September 2023 Newsletter | |
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Dear Generation,
In Sunday’s Press Democrat, Generation Housing officially announced its North Bay NEXT campaign, through an open letter to all elected officials in Sonoma County, which is printed below. North Bay NEXT is a set of action steps that, combined, can help us maintain our momentum in necessary housing production. These steps are doable and will be impactful. Our local leaders can do nothing about interest rates, but they have lots of power to help move the needle on the North Bay’s defining challenge.
Over the next month, we will be rolling out FAQs and white papers, and our fall webinar series will feature opportunities to learn more about these NEXT policies. To be clear, though, we cannot be successful without YOU. Our elected leaders need to know that YOU support this call to action, that YOU are ready to see ACTION in line with our leader's stated priorities in housing. There are easy ways you can make a difference right now—sign the petition, write a letter to the editor, and get smart on the issues to help us create a real prohousing ethic. You can find the tools to take easy action right here. And if you’d like to get more involved in this effort, we’ve got opportunities for that too, just send me an email, and we’ll plug you right in.
Whether it’s feeling the problem or advancing the solution, we’re all in this together.
In community,
Jen
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URGENT CALL TO ACTION ON HOUSING SOLUTIONS
An open letter to the elected leaders of Sonoma County:
We have a disaster on our hands. Housing scarcity and high rents are causing families to forgo healthcare, increasing our community-wide stress, stifling the local economy, and forcing some out of the county altogether. Homeownership has become elusive if not impossible for most.
Interest rates and material costs have skyrocketed, and the one-time funding responsible for much of the construction happening today is gone. Inaction will sink us deeper into a deficit; bold action is necessary to prevent homebuilding from slowing again to recession-era rates.
But we can fix this; we have done it before. After the 2017 wildfires, our local leaders acted immediately to get people back into their homes. It was bold, fast, and decisive—and it worked.
This is not news to any of you, and that’s why each of our ten jurisdictions list housing as a top priority. It’s time to take action in line with those stated priorities.
We are calling on you to once again respond boldly, decisively, and quickly. North Bay NEXT is Generation Housing’s policy platform designed to accelerate housing production by flexing our local governmental muscles to create the housing we need, and fast.
We call upon local jurisdictions to take these five straightforward action steps that will jumpstart local homebuilding immediately. Vibrant, prosperous communities where everyone can contribute to an equitable, healthy, and resilient North Bay begins with homes. We cannot afford to wait.
North Bay NEXT Action Steps
Bring Millions to Fund Housing: Pass a resolution endorsing the BAHA regional bond measure to bring at least $403M to Sonoma County, and $179M to Napa County, for housing production and preservation.
+ Zone for People: End exclusionary zoning. Create more diverse and more affordable housing by allowing up to 4-plex housing in single-family zones and expand zoning for Missing Middle small apartment complexes. This also empowers homeowners to maximize the value of their property, and takes a step toward righting the wrong of decades of discriminatory zoning practices.
+ Fast & Fair: Streamline housing development by integrating Design Review Boards into Planning Commissions. This accelerates housing projects while still ensuring transparency and accountability in decision-making.
+ Incentivize Affordability: Support near-term construction of Affordable and affordable-by-design workforce housing by offering a three-year temporary fee waiver and adopting fees based on square footage. This is an imperative offset to current economic forces making development financially infeasible.
+ People & Planet over Parking: Let developers and their tenants make climate-smart decisions on parking needs by eliminating costly and heavy-handed parking mandates. This promotes a more sustainable approach to housing without passing on additional costs to residents.
Local policies aren't unchangeable laws of nature; they are guidelines created by people, and they can be changed.
YOU have the POWER to rewrite them.
We call on you to be bold, decisive leaders and to ACT swiftly, aligned with your housing priorities, by taking these five actions to move us toward a healthy, prosperous, sustainable, North Bay NEXT.
