Home > Resource Center > In the News Home > Greenbelt Alliance in the News

Greenbelt Alliance In the News

December 2, 2004

A chance to address county housing crisis

The high cost of housing has serious consequences for the entire community

Opinion

By KELLY BROWN
and MARGO WARNECKE MERCK

But Sonoma County can also be a hard place to live, with the skyrocketing cost of housing taking its toll. For many of us, that rent check is a bigger and bigger chunk of our monthly paycheck, and the dream of owning a home is out of reach. Those of us who already own a home worry about whether our children will be able to afford to live here.

The high cost of housing has serious consequences for the entire county. Local workers are forced to move farther away - to Lake and Mendocino counties - to find homes they can afford, resulting in long commutes and hours spent in traffic instead of with family and friends. This is not good for us, for our economy or for our environment.

There are no easy fixes to this problem, but county officials are currently looking at some promising new approaches.

The Planning Commission is considering two significant recommendations to the Board of Supervisors: The creation of a jobs-housing linkage fee and the development of an inclusionary housing policy.

Jobs-housing linkage fees are fees on new commercial and industrial development that go toward building affordable homes. These fees help ensure that the number of homes in a community will keep up with the number of jobs.

The Planning Commission is looking at recommending a low fee per square foot that would vary depending on the type of commercial land use. These fees would have little impact on the cost of new construction, while making a meaningful contribution toward building affordable homes for those working in the new workplace.

Inclusionary housing policies encourage new residential developments to include a percentage of homes that are affordable to people making less than the median income.

The Planning Commission is considering recommending that 20 percent of housing units in new developments be affordable for people who make below the local median income. Though some specifics still need to be worked out, this kind of inclusionary program could help build hundreds of new homes that would be affordable to people who are being priced out of the current housing market.

Similar policies have been adopted in other Bay Area communities and are already creating new affordable homes. In fact, all the cities in Sonoma County have adopted inclusionary policies, and both Petaluma and Sebastopol adopted a jobs-housing linkage fee last year. Now it's up to the Board of Supervisors to take the next step and help make affordable housing available in the county's unincorporated towns.

Most business leaders understand that these policies are good for the community and good for business. The Petaluma Chamber of Commerce has gone on record to urge Sonoma County to follow Petaluma's lead. After all, local employers won't be able to attract good workers if workers can't afford a home here. And the economy suffers when workers have to commute long distances to more affordable areas: Traffic creates costly delays and makes our county less attractive to tourists and to businesses.

Business leaders know how we can make these policies work for developers, too. In Petaluma, the jobs-housing linkage fee is being implemented gradually to help developers plan for it. In most cities, inclusionary policies include flexible options for meeting the affordable housing requirement, so that developers can contribute in the way that works best for them.

The Planning Commission will vote on the jobs-housing linkage fee and inclusionary housing policy on Dec. 9, and its recommendations will then go before the Board of Supervisors.

The board can take a positive, practical approach to addressing the affordable housing crisis by adopting these policies. Fellow residents, let your supervisors know: This is our chance to keep Sonoma County a great place to live.

###