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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
June 26, 2002 Flubs on low-cost housing
Bay Area cities miss deadline and submit poor plans By Anastasia Hendrix, Chronicle Staff Writer Despite the nearly constant hand wringing over the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area, few local governments are fulfilling the legal obligation to do something about it, according to an advocacy group that issued a report Tuesday comparing cities' compliance. The Housing Crisis Report Card, a 25-page analysis nestled between bright
red covers, found that only 12 of 100 cities in the nine-county Bay Area
actually met state-mandated guidelines to come up with strategies to provide
more housing for moderate and low-income residents. "It was really disappointing to see how many cities are dragging
their feet on creating more opportunities for compact housing," said
Shannon Dodge, the report's principal author and regional director for
the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. The San Francisco organization teamed up with the Greenbelt Alliance,
a nonprofit land conservation and urban planning agency, to do the first
city-by- city evaluation of its kind. It also outlined a series of recommendations
for improvement. The report reveals that many cities did not meet a Dec. 31, 2001, deadline
to submit a report to state officials giving details of plans for increasing
the availability of affordable housing. San Francisco and Oakland are among the 11 cities that missed the deadline.
Another 11 cities and Alameda County submitted housing plans that were
given a "failing grade" by the organization. The failing cities
are: Alameda, Brentwood, Daly City, Fairfield, Fremont, Hayward, Pittsburg,
Redwood City, Santa Rosa, Vallejo and Walnut Creek. Teresa Ojeda, a planner with the San Francisco Planning Department said
that it was a lack of resources that led to the lapse but that a draft
plan is in the works and could be ready for public review by the end of
next month. Despite its incomplete record, San Francisco is praised for being at
the "head of the class" overall when it comes to addressing
the housing shortfall, Dodge said. "The city of San Francisco is not like other cities, . . . but despite
the fact that housing prices are awfully high, the city is making a concerted
effort and is already doing many of the things we'd like to see other
cities do," she said. For example, San Francisco voters passed a $100 million general obligation
bond in 1996 to create and preserve 2,400 apartments, homes and shelter
beds. The city also requires builders to include a percentage of affordable
homes in any new development or make donations for them to be built elsewhere.
Berkeley, Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Petaluma, San Jose, Santa Clara
and Sunnyvale were cited on the report's "honor roll" for adopting
policies and programs that support the creation of more affordable housing.
Napa, Sonoma County and Vacaville also won "good" rankings for
efforts there. Because there are few consequences for cities that do not meet the state
standards for providing affordable housing, Dodge said, there has been
little incentive to do so. The report supports increasing penalties for
jurisdictions that continually fail to improve. "Cities in California have total control over what can be built
where," she said. The report proposes that city officials consider
rezoning to allow more apartments to be built, particularly above one-story
businesses along commercial corridors, and dedicating more local funds
to creating housing. The complete report can be viewed at www.nonprofithousing.org.
E-mail Anastasia Hendrix at ahendrix@sfchronicle.com. ### |
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