In community,
Generation Housing
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"We, are all Gen H, we say YES to HOUSING, YES to accepting challenges, and YES to leaning into the work of problem-solving." - Elece Hempel, Board Chair, Generation Housing and Executive Director, Petaluma People Services Center | |
Prohousing Update September 2023 | |
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Through our experience working with jurisdictions on the Prohousing Designation – and tracking proposals from across the state – Generation Housing has designed its North Bay NEXT policies to build on the best practices and award-winning policies. There is no silver bullet to tackle the housing shortage, but holistic approaches that address land use, financing, the housing approval process, and minimizing costs such as parking stand a better chance of bringing rents and housing costs in line with median incomes. In the spirit of the Prohousing designation, which focuses on comprehensive solutions to barriers to housing, we outline here the five Action Steps of our North Bay NEXT proposal in greater detail:
Bring Millions to Fund Housing
The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) intends to put a $10-$20B bond on the 2024 ballot to fund the development of necessary housing in the nine county Bay Area. The regional bond will unlock billions of dollars to construct up to 45,000 affordable homes serving over 500,000 Bay Area residents over the coming decades. This measure will also raise billions for the preservation of existing affordable housing and ensure protection for at-risk tenants.
Zone for People
A typical single-family home is too big and too expensive for many residents of Sonoma County. According to the UC Berkeley Terner Center, single-family homes are, on average, 2.7 times more expensive than units in duplexes or triplexes. “Missing Middle” homes, small plexes with 2-19 units, account for only 12 percent of all homes below 10 units in Sonoma County, and are a more attainable housing option to families who make about 50-110 percent of area median income. Allowing up to 4 plex housing in all single-family zones and up to 6 units within one mile of a transit stop, when paired with FAR, setback, and height standards suited for plex-style housing, has been implemented in Portland, Oregon. Now, nearly half of its yearly permits are for plex-style housing. If we can double the area zoned for Missing Middle small apartment complexes we will achieve the land-use flexibility to meet our need for 58,000 homes by 2030.
Fast & Fair
Design review boards are a form of discretionary review that double the time to approval for multifamily housing, according to a UCLA study. With construction costs rising annually between 9 and 13 percent over the last two years, according to the DGS California Construction Cost Index, Sonoma County’s average time of 2.16 years between application and completion for plex-style projects has the potential to add over 20% in costs to gentle density projects. Consolidating design review boards has no impact on the quality of housing that a city approves. Under the Santa Rosa Resilient City modifications, for example, the city minimized the number of review sessions. In addition to slowing the process, design review boards introduce personal preference into a policy problem that is best served by objective solutions. Granting a veto on new housing to unelected volunteers based on their personal aesthetic taste is not only inefficient but lacks accountability. Currently, only 15% of currently serving members are non-white, and only 5% are Latino, making these boards unrepresentative of the communities they serve. Cotati, Petaluma, and Healdsburg have already made progress by collapsing DRBs into their planning commissions. This accelerates housing projects while still ensuring transparency and accountability in decision-making.
Incentivize Affordability
We call on all jurisdictions to temporarily waive impact fees on all affordable housing projects for a period of three years. Crucially, it supports the development of affordable housing at a time when high-interest rates threaten to make upcoming projects financially impossible. The city of Petaluma - recognizing that it was underperforming in its permitting of affordable housing units - voted to waive all impact fees on affordable housing in 2022. Impact fees amount to less than 2% of our cities’ revenue. If housing is a top priority, a 2% budget adjustment is a reasonable action in line with that priority.
People & Planet Over Parking!
Parking minimums on new residential construction are a staple of every municipal code in the county. According to TransForm, at least one parking space is mandated for each new housing unit, and often the mandate rises to 1.5 or 2 spaces per unit. This parking is not free: its cost is hidden in the price of development and bundled into rent and sale prices. A national survey of rental units found that the bundling of garage parking into tenants’ overall rental costs increased rents by 17%. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, cuts and eliminations to parking minimums alone drove down rents on new studio apartments from $1,200 per month to less than $1,000. Removing minimums doesn’t just bring down the costs of new housing. It also saves projects that would otherwise never get built at all, thanks to parking mandates that make the project financially infeasible or take up too much physical space on the lot.
