A Big Push for Affordable Housing

   

A decades-old proposal is getting a new lease on life.

              By Kent Garber  US News & World Report Saturday 22 September 2007

    For more than a decade, Georgia Johnson has watched the human exodus: the steady trickle outward of longtime friends who sold their homes to developers and to the newcomers who came amid the housing boom of the 1990s. 

    Now in her 70s, Johnson still lives in Lynwood Park, a historically black neighborhood on the north side of Atlanta. Her one-story bungalow dates from the 1940s, but the rest of the neighborhood now is characterized by pricey brick houses with two-car garages. A new subdivision with potted trees and manicured lawns boasts designer homes for $1 million plus. 

    But the old neighborhood hasn't bowed out quietly, and of its many efforts to preserve its affordability, one in particular underscores the renewed debate in Congress over how to fix or contain the country's expanding housing crisis. 

    It has supported a housing bill first proposed in 1987 and re-energized this fall that would create a national housing trust fund: a dedicated source of money to build affordable new houses and rehabilitate old ones. Unlike existing housing programs, which are subject to the whims of congressional appropriations, the trust fund would be politically immune. It would be financed, in part, by diverting revenue from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage giants. 

    Condos 

    Supporters of the trust fund say that it is a much-needed wedge against a troubling national motif: the destruction of affordable in-town housing, often at the hands of high-rise condominium and luxury home developers. (Chicago alone lost nearly 100,000 apartment units from 1989 to 2004, while gaining roughly an equal number of condos.) For the first time, the bill passed out of a House committee with significant bipartisan support, and it is expected to be introduced on the House floor this month. 

    Not since 1992 has Congress approved a major overhaul of housing laws. The renewed interest reflects not only the new Democratic leadership but also two unsettling trends: Housing costs are growing, and federal funding isn't. According to a study published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, nearly 1 in 7 American households is "severely housing cost-burdened," spending more than half of its income on housing. 

    The other issue is that annual appropriations for federal housing programs have stalled, or decreased, since the 1990s, despite the swelling slice of Americans who qualify for assistance. Last year, annual federal spending on housing programs fell 2.3 percent thanks to inflation and defense priorities. 

    One model that proponents of the national trust fund hope to emulate is that of the local trust fund. In Washington, D.C., a tax-exempt trust fund has helped build and rehabilitate more than 5,000 units since 2001. Many of the recipients make less than $30,000 annually, compared with the city's mean household income of $94,500. Among the beneficiaries is Jeffrey Allen, 50, who lives in a complex called Freedom House. "I was at a shelter for six months and then on the streets before that," Allen says. "I don't know what I would have done without this place." 

    But as legislation goes, housing bills aren't sexy, and philosophical squabbles intervene. To many Republicans, "trust fund" equals "slush fund," and the Bush administration opposes the bill, claiming it would siphon money from existing programs. 

    It helps the effort that Democrats now control Congress. But the real push could be the public outcry over housing. With "subprime mortgages" and "predatory lending" now colloquial expressions, lawmakers on both sides are under pressure to assuage constituent concerns. "Certainly, the subprime mortgage crisis highlights the fact that low- to moderate-income folks are struggling to maintain or purchase a home," says West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican who voted for the bill in committee. "I think the trust fund is part of an attempt to address that sort of overarching issue."

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AB1542 PASSES!

A bill sponsored by HAG and its allies - AB1542 - was all but given up for dead when the state Senate failed to approve it in a vote taken Friday, 9/7. The bill gives greater protections to mobilehome residents where the park owner wants to convert the park to condominiums, and was hotly opposed by the Realtors, the park owners association, and property rights groups (the "Prop 90 crowd").
But the bill's sponsors, Assemblymember Noreen Evans and Senator Ellen Corbett, refused to give up. With the help of hundreds of mobilehome park residents around the state who called their senators to urge a yes vote, and help from organizations like the Western Center, CRLA, CMRRA, CARA, the League of Cities (!), organized labor, and GSMOL, two more senators voted for the bill and it passed today 21-14.
But we're not there yet... the bill needs the Governor's signature to become law. He's got a couple weeks to decide whether to sign or veto it. We need to show the gov that thousands of mobilehome residents and housing advocates around the state want him to sign this bill. Please fax a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to sign AB1542 into law. Here's the address and fax number:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633

Special thanks go to Noreen Evans and Ellen Corbett and their staffs for really going the extra mile to get this important but controversial bill passed.

