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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

June 26, 2002

Affordability study finds Bay Area lagging

Survey indicates region dragging feet on housing

By Josh Richman, Staff Writer

Most Bay Area cities and counties aren't taking basic steps to resolve the region's severe shortage of affordable housing, a new study shows.

A review of local housing elements -- state-mandated housing plans that cities and counties were due to update by the end of 2001 for the first time in a decade -- shows most locales aren't doing well, and some didn't even meet their update deadline at all.

The study by the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, the Greenbelt Alliance and the Nine County Housing Advocacy Network gathered data from every city in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties.

It looked more closely at the region's 40 largest and fastest-growing places, where 80 percent of new Bay Area households are expected to settle by 2006. Of those, 72 percent failed, needed improvement or were incomplete in their plans.

Only a few communities -- Berkeley, East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, Petaluma, San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale -- made the "honor roll" for having strong strategies for affordable housing growth.

Elsewhere in the East Bay, Alameda, Fremont, Hayward, Brentwood and Walnut Creek, as well as Alameda County's unincorporated areas, failed.

"A lot of people are throwing up their hands and saying, 'There is no solution' -- we don't believe that," said Shannon Dodge, the Non-Profit Housing Association's regional coordinator, explaining this study's findings provide a roadmap to success for cities and counties.

Failing grades denote the cities' and counties' future plans, but the past hasn't been rosy, either. Of the 40 key cities, only Richmond succeeded in building all of the affordable housing it was deemed to need from 1988 to 1998. Brentwood and Petaluma came close.

Across all 40 of those localities, only 32 percent of the affordable housing needed was built.

Affordable housing is defined as costing no more than 30 percent of household income in a household earning less than 80 percent of the region's median income. For example, 80 percent of the median income for a family of three averages $51,360, so that family could afford up to $1,284 per month for housing.

The report identifies three key actions cities and counties should be taking to encourage affordable housing growth: smart zoning decisions, local funding and policies requiring inclusion of affordable housing in all new residential developments.

"You really need all of those working together to produce affordable housing," said Janet Stone, livable communities program director for the Greenbelt Alliance.

First, local governments should make zoning decisions encouraging construction of apartments and condominiums in downtown areas close to transit, shopping and jobs.

Alameda County was said to have "the best and worst of smart growth zoning." Voters recently passed an urban-growth boundary designed to limit sprawl in the county's eastern reaches, the report notes, but "the county has fallen woefully short on zoning enough sites for compact, infill development.

"Alameda County has hundreds of acres zoned at low densities that are feasible for more expensive housing," the report says. "Yet its housing element does not identify nearly enough sites to accommodate the nearly 4,000 lower and moderate income families needing housing in the unincorporated areas of the county through 2006."

Second, cities and counties should take provide more local funding to help shoulder affordable housing's cost. State and federal money doesn't cover it all, and local funds often are the first committed to a project, serving as "seed money" to let developers buy land or create plans.

State law requires city redevelopment agencies to set aside 20 percent of their tax increment funds -- the increase in property taxes over time within a redevelopment area -- for affordable housing.

Oakland sets aside 25 percent, while cities such as San Jose, Milpitas and Palo Alto set aside 30 percent.

If each of the 40 key cities and counties studied would set aside 30 percent, the study claims, the region could boost affordable housing production by nearly 8,000 more homes in the next decade.

Local funding also can come from jobs-housing linkage programs, usually one-time fees local governments place on commercial development to offset the increased housing need they create.

Local cities with such programs include Alameda, Berkeley, Livermore and Pleasanton; other cities -- including Oakland, Fremont, San Mateo and Vallejo -- have proposed them.

Third, cites and counties should adopt inclusionary policies requiring or encouraging market-rate housing developments to make 10 to 20 percent of their units affordable to low- and/or moderate-income households. Half the 40 key cities and counties have such policies, including Berkeley, East Palo Alto, San Ramon, Livermore, Pleasanton, Richmond, San Mateo. Oakland and Fremont have proposed such policies; Hayward and San Leandro have not.

In August 2000, Contra Costa County radically reduced the amount of land allocated for housing by drawing a restrictive "urban limit line."

A debate is brewing currently over a proposal to build 1,400 homes in Tassajara Valley, which would include about one-quarter affordable housing.

Monday in Pleasanton, housing advocates, city officials and developers discussed ways of preserving Pleasanton's existing stock of affordable housing and where and how to build new homes.

This comes in the face of a controversial citizens initiative on the November ballot that would ban housing on city-owned land along Bernal Avenue.

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