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Policy Update September 2023 | |
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Let’s Drive Action for Groundbreaking Local Policies
From the Town of Windsor’s Zoning Ordinance Update to Petaluma’s Downtown Zoning Overlay - now is the time to get activated and ensure your community is driving local policy that delivers a more vibrant, equitable, and sustainable tomorrow.
If you or someone you know is interested in engaging on these topics or issues in the region, please contact our Policy Director, Calum Weeks, at calum@generationhousing.org.
Legislative Lowdown: Your Monthly Digest on State Housing Policy
Once again, we’ve had a banner year for housing legislation! While a lion’s share of legislation approved by both Assembly and Senate still awaits the Governor’s signature, we’re confident that he will continue to empower the Legislature and the state as a whole to continue delivering more, more affordable, and more diverse housing.
Local power to fund necessary housing and infrastructure! ACA 1 was approved by the Legislature, and if approved by the voters, would ultimately reduce the threshold needed to pass bonds and taxes that fund affordable housing and specified public infrastructure projects from two-thirds to a simple majority - 55%. Constitutional amendments do not require the signature of the Governor to move forward to the ballot.
This constitutional amendment, if approved by the voters, would immediately go into effect, so anything else on the ballot, like the BAHA bond measure, would benefit from this change.
---> We applaud our own local Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry for her tenacity in getting this constitutional amendment to the voters!
We’re also pleased to announce that 9 of the 11 bills endorsed by Generation Housing have made it to the Governor’s desk!
You can learn more about our endorsed legislation here.
What’s the fate of the two bills that didn’t make the cut? Any bills that didn’t successfully make their way through both houses of the State Legislature and receive their respective stamps of approval can be taken up where they left off at the beginning of next year since the Legislature operates on a 2-year cycle. Those bills were AB 68 and AB 1532.
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2023 Upcoming Educational Webinars | |
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Understanding Sonoma County’s Infrastructure and Water Capacity for Housing
Thursday, October 19
6:00-7:15 PM
Online Zoom Webinar
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Understanding Affordable Housing Development as a Climate Action Tool
Wednesday, October 25
1:00-2:15 PM
Online Zoom Webinar
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Housing is Economic Health
Thursday, November 2
6:00-7:15 PM
Online Zoom Webinar
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House Happenings in September | |
Photos taken by Ricardo Ibarra, Watza Lab | |
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Thank you to everyone who came to our 2023 Housing Champion's Celebration! We strive to continue providing the highest quality programming in our events and want to hear your feedback.
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Stay Informed | Get Involved | |
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Demystifying Housing Policy:
Four Housing Terms Everyone Should Know
BOOMERANG FUNDS New property tax revenues to a city or county’s general fund that came out of the elimination of Redevelopment Agencies, so called because these funds were relinquished by the local jurisdictions to the state and then “boomeranged” back to the local jurisdictions. Since 2012, over $60 million dollars in boomerang funds have been set aside for affordable homes due to successes in San Francisco, Fremont, Alameda County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and recently Mountain View.
SECONDARY FINANCING A term used to describe any financing used in conjunction with first mortgage loans from conventional financing institutions—for example, a down payment grant, a deferred payment loan, or an amortizing second mortgage loan.
TRANSIT-ORIENTED COMMUNITIES (TOCs) Development that enables people to access and use transit more often for more types of trips by centering housing, jobs, services, and shopping around public transit. TOCs typically are implemented within a 1/2 to 1-mile radius of a transit station or major bus line.
SEVERE HOUSING COST BURDEN When 50% or more of a household’s income is spent on housing costs.
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Thank you to our Catalyzing Members | | | | |