NIMBY Notebook: Habitat For Hypocrisy

Click here: NIMBY Notebook: Habitat For Hypocrisy

From: Mother Jones, July-August, 2007

News: Housing advocates say Marin County's Bill Duane exemplifies a vexing irony: People support affordable housing with their labor, money, and votes--just so long as it's nowhere near them.

By Josh Harkinson

July 17, 2007

Bill Duane knows most people can't afford homes like his $1 million bungalow on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay. That's why the Marin County attorney volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. Until recently, that is, when the group announced plans to build two affordable duplexes just down the street from him. "Habitat usually goes into a blighted neighborhood and enhances it," Duane says. "Here, they are coming into an enhanced neighborhood and blighting it." Housing advocates say Duane exemplifies a vexing irony: People support affordable housing with their labor, money, and votes--just so long as it's nowhere near them.

Standing beside his garden of coastal succulents, Duane, who looks like a cashmere-clad Rodney Dangerfield, spoke in nervous bursts. He fretted about a note that a retired schoolteacher had sent him inside a Monet greeting card, which began, "You are a disgrace to the human race and should be ashamed of yourself." His research revealed that the teacher's home is worth almost as much as his own. "And it's surrounded by vacant lots," he exclaimed, "so why don't you build it there?"

That, too, might be easier said than done: Marin is among the most liberal (and expensive) counties in the nation, but Duane says all of his neighbors back him. Indeed, opposition to affordable housing in the county was so fierce in the 1990s that a Marin chapter of Habitat disbanded, former members say, after finding itself unable to get a single project built in five years. On the opposite coast, in wealthy, liberal Martha's Vineyard, 10 homeowners sued earlier this year--on environmental grounds--to block construction of an affordable house for a fisherman who'd been living with his wife and children in a tent. In Boulder, Colorado, affordable-housing advocate Joni Lynch says her most strident foes were button-wearing progressives. And in the gentrifying Edgewood neighborhood of Washington, D.C., one resident who fought the construction of the low-income St. Martin's apartments nearby actually worked for a company that builds low-income apartments.

But few development projects have been more enigmatically unpopular than the Marin project, where three luxury houses will be clumped onto a 17.5-acre hill in a way that preserves most of the land as open space. In accordance with county rules, the developer set aside an acre for low-income housing. There, Habitat will build four units, two melded together to look like one Craftsman-style home, which will be sold at below-market rates to families making $40,000 to $56,000 a year (a teacher in Marin earns on average $47,000).

Duane and I climbed into his Mercedes station wagon and drove to the project site, a hillside of chaparral and grass. He'd promised me it would be obvious that congestion was already bad. A lone Toyota Prius with a "Save Tibet" sticker silently cruised by. "Usually this whole area is packed with cars," he insisted. And if I researched the matter, he hinted, I might learn that the endangered Tiburon mariposa lily grows here (naturalists doubt it), and that an Indian burial spear discovered nearby might have belonged to the county's namesake, Chief Marin (a Marin anthropologist says Duane is "reporting things that are not there"). Duane next raised an environmental justice concern: Placing the affordable housing in the shadow of million-dollar homes fosters "a slave kind of mentality."

He restarted his car and pulled up the slope of Eagle Rock Drive, past gardens of salvia, agave, and bird-of-paradise, pointing out houses already owned by minorities; as if making a point, he waved to an Asian man checking his mail. "It's a very diverse community here," he said.

Too diverse for some. Duane's neighbor, 83-year-old Edward Sotelo, who bought his $1 million property for $3,000 long before Marin real estate boomed, still laments the construction of the nearby Krueger Pines senior citizens' home. "The characters in those units are not the best kind of people," he said as he glanced in the direction of its parking lot, home to a late-model bmw and a Porsche. "People say some of them go down to the street and beg."

The multiplicity of neighborly concerns raised by nimbyists can leave housing advocates guessing what the real issue is. A recent poll by the Citizens Housing and Planning Association in Massachusetts suggests that, across party lines, most opposition to affordable housing boils down to homeowner fear of lowered property values and higher school costs.

At any rate, Duane believes that housing working-class people in high-income areas goes beyond Habitat's mandate. "There seems to be a change in the idea of what Habitat is," he says. "It reminds me of what's happened with the American Civil Liberties Union, which used to be a great institution in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. But now the aclu is saying, 'Well, we're going to represent the Mexicans and illegal aliens, rather than Americans.' They've overstepped." Duane would rather see a new group build visionary, ecofriendly communes in Marin where low-income people can share appliances such as refrigerators. "They should be creating wireless areas of tribal habitats," he says. Not in his neighborhood, though. He recommends a spot owned by the Catholic Church, several exits down the freeway.

HAG's Affordable Housing Strategies

Jurisdictions throughout northern California are beginning the process of updating their General Plan Housing Elements (due 7/1/09). The Housing Advocacy Group has a list of housing element programs which have been shown to be effective in generating affordable housing and housing for special needs populations such as seniors, farmworkers and persons with disabilities. Click Here to see the list. Please leave us a comment here or send us an e-mail (to hagster@gmail.com) if you have suggestions for changes or additions to this list.

Sacramento lawsuit targets city homeless policy

From the 8/2/07 Sacramento Bee
By Denny Walsh - Bee Staff
The way the city of Sacramento and Sacramento County treat homeless people is unconstitutional, according to a lawsuit to be filed today in federal court.
Attorney Mark Merin is seeking to have his lawsuit certified as a class action on behalf of people living "without fixed nighttime shelter" -- as well as homeless people who have had personal property confiscated and destroyed.
Merin said the city and county have historically recognized that there aren't enough beds for the homeless, yet have failed to produce long-term remedies.
Merin said Wednesday he would like local government to follow the city of San Diego's example by imposing a moratorium on the arrest of homeless people, allowing them to sleep in public places between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Those arrangements were negotiated to settle a number of lawsuits, he said.
According to Merin's lawsuit, local ordinances prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they punish people for being homeless.
It also claims the practice of taking and destroying personal property, "including necessary survival gear, as well as irreplaceable prescription medication, paperwork, memorabilia, valuables and tools," violates their rights.
The suit seeks an injunction barring the city and county from continuing policies and practices alleged to be unconstitutional. It also seeks damages of no less than $4,000 for each time a homeless person who qualifies as a class member was cited for sleeping outdoors or had personal property seized and destroyed.
Sacramento City Attorney Eileen Teichert said the city is "looking into these allegations."
"I'm surprised and shocked at them," Teichert said. "During my year and a half in this job, I've been very impressed by the humane outreach efforts to the homeless by the city. It is one of the few cities in the state that has an element in its housing plan for low and very low income people.
"This city is exemplary in its treatment of the homeless."
Sacramento County Counsel Bob Ryan, Sheriff John McGinness and Police Department spokesman Sgt. Matt Young declined to comment Wednesday.
Last year, a sweep of homeless camps in northern Sacramento County was preceded by posting of information about where the homeless could receive help if they were interested in getting off the streets.
Sheriff's officials said they were trying to do more than just move the homeless from one part of the community to the other.
During the winter, the county provides 140 beds at Cal Expo, as overflow from the 20-bed Volunteers of America Shelter on North A Street and the 32-bed Salvation Army women's shelter on North B Street.
Plaintiff Anthony Lehr, 49, said Wednesday that everything he owned was confiscated during a cold spell last winter when he was homeless.
Lehr said he was camping on the Sacramento River bank when authorities took his tent, flannel shirts, sleeping bag and food. "It was the basic things you needed to live," Lehr said.
Wednesday afternoon, Lehr brought Merin out on the levee to show him the spot where he often took refuge -- and where he lost his belongings.
The suit's plaintiffs are 11 individuals, who are representative of the homeless; Loaves & Fishes, a nonprofit organization that provides services to the homeless; Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee, an unincorporated association of homeless and formerly homeless people; and Francis House, a nonprofit organization that provides counseling to the poor.
Besides the city and county, defendants include Sacramento Police Chief Albert Nájera and McGinness.
"The solution to homelessness is housing," Merin said in an interview. "It is not harassing homeless people until they go away. On any given night, there are about 1,000 people out on the street because the shelters are full. Many of them camp on the riverbanks, but they are regularly rousted by law enforcement."
"They are cited for camping illegally or possessing a shopping cart," Merin said. "They don't show up in court and a warrant is issued for failure to appear. They are arrested, processed through the jail and prosecuted. Then the cycle starts all over again."
"If the city and county spent a fraction of what this is costing to deal with the homeless in a humane and just manner," he said, "it would go a long way toward eliminating the problem."
In the early hours of Jan. 30, according to the suit, an official count of homeless people in the city and county totaled 2,452. Of this total, 709 were in emergency shelters, 738 in transitional shelters, and 1,005 -- including four children and 17 seniors -- were "sleeping in the streets." The number of unsheltered had increased nearly 10 percent since 2005, the suit says.
The county estimates that 11,000 people in the area will be homeless sometime during a calendar year, according to Merin.
Merin has had extraordinary success pursuing legal actions on behalf of jail inmates and juvenile wards subjected to strip searches in Sacramento County.
"Through this lawsuit, we hope we can develop a more enlightened policy rather than just sweep them under the rug," Merin said.
Basics such as secure storage for their belongings, strategically located portable toilets and Dumpsters where they can dispose of their trash would be a start, Merin said.
After he lost his belongings, Lehr sought help from Loaves & Fishes in rebuilding his inventory. He now is taking advantage of a federal housing program and works at Loaves & Fishes checking belongings into daily storage for homeless. They are allowed to leave their things for the day while they run errands, go to job interviews or go to court.
Lehr, who regularly stores clothing and court documents, understands the value of a safe harbor for their possessions.
"It's all they have," he said.
Merin said San Diego is not the only place where litigation has forced a change in the treatment of homeless persons. A federal judge in Fresno issued an injunction in December prohibiting that city from citing homeless for sleeping outdoors and seizing personal property without prior notice and storage of the property until the owner can recover it.
In a challenge to a Los Angeles ordinance, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled that, as long as there are a greater number of homeless than beds for them, a city cannot keep the unsheltered from "sitting, lying or sleeping" on skid row sidewalks.

More small houses...

Here's a link to an article in today's SF Chronicle about a fellow who lives in a 250 square foot house in Pacifica: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/30/HOG5IQMK6I1.DTL.  It's not an apartment, a condo, a trailer or a pre-fab unit.  It's not a second unit, it sits on its own lot and there are no shared walls.  It's cozy, but well designed and functional.  

 

This is a great example of what can be done with a small lot.  It shows that an SRO (single resident occupancy) unit doesn't have to be an apartment.  It also demonstrates the relationship between size and affordability, as the owner bought the house for $101,000 in 1999 -- an amazing price for Pacifica, or anywhere in the Bay Area for that matter.

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Home Dreams Fading

By Claudia Rreed - Sonoma Index-Tribune 5/22/07

Sonoma Valley homes out of reach This is the second in a three-part series on the Valley's housing crisis. The numbers tell the story. As of the 2000 census, approximately 64 out of every 100 Sonoma County households owned their home. At today's prices, only seven out of 100 families could afford to make the same purchase, according to Jim Leddy, president of the Sonoma County Housing Coalition. "What's unique about our era right now is moderate-income buyers are put in same position as low-income were a decade ago," said John Lowry of Burbank Housing Development Corp., a company that specializes in low-income housing. The much-publicized downturn in Northern California real estate prices may not offer much local relief. According to the bulletin Sonoma County Real Estate Trends, the median price for a single-family home declined in 2006 but only to $580,000. There was a similar drop in the price of a condominium unit - to $363,000. Real estate statistics compiled for the Valley by Sonoma's Trinity Episcopal Church pegged the median housing price in the City of Sonoma at $689,000 and the price in the Springs at $575,000 in 2004. The city's Web site reports a median price of $618,000 for the whole Valley in 2005. Today's current multiple listings for the Valley, posted online by Frank Howard Allen Realtors, show only two homes priced at less than $395,000, an older home in El Verano and a fixer-upper in Agua Caliente. Another six cost just under $400,000. Eight more are priced between $400,000 and $475,000. The rest range from $475,000 into the millions. Of the condominium units, three range between $259,000 and $299,999; another six between $319,000 and $399,900. The rest begin at $409,000 and go up from there. "Who can buy?" Leddy asked. "You're not making $15 an hour if you're able to afford that kind of house." One local solution has been sweat equity housing, a concept in which low- or moderate- income owners substitute 30 hours of building labor a week for a cash down payment and qualify for 30-year loans from the California Housing Financial Agency of 3 to 5.5 percent, depending on income. Additional financing comes from city and county partnerships with private developers, who oversee the building process. "Wild Flower is the latest one. It was finished about a month and a half ago," said City Councilmember Ken Brown. "It's absolutely, totally awesome. If somebody wasn't going to swing a hammer they could order paint, or order materials, or go for deliveries. There's a job for everybody." Lowry, who worked on the partnership between Burbank and the city, agreed. "They do a lot of the work: carpentry, concrete, windows, doors, cabinets, landscaping, cleanup ... It can take a year to build a house. They work as a group, not just on their own home. It's mutual self-help housing." Even the disabled, Lowry said, have jobs to do or arrange to have their hours filled by volunteer friends and family members. Over the past few years, Burbank has organized construction of three sweat-equity housing developments: Wild Flower in the city with 34 units on Napa Road, Via Hermosa in the Springs north of Verano Avenue with 27 small stucco detached houses or duplexes and Encinas Del Verano in El Verano with 12 units on El Niño Court. Those 73 homes, however, don't begin to resolve the housing shortage. "We do a little advertising and typically get three times as many interested (as there are houses)," Lowry said. After determining who is truly eligible and able to put in what amounts to a second job, the company holds a lottery to determine who will have the opportunity. "We could build three times what we've done," he said. "The demand is tremendous for it. I'll bet we could do 6,000 in the county; 300 in the Valley over time. People want to own a home and they'll work hard to get it." There are also long waiting lists for more conventional housing reserved for low- and moderate-income buyers. The 13 houses at Casa Primera are gone. So are the 16 homes at Marcy Court, the 18 at Palm Court, and the 34 homes at the Sonoma Commons. City ordinances require a certain percentage of the units in a major housing development be reserved for low- or moderate-income buyers, but those homes, too, disappear almost as fast as they're built. "It's seems like there's definitely more demand than there is product," said one city staffer. "Two or three times a week somebody comes in looking for units." The best ownership hope for many lower-income residents is still a mobile unit in a trailer park. So far, however, there is nothing preventing a park owner from subdividing the property into for-sale spaces. While mobile owners can't be forced to move, only low-income tenants remain under rent control protection after subdivision. So far, there is no law preventing market-rate increases for moderate income tenants. Similarly, low-income - but not moderate-income - renters may qualify for help in purchasing the land under their mobile homes through the state's Mobile Home Park Resident Ownership Program. The program can finance from 50 to 95 percent of the purchase cost through a 30-year 3 percent loan and sometimes offers no-down-payment and deferred-payment options. Another possibility, offered by Resident Owned Parks Inc., involves purchase of the entire park by the nonprofit company, which would then own and operate it. Space rentals would be kept low, the company promises, and used to pay off the purchase loans. After the loans are paid off in full, both ownership and management responsibility would be transferred to a "nonprofit homeowners association." There appears to be nothing guaranteeing the homes eventually sold would be reserved for low- or moderate-income people. A moratorium on mobile-home park conversion is on the June agenda of the Sonoma City Council.

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Low-income housing urged for SR Station Area Plan

By GEORGE LAUER
THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT
Article published - May 25, 2007
Santa Rosa's "extreme makeover" plans for downtown drew sharp criticism Thursday, almost all of it from people urging the Planning Commission to add affordable housing and green building standards to the 20-year plan.
Close to 100 people, many of them wearing green stickers saying "Housing for All" and Build It Green," raised hands in agreement with calls to add specific numbers for affordable housing units and to adopt environmentally friendly building requirements.
Organized by the Accountable Development Coalition, a group of 13 organizations, speaker after speaker urged the commission to require 20 percent low-income housing, 20 percent low- to moderate-income housing and 60 percent market-value housing.
"Our concerns in this plan are aroused not by what's in the plan, but what isn't in it," said Julia Prange, representing the coalition.
In addition to affordable housing and green building standards, she urged the commission to add pedestrian and bicycle accommodations and to pay attention to mass transit needs.
Several other special interest groups -- from the Council on Aging to a member of the city school board -- called for affordable housing requirements.
Among the approximately 70 speakers was Bill Kortum, the dean of Sonoma County environmental activists. He called the downtown plan an opportunity to develop "a model of transit-oriented development."
"I urge you to listen to the suggestions you're hearing tonight," he said.
After listening to about three hours of testimony, commissioners asked planning staff to examine possible amendments to deal with affordable housing, green building and other issues raised at the hearing, among them parks, parking and bicycle accommodations.
The meeting was the final public hearing for the Santa Rosa Downtown Station Area Plan, a mammoth proposal to create a denser, more urban downtown centered around a proposed commuter rail line.
The plan calls for taller, denser buildings than allowed elsewhere in the city, with businesses on the ground floor and living quarters above, all built around a commuter rail line known as SMART, for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.
The Santa Rosa station in Railroad Square is expected to be the busiest of 14 stops on the line that would run between Cloverdale and Larkspur.
The 70-mile rail system is still a proposal, not a reality. Marin and Sonoma voters failed to come up with enough votes in November. The issue probably will be on a ballot again next year.
The Planning Commission plans to certify the plan's environmental impact report at an upcoming meeting. The commission then will make a recommendation to the City Council.
The Downtown Station Area Plan calls for 3,249 residential units, nearly 2,300 of them within a mile-wide circle extending from a train station proposed for Railroad Square.
City planner Ken MacNab said the downtown development study, funded by a $450,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, is part of an attempt "to create a transit-supported environment" by building up instead of allowing Santa Rosa to sprawl at its edges.
The development envisioned in the downtown plan would accommodate an estimated 6,000 residents above the 210,000 now expected to call Santa Rosa home by 2020.
Although the plan was developed with the commuter train in mind, city officials said it can be pursued even if the tax is never approved.
The underlying idea is to de-emphasize reliance on automobiles by developing high-density residential, commercial and office buildings along major rail and transit corridors.
Most of that development would be concentrated in two areas, downtown west of E Street and in mostly industrial areas along Cleveland Avenue, Wilson Street and Sebastopol Road that are bisected by the railroad tracks.
You can reach Staff Writer George Lauer at 521-5220 or george.lauer@pressdemocrat.com

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Humboldt County HAG Formed

New housing group says action needed
James Faulk The Times-Standard
04/27/2007
EUREKA -- Housing for All, a new housing advocacy group, is asking the county Board of Supervisors to put into action concepts that they believe will help address the lack of affordable housing in Humboldt County.
The group held a press conference at the Humboldt County Courthouse Thursday to announce its mission to bring solutions to the table in the ongoing debate over how to provide housing for all income levels, but especially the poor.
Citing figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the group pointed out that Humboldt County has the highest percentage in the state of people paying more than 29 percent of their income for housing, at 57.5 percent of renters.
”These people are living more on the edge,” said Kermit Thobaben, a Housing for All spokesman.
A broad range of housing is necessary, he said, including homes and apartments for low- and very-low income households.
”The market has been able to provide housing for people in the higher incomes range, but not for moderate, low- and very-low incomes,” said Rebecca Price-Hall.
Nearly everyone rents at some point in their lives, and it's pivotal that those choices are available, Thobaben said.
Housing for All wants to ensure that the Board of Supervisors takes action soon to make sure there are housing choices for everyone in the county over the next 20 years, Thobaben said.
The press release announcing Thursday's event seemed to take on the recently filed Humboldt Sunshine lawsuit against the county.
But during the press conference, organizers said they weren't against anyone -- rather they're fighting to give a voice to people normally outside the process -- the poor, the people who are living on the edge and paying too much of their income for housing, Thobaben said.
The group is not in a position to question motivations for that suit, he said.
”We're not against anybody, but we're for movement and action,” said Thobaben. “I would hope that these parties could look at our points and find some common ground.”
The most important of these, the group says in its press release, is a strong and effective inclusionary zoning policy.
”If we in Humboldt County are serious about providing affordable housing, then all new developments must include a variety of housing types to meet the needs of all income levels,” the release states.
The group said it intends to speak for those who often don't or can't speak for themselves in the Humboldt County General Plan update process.
Box:
Recommendations
* Establish strong inclusionary zoning policies to require that new residential developments include a percentage of housing for moderate, low- and very-low incomes.
* Identify a greater supply of buildable sites with appropriate infrastructure for higher-density housing that is affordable to moderate, low- and very-low income families.
* Identify sites available for homeless shelters and transitional housing.
* Create overlay zones with higher density allowances and provide incentives for providing low- and very-low income housing.
* Encourage mixed-use zoning, mixed-income developments and a broader variety of housing types.
* Reduce or eliminate minimum house size requirements, allow smaller lot sizes, and revise setbacks, lot coverages, parking requirements and solar shading ordinances to accommodate higher density developments.
* Ensure that lots appropriated and reserved for low-income housing are not used for any other kind of development.
* Provide regulatory clarity and public support for
those developers who are willing to take on the difficult task of providing low- and very-low income housing.
James Faulk can be reached at 441-0511 or jfaulk@times-standard.com.

Linking Social Equity and Smart Growth

WorldChanging TeamMarch 31, 2007
by Worldchanging SF local blogger, Holly Pearson:
Peter Cohen has witnessed the unnoticed darker side of the Smart Growth movement as much as anyone in the Bay Area has.
As Director of the Community Planning Program at the non-profit organization Asian Neighborhood Design (AND), which works with community groups, neighbors and residents of San Francisco in the development and revitalization of their communities, Peter is one of a handful of urban planning professionals in the Bay Area who are working to create mechanisms for linking new public benefits, such as affordable housing and community facilities, to urban infill development projects. The aim is to minimize and mitigate the unintended negative socio-economic impacts of the kind of development promoted by progressive models of urban planning like Smart Growth, New Urbanism, and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).
Although the driving objectives of these movements are to curb sprawl and build compact, environmentally sustainable communities, promoting densification and encouraging a high concentration of new development in older city neighborhoods can unintentionally result in gentrification. Many neighborhoods that are located near city centers and have vacant or underutilized land that’s suitable for relatively dense new development have historically been home to lower-income, working-class populations. When policy frameworks and economic incentives are enacted to attract new development in these areas, they often have the inadvertent effect of driving up housing costs and changing the demographics of communities, sometimes to the point of pushing long-time working-class residents out of the neighborhood.
It’s a phenomenon that Peter Cohen has observed increasingly during the recent development boom years in San Francisco. AND’s Community Planning Program focuses its efforts on the city’s lower-income eastern neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission, Bayview Hunter’s Point, and Visitacion Valley. Each of these neighborhoods has experienced the pressures of new development to some extent -- some have already undergone widespread gentrification while others are just starting to deal with these issues.
According to Peter, most advocates of Smart Growth and other current models of sustainable urban development don’t pay much attention to the sociological impacts on existing neighborhoods. He explains, "There’s an attitude among a lot of the planning community in San Francisco that density is good for density’s sake -- that a denser city is inevitably a better urban environment. My response is that density is not necessarily inherently good. You also have to look at issues of diversity, accessibility, and livability." Even if new development patterns bring about positive physical changes to an urban landscape, like better access to public transportation and greater energy efficiency, if factors like ethnic diversity and affordability are sacrificed, then has sustainability really been achieved?
But the Smart Growth and TOD models and encouragement of new urban infill development don’t have to be at odds with social equity. A new approach that’s being tested in San Francisco is to create and codify mechanisms that redistribute wealth directly from development profits to those sectors of the community that have historically lived in central city neighborhoods and older city suburbs. It’s about meeting community needs. It’s about respecting and benefiting the existing residents of a community and maintaining diversity while accommodating growth, increasing density, and creating compact, transit-accessible neighborhoods.
So how can these more holistic objectives be achieved on the ground? What possible new approaches might allow new infill development while ensuring the continued socio-economic vitality of existing neighborhoods? That’s what Peter Cohen’s Community Planning Program and other like-minded groups in the Bay Area have been trying to answer.
Peter Cohen was instrumental in drafting the proposed "Better Neighborhoods Plus" legislation—an enhanced version of the City of San Francisco’s Better Neighborhoods program. One of the ideas that Better Neighborhoods Plus sought to accomplish was to link the impact of new development with mitigation measures which benefit the community, and ensure that these mitigations are financed as part of a neighborhood plan. The proposed legislation was designed to apply to six designated areas for which the City has already initiated neighborhood planning processes: Mission, Showplace/Lower Potrero Hill, East SoMa, Central Waterfront, Upper Market/Octavia, and Inner Geary Boulevard. But it was also intended to establish more general standards to be used for all long-range planning initiatives.
As part of the neighborhood planning and implementation process, Better Neighborhoods Plus called for:
Preparation of a Neighborhood Baseline Conditions and Needs Analysis, which would identify existing shortfalls in infrastructure and community amenities that are lacking in a neighborhood, such as transit, open space, housing, neighborhood-serving businesses, and community facilities and other key amenities.
Preparation of a New Development Impacts Analysis. The topics addressed through this analysis could include a much wider array than is conventionally done in planning studies which typically focus on urban design, transportation and public service infrastructure, thereby allowing for a more comprehensive assessment of the impacts of new development on a community.
Recommendation of a Public Improvements Plan and Funding Strategy, including proposed funding mechanisms. Examples of the types of public improvements that could be funded under Better Neighborhoods Plus include affordable housing, economic development and employment training, community facilities and services, open space, and historic and cultural resources protection. Suggested strategies for paying for and mitigating the impacts include new development impacts fees, utilization of existing funding sources, and other funding from special benefits districts.
Although the Better Neighborhoods Plus legislation did not pass, the important result of this initiative is that the ideas have been articulated and framed as a methodology, and the issue of integrating social equity and community development goals with new urban development projects has entered the local planning dialogue.
A related initiative with a successful outcome is a recently adopted City ordinance, which was a piece of that sweeping Better Neighborhoods Plus proposal, which requires closer interaction between agencies in implementing public improvements that are promised in new area plans for the City’s eastern neighborhoods. Peter Cohen and AND’s Community Planning Program were involved in the crafting of this relatively simple ordinance, the purpose of which is to enhance the participation of various City departments and agencies (e.g. the Municipal Transportation Agency, Department of Public Works, Redevelopment Agency, Mayor’s Office of Community Development, Department of Recreation and Parks, etc) in the preparation and implementation of community benefits plans. It’s also intended to provide a means by which the various parties interested in neighborhood improvement programs can stay informed and provide input and support. The ordinance provides a mechanism for coordination between the departments and for dialogue with the community, in the hopes that these relationships will streamline the delivery of community benefits for those areas of the city that are most in need of improvements.
This past fall the City also strengthened its inclusionary housing ordinance, now one of the most progressive in the state, and AND’s Community Planning Program was involved in the technical analysis behind drafting the ordinance and advocating for its passage. One of the studies being produced by an interdisciplinary working group brought together by the city was a Residential Nexus Analysis. A draft of that study shows that the development of market-rate housing does generate significant demand for affordable housing, a finding which supports the City’s inclusionary policies and provides a foundation for future actions towards affordable housing. So public benefits mechanisms to further increase affordable housing are still needed, and are in the works. One mechanism that is being explored as a part of various planning proposals is the recapture of benefits conferred by the private sector on properties, through rezoning or other City actions. The City is exploring strategies of securing a portion of that benefit so that it can be rededicated back into the community, in the form of needed low-cost housing, open space, or other amenities for the community.
Another victory for Peter and AND in the effort to promote more equitable development was a resolution recently passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors which articulates a public policy framework for preparing and evaluating new neighborhood plans for the city’s eastern neighborhoods. The policies outlined apply to the Mission, East SoMa, Potrero Hill and the Central Waterfront, though the policy sentiment is really applicable citywide, and they relate to objectives such as the development of new affordable housing, the retention and expansion of industrial and other working-class jobs, and the promotion of arts venues as well as work spaces and affordable housing for artists.
"All these initiatives are pieces of a puzzle that I think is moving the policy framework towards more of an equitable development outcome," says Peter.
In order to further advance these efforts, Peter and other planning experts who are concerned about social sustainability agree that urban and regional planning needs to become more proactive, addressing not only land use considerations from a regulatory standpoint, but also looking at the relationship between the physical form and socio-economic conditions of cities and actively seeking to promote sound community development principles. Understanding that new development, and specifically more compact forms of urban development, are necessary in order to accommodate future growth, reduce traffic and sprawl, protect open space and air and water quality, and preserve our high standard of living in the Bay Area, Peter would like to see developers become "enlightened capitalists." This means developers who fully consider and understand the range of impacts that arise when new development is introduced into existing neighborhoods, and who recognize the importance of preserving affordability, enhancing community assets, and protecting less tangible qualities like neighborhood character