Healdsburg,
Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Sonoma and the Town of Windsor.
Eligible housing projects are defined to include: new housing
development, acquisition and/or substantial rehabilitation,
moderate rehabilitation, acquisition of market-rate units that
will be covered by affordability restrictions after purchase,
and preservation of affordable units that are at risk of
becoming market-rate units due to expiration of affordability
restrictions.All applicants should attend the Technical
Assistance Session. Any applicant who cannot attend the
scheduled session should contact the Commission staff as soon as
possible. All proposals for Housing Set-Aside Funds must be
submitted to the Community Development Commission by January 7,
2007 at 5PM.

For more information, please contact Cindy Rich, Senior
Community Development Specialist at 707-565-7537.

Transitional House for sale

Molly Ackley, Housing Director at CAP-SC (formerly "Sonoma County PEO") has asked us to post a notice about CAP's plan to sell their Rinwood transitional housing property in Santa Rosa. They would prefer to sell the house to another non-profit that would still use the house for similar purposes. The house has been used as transitional housing for many years. We understand it has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths.

For further information, contact Molly Ackley at CAP-SC 707 579 5033 or e-mail her at mackley(at)capsonoma.org