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Environmentalists split over affordable housing
by Orval Osborne

(Editor’s note: Even though this is a story about San Luis Obispo, it could be about any city in California.)

The lack of affordable housing in San Luis Obispo is a crisis. The cause, according to economists, is mostly due to affluent retirees having discovered the Central Coast. I think an underlying factor is the increasing concentration of wealth in fewer hands. Local governments have only a little latitude in responding to these national economic forces.

The SLO City Council created a 17-member Citizen Housing Task Force to bring together people representing all segments of our community. The task force included the Sierra Club and ECO-SLO, as well as developers, bankers, employers, Cal Poly and just plain folks. They engaged in extensive conversations over eight months to determine what we could and should do about this problem. The Task Force reached consensus on a number of housing issues.

Then the Planning Commission, an appointed advisory body of which I am Chairperson, developed a draft update to the City’s official Housing Element of the General Plan. The Planning Commission spent three intense months synthesizing goals, policies and programs from the Citizen Task Force report, the City staff draft Housing Element and much public testimony. I was very proud of our product. This draft plan was an achievement of grass-roots democracy.

Now that the City Council is deciding on the final version, a curious thing has happened. The Task Force consensus has evaporated. Predictably, developer interests are asking for their pet policies. But surprisingly, many local environmentalists have now joined forces with Residents for Quality Neighborhoods (RQN) to oppose affordable housing policies the Planning Commission favored. RQN largely represents those long-term residents who bought their single-family houses before the price run-up of recent years.

The problem is not that some in the comfortable class are organized to protect their interests, but that there is no countervailing organization of the rest of the people. There is no renter’s union, no student coalition, or chamber of employees. The City Council members are only hearing from two groups: those dedicated to fighting change, and the business interests. There are no renters on the City Council, and almost none on the Planning Commission or other citizen advisory bodies.

I see social justice, including affordable housing, as equal in importance with environmental sustainability. We reach both goals with density and infill. Rather than sprawling out into the countryside, we can build in a more compact urban form, with higher density mixed-use development, and channeling development toward existing urban areas.

The Sierra Club claimed that "The nature of the SLO community could be drastically altered (to LA style development) if the proposed changes are put into place." Not so, in my view. I say "LA style," low-density, auto-oriented sprawl, is what we have been getting for the past 20+ years. The local Sierra Club posture contrasts with the state level, which has become an advocate of New Urbanism, Transit-oriented Development, and the forms of smart growth which promote environmental goals.

Some Cities in the past tried to exclude the poor and working class. In response, social justice advocated, developed and championed inclusive housing policies. In 1994, our City courageously adopted inclusionary housing policies that require developers to pay for some housing that is affordable to people earning low and average incomes. But almost none got built. Naturally, the question is just how much can the City fairly demand of developers. Our Commission developed an innovative concept of "affordability by design," given that smaller, denser housing tends to cost less than larger houses on larger lots. The City Council seemed to have trouble with the complexity of our proposal. Perhaps our mistake was in being specific. Also, the Planning Commission was criticized for not studying inclusionary housing enough. I am sure the critics are right; it is a complicated subject.

The State HCD (Department of Housing and Community Development) requires localities to plan for (but not actually build) the growth they think is certain to come. I think the State HCD is wrong because it forces localities to grow. If Cities and Counties are not in compliance, millions of dollars in annual state grants will be denied. The Planning Commission version proposed exempting below-market rate housing from impact fees if other funding sources were found. This is a fairness issue: the impact fees should not be added on top of the costs of building sub-market housing required by the City. One idea from the Task Force was to establish a real estate transfer fee. Every time property is sold, a percentage would go into an affordable housing fund. We also wanted to exempt all below-market housing from our 1% annual growth cap so we could satisfy the State HCD and keep our growth cap. But local environmentalists and RQN refused to exempt $250,000 houses from this cap. They also rejected the analysis that the lack of state and federal affordable housing funds would limit what actually gets built.

Another issue where I disagreed with some local environmentalist leaders was in the need for another Environmental Impact Report (EIR). After much study, the Planning Commission determined an EIR was not needed for this Housing Element because the growth had already been studied in a previous EIR. It would have cost over $150,000 and delayed any action for over a year. Our draft Housing Element contained ideas such as rezoning certain areas along major roads for apartments instead of retail and office building. The environmental impact would have to be assessed when the City went ahead with the rezoning.

The experience of grappling seriously with the issue of affordable housing has both saddened and inspired me. I was saddened when I see some environmentalists seemingly adopting a regressive position and accusing me of being manipulated by development interests. Politically I feel orphaned, with no organized constituency supporting my conclusions on social justice, environmental sustainability and grassroots democracy. Reasonable people can disagree. On the other hand, I was encouraged by the amount of agreement reached between all segments of our community. I was also very pleased to experience some altruistic expression of compassion for others.

As this article goes to press, the City is in the middle of marking up their final version of the Housing Element. My hope is that all citizens will study the material, make their own analysis, and then tell the City Council what they think.

Orval Osborne is a political animal. He leafletted for the United Farm Workers when he was 16. He has organized for the Green Party since 1992. He has served on the SLO City Planning Commission since 2000. Email him at oosborne@fix.net.

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