Point Reyes Light - November 22, 2001
Affordable housing mandated, state says
By Gregory Foley
As part of a state initiative to cope with the growing need for new housing throughout California, Marin supervisors have been mandated to come up with plans for 521 new homes in unincorporated parts of the county, which includes all of West Marin.
Their deadline is the end of this year.
However, it appears that few affordable-housing units will be built in West Marin towns.
The state plan also calls for Marin’s cities to plan for adding another 5,979 homes, most of which would be for low- and moderate-income residents. These would be built in the more-populated areas in the Highway 101 corridor of East Marin.
While the county and its incorporated cities will not be obligated to construct any of the new homes provided for in the plans, local governments stand to lose large sums of state and federal grant dollars if they fail to comply with the state mandate.
The order is part of an ambitious effort by the state Department of Housing and Community Development to ensure that local governments designate space for new housing to be constructed by June 30, 2006.
Housing plans required
By the end of this year, all city and county governments in California must provide the state with draft "Housing Elements," documents which describe their housing policies, their plans, and their sites designated for affordable-housing development in the next five years.
(Pursuant to the program, the state earlier this month released new figures which said it had determined that California now needs approximately one million new affordable-housing units.)
After the state determined how much housing would be needed in the entire Bay Area region, it charged the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) – a regional planning agency that helps set policies on land use, housing, economic development, and the environment – with dividing up the total need among various counties.
In 1999, ABAG determined that by 2005 the Bay Area would add another 450,000 residents. ABAG also noted that many Bay Area city and county governments were not making adequate plans to house the projected influx of new residents. The agency estimated that if current trends continue, the Bay Area will have one million more residents, one million more jobs, and a 250 percent increase in traffic congestion by 2020.
521 new homes here
ABAG earlier this year determined that Marin County and its cities must plan for 521 homes in its unincorporated areas, of which 133 must be geared to very-low- or low-income families and 388 for moderate- or above-moderate-income families. ABAG determined the numbers by trying to balance the number of jobs in each region with the number of homes.
Alex Amoroso, principal planner for ABAG, told The Light that although Marin was projected to have the lowest housing need of any of the Bay Area counties, getting the housing built in an affluent county where many residents oppose affordable-housing projects will be difficult. "It’s not an easy thing to do anywhere in the Bay Area, let alone in Marin," he said.
Amoroso noted that the projected number of additional homes needed may exceed the actual growth in Marin and other areas because there was already a need for more housing when the research began.
After local governments submit their housing plans, the state will determine if they are adequate and can be certified.
No construction required
He said that while all counties and cities have been encouraged to build the housing by the 2006 deadline, they are only required by the state mandate to plan for development.
"State law says they have to plan for it and make ‘a good faith effort’ towards doing it," Amoroso said. "The law is meant to address housing and affordable housing issues, but does not force them to build. It still gives cities and counties the authority to do as they see fit."
Amoroso explained that in planning for new homes, local governments must identify potential sites, determine the feasibility of getting the housing constructed there, and develop basic plans to have the potential projects built.
Developments such as the proposed EAH affordable-housing project in Point Reyes Station – which will count toward fulfilling the mandated total for unincorporated Marin – are the goal of the state program, he said.
County to work with cities
Supervisor Steve Kinsey told The Light that the county has devised a plan to cooperate with Marin’s cities to work toward collectively solving the housing shortage, so no local governments here are working as individual jurisdictions. The county will share affordable housing funds with incorporated cities in exchange for housing-unit credits, which count toward Marin’s share of the Bay Area total, he said.
Barbara Collins, the county’s affordable housing strategist, said the cooperative effort will allow the county to plan affordable housing in towns and urban areas that are close to transportation and can tie into the existing infrastructure. "The county is really focused on sustainability," she said. "We want to practice smart-growth policies that put housing near transportation and developed areas."
Collins acknowledged that West Marin is facing an affordable housing crisis that has caused many residents and workers to move away. "West Marin has very different issues from the other parts of the county," she said. "There’s been a loss of housing to B&Bs, there’s very little affordable housing, and many people feel there has been a real loss of community."
Second units
Collins explained that the county will attempt to expedite the processes in which residents can legally build and rent second units; it will also try to identify structures that can be converted to small-scale affordable housing.
She noted the county played a critical role in converting the Gibson House in downtown Bolinas from a business with rental rooms into permanent affordable housing. "That’s more the flavor we are looking for in West Marin."
Collins said that the county not only plans to meet the state mandate, it hopes to follow through on implementing some of the plans and getting the housing built. "We want to build these. We need to make sure that this is not just an exercise in mapping and planning," she said.
Amoroso of ABAG said that if the local governments do not comply with the planning mandate, the state could withhold from them significant amounts of money doled out through various housing-related state and federal grants. (The state Legislature is considering a bill that would allocate some $2 billion annually toward affordable housing.)
Lawsuits possible
He added that governments that do not get a housing plan certified will leave themselves open to lawsuits from housing-advocacy groups or other interested parties.
Collins and Amoroso both noted that the City of Corte Madera was successfully sued by two housing advocacy groups for not designating space in town for additional housing as mandated by the state.
However, they explained that the suit was based on earlier numbers sent out five years ago that are no longer affiliated with the ABAG housing-needs figures released this year. (Corte Madera has now been asked by ABAG to plan an additional 179 housing units before the end of the year.)
Collins noted that in the past, local governments that did not comply with the planning mandates risked nothing more than losing funds to build affordable housing they didn’t want because "if you didn’t want to build it, it didn’t matter if you got the funds."
As an incentive to comply with the mandate, Amoroso said, some state bills that appropriate funds to local governments now include a condition that the governments have a state-certified housing plan before they get the money.
"I think that may be the next generation of getting cities and counties to provide housing," he said.