County Supervisors talk affordable housing

While approving fee increases paid by developers into an affordable housing fund, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors postponed decisions on whether or not to require developers to actually build affordable units as part of new housing projects.  
For the last two years, the county has allowed a “developer’s choice” approach to paying impact fees rather than requiring affordable housing units actually get built as part of new housing projects.  Whether the “developer’s choice” policy should continue, or if developers should be required to build affordable units as part of an approved project, needs a more “robust community conversation”, according to county planning staff. Planning staff requested the Board’s decision be postponed until October.
At the meeting on March 20, First District Supervisor John Leopold expressed frustration with the recommended delay, and pressed planning staff to expedite the process of getting more public input on this issue as soon as possible.
“I’m very disappointed that we’re pushing this back six months…I’m afraid we’re letting process get in the way of outcomes- and I’m afraid this is one more thing getting in the way of the environmental review of the Sustainable Santa Cruz County Plan, that the Board adopted two years ago,” Leopold said.
“The Board has tried to adopt some new policies, but we seem stymied by the environmental review work for things we approved years ago,” Leopold complained to planning staff.  Staff reported that the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Sustainable Santa Cruz County Plan won’t get started until the fall of this year and won’t be completed until sometime in 2019.
The Sustainable Santa Cruz County Plan identifies several sites in the unincorporated areas of the county, often close to transit corridors, that are recommended for relatively high density housing, sometimes mixed with retail and commercial space.  The changes in zoning and more flexibility in zoning recommended in this plan requires an EIR.     
Meanwhile, the proposed amendments to the County’s Affordable Housing Ordinance approved by the supervisors included raising the Affordable Housing Impact Fee (AHIF) on new commercial development from $2 to $3 per square foot.
For new housing projects, including room additions, replacement units and remodels with additional space, a new, graduated fee scale was also approved, for projects of one to six new housing units. The threshold of when an on-site affordable housing unit must be built, a decision deferred until a later time, was raised from a five unit project to projects with seven or more proposed units.  
Affordable Housing Now!, a local affordable housing advocacy group, stated in a letter to the Board of Supervisors, “… after two years of consideration, we believe no significant information has been developed to support the payment of fees in place of requiring the construction of inclusionary units.” The letter notes that the previous inclusionary requirement generated over 500 affordable units since 1978 when Measure J was approved by voters, and recommends the actual building requirement be re-instated.  
Tim Willoughby, chairperson for Affordable Housing Now!, told the board that different groups involved in the discussion were coming together in their recommendations, and he wasn’t adverse to some delay, although six months might be too long. Willoughby said that because the inclusionary requirement was “one piece of a larger picture”, and other policies such as an enhanced density bonus program and other housing policies needed coordination, he looked forward to further discussion of the issues.  
Fourth District Supervisor Greg Caput indicated he thought his district in the south county and Watsonville was doing more than its “fair share” of developing affordable housing, and that affordable housing had to be more evenly spread out among the other supervisorial districts.
Fifth District Supervisor Bruce McPherson expressed doubts that consensus can be reached on where higher density housing, that would include affordable units, should be located.  “We need to identify the high density sites,” McPherson said. “The geography of the Fifth District, for instance, makes it very difficult to build 20 units anywhere.”
McPherson said at the meeting that while many people are saying we need more affordable housing, many others are saying we don’t have the infrastructure, the roads, or the water to accommodate the higher density housing that affordable housing advocates are recommending. “If we can get to a win/win between these groups it will be a miracle,” McPherson